Somalia Online Weekly Bulletin: Informative articles only

Warmoog · February 20, 2004

I was confused by the use of “hybrid” in this article too. I’m assuming the author wasn’t using the literal meaning of the word, but was referring to Somalis in the West. I think she’s trying to say they’ve fused their traditional values with some Western elements and have become socially/culturally hybridized… or something along those lines. And by the way, I’m not Rhoda but it's funny you thought so. If you enjoyed this article, you can find more of her work on SomaliHome.com.

Salaamz.

Baashi · February 20, 2004

Rhoda wrote:

Young Somali girls who have survived the wars have come of age without the hope of education or valid visas to foreign lands. Their options are limited: to become prey to pleasure seeking men or secure respectable homes. What appear as enchantresses are vulnerable young girls who are trapped. The only viable and clearly most laudable option for them is marriage, albeit to an old man. They are desperate for homes and security and perhaps the desire to avoid the "old maid" adage added to their many miseries. Nobody knows their sad lots better than they under the weights of grandfatherly figures; but still better than being prey to promiscuous men they shouldn't be pitied but have to be admired for their courage. They have followed the less of two evils. Staring death in the face and defying epidemic diseases, their views of life have been tempered by the harsh realities they overcame. They are not looking for love but to look after their security with zeal and fervent vigor is a skill polished by hearts hardened by brutal indifference. They are smart but above all practical. When two young Somali beauties congratulate each other for their catch as "fart and a half," they are embracing the good and the bad with both hands and I guess nothing epitomizes their somber view of life more than that epithet. A fart violently slashing the image of endearment indicates a survival for the fittest attitude. Experience as the best teacher has taught them to think rather than feel. As one of my professors once told me. "Life is tragedy for those who feel but a comedy for those who think." Can Westernized Somali women learn from them?

This paragraph stands out!

As to the polygamy, as she herself concluded, is mercy, option, and solution to gender imbalances. Imbalances triggered by man made disasters such as wars in which men parish disporportionely. The keyword is "option".

Warrior of Light · March 11, 2004

Asalaam aleykum, this article kinda hit home. hope u will find it worthwile reading.

why do we live on foreign lands to survive on spuds!

THE DIGNITY OF AN INDIVIDUAL

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A certain man had two sons (A and B). The younger son, B, asked the father to give him his portion of the inheritance due him. The father neither argued nor commented that he was yet to die. He divided his earthly goods and let his younger son have his portion as requested. B then traveled to a far country where he squandered his belongings with prodigal living. Afterwards there was a severe famine in the country of his sojourn and nobody gave him anything. So he took a demeaning job feeding swine and gladly ate of food meant for the swine. One day he came to himself and decided to return home where even his father's servants had food enough to eat and lived well above the level he had descended to. His father received him with open arms and threw a party for him, which irked Son A. The father assured Son A that although what was left of his property belonged to Son A, his brother must be welcomed home, but by deduction would now have to fend for himself. The crux of the matter was Son B had returned home where there were better opportunities than in the land of his sojourn. (See Luke 15 11-32 of the Bible).

Nigerians are a wealthy lot even if the bulk of our wealth resides in the hands of a few people with sticky fingers. Consequently, many Nigerians travel abroad for vacations or on business. The Lagos - London route is reputed to be the second most profitable in the world, second only to the London - New York route so that should give us a fair idea of how much Nigerians expend on foreign travel. Such 'ajalas' cut across every facet of our society: the legitimate businessman, 419 business woman traveling to perfect her latest deal, tourist cum ad hoc trader, student, people seeking medical help genuinely, pregnant woman bent on defrauding the medical system by calling an ambulance when she goes into labor so she doesn't have to pay hospital bills, visitor intent on becoming an illegal immigrant and so on. Many of these people return home with tales of how great a place the United States or England or Scotland or even China is to unsuspecting people back home. They don't have to say much with words; their conduct tells it all. They flash their dollars, which fetch a lot on the black market, forget the back breaking work used to procure it, and go on spending sprees.

The average Nigerian who has never left the country may be inspired by these people who come in and live large. Frequent vacationers may also paint a rosy picture, although many of them know the sad truth. If you stay with people when you go on vacation, chances are you will be the one spending while they clutch their meager earnings. Seeds are sown and these poor men and women left behind determine to do all they can to do the 'Andrew thing'. Sadly, unemployment and crippling inflation remains a major problem in Nigeria. So when a man or woman who has been out of school for a decade with no means of a livelihood finds an opportunity to leave for England or America, we can only wish them well, because their lives here were frustrating anyway. Others who are gainfully employed-perhaps with great jobs and prospects-sometimes also decide to leave to better their future or escape the menace of crime. Some leave for further studies (perhaps using student loans) hoping to secure a good job upon graduation.

They cross the hurdle of securing visas and spend huge sums of money to realize their dreams. Many of them do really horrendous things to secure visas (like paying some embassy officials) while others do more horrendous or ****** things to stay in those foreign countries. A young man I once knew refused to go to a Nigerian university even though he had really good grades because he wanted to travel to America. Consequently, he spent four or five years of his life idling and waiting to obtain his visa while his younger brother graduated from the university. A family I know who had their first two children in America got their son to marry a daughter who was born in Nigeria so she could secure travel papers ('organized' marriage between siblings). Wives, after getting to places like America, allow their husbands to marry foreign women to secure work permits so they can eventually also get theirs (perhaps in five years or when the man dies!). The African Americans who are normally the second parties to these deals are on to the antics of Nigerians and seem bent on starting a second slavery-that of illegal immigrants working for them while they try to get work permits through illegal marriages.

The list of bizarre behavior is endless. People impersonate others whose passports they steal. Women in Nigeria jump to marry foreign returnees so they can have a chance to see the world. People pay off winners of green cards through the diversity visa lottery program and change their names all in a bid for a sojourn in a foreign land. Once while returning from a training course in Holland, my colleagues and I encountered a young woman about to be deported at Schipol Airport. She was screaming at the top of her lungs with her shirt off and her breasts bared save for a discolored bra. The security men were really rough handling her yet she kept shouting that they could not deport her to Nigeria because she was not from there. Meanwhile her Ibo accent was so thick it was all I could do to refrain from saying, "Come now, sister. Home is not that bad.'

Try sitting in an airport lobby with Nigerians waiting to board a plane to Europe or America. You are likely to hear a cacophony of the English Language. From the well educated executive to the student to the area boy who can't string two sentences together without committing a grammatical error. Yet, more than anyone, this area boy speaks louder than anybody, telling whoever has the misfortune to sit nearby how life in America is so good in his imitation of a ghetto accent. He wears his apparel with pride-clothes that remind us of gangsters and other American low lives. For so long embassy officials have harassed and embarrassed us. Like the moth drawn to an open flame we keep flocking there for visas. Airline officials maltreat us, but it does not deter us. We must have that foreign trip. Immigration officials and eventually foreign employers do the same with no apparent effect on us. It is either our skins have got so thick or the promise of dollars blinds us to everything else. In a moment of sanity, we must ask ourselves, 'Are we really better off living at subhuman levels in foreign countries?'

The reality is that immigrants-legal or otherwise-work their fingers to the bone, day in day out to make the dollars. Ninety-five percent will never live above poverty level. I do not mean poverty levels as defined by the government. Forget their grand houses and upscale furniture because most are bought on credit. Forget the society wedding they had months back, because most of it was funded by credit. Many buy into the foreign systems (American especially) of borrowing and thereby get locked into a continuous cycle of taking credits and working to repay their debts. An entire family that once lived in a three-bedroom apartment or a house in Nigeria cram themselves into a one-bedroom apartment with each member doing one odd job or the other. When one of them is getting married or a friend of the mother is celebrating her father's death, they hop on a plane to Lagos to display in such offhand manners money they slaved to get. Is there something wrong with the picture or am I being unrealistic?

Even the professional who leaves for say an MBA program does not really fare better if we take a deeper look. You fund the education with student loans, which you have to repay by working in the system. Corporate America or England or wherever when not in recession has enough of their people without you adding to their burdens. Besides, several factors limit your performance, like your accent, lack of a professional network, grasp of a new professional culture, et cetera. You may earn a good living, but when you stop counting how much Naira you will get from converting your dollars, is it really worth it? Do you have the influence your colleagues back home have? Are you making a significant impact on the corporate world? Do you see yourself ever attaining the pinnacle of your career in those countries? Five percent may fare really well and that's about it.

'Get real', many people tell me. How else can I afford to build that mansion in the village? If I stayed back how would I have paid for my lavish wedding? If I didn't go and do odd jobs how else would I have paid for my children to school abroad? How do you think I finance my lifestyle or business or whatever? Is it really rational for people to slave for dollars enduring myriad insults in the process only to squander the money on 'owambe' parties back home? Dear countrymen and women do we really need that mansion to live good lives or are we seeking the praise of societal sycophants? A registry wedding with twenty people in attendance will still tie you and your spouse together just as good. With prayers that staff of universities do not strike often, those children can get good educations right here. Please, let us stop to reevaluate our priorities.

The Nigerians who were frustrated back home may have a point that a foreign country holds the key to a better future. So may the five percent who do really well abroad-people like the Buchi Emechetas of this world. What about the ninety-five percent languishing in self imposed jails of foreign sojourns? You may fear being ridiculed for returning home. After all, your friends would have advanced far in their careers. You may wonder where you will start a new life, where you will fit in. Regardless, I enjoin you to bite the bullet.

You may want to borrow a leaf from the prodigal son at the start of this article and return home. Maybe you squandered money you sold off your parent's properties for or perhaps you had no inheritance to squander, but are caught in the bog all the same. Nigeria may not have all its infrastructures in place, the cost of fuel may have reached an unprecedented high, and according to general parlance, many things may not work well, but it is home. You have an inheritance here and should be committed to helping rebuild Nigeria. Our economy is opening up, the telecommunications industry has ushered in many jobs, the government is still talking about privatizing many state-owned enterprises, and it can only get better, with your help. Shake off the indignities associated with your funny job in that foreign country. You deserve more out of life so dare to embrace the dignity of an individual.

Written by:Tolu Odunlami Sunday, November 23, 2003

tolu22@yahoo.co.uk

Lagos, Nigeria

Baashi · March 30, 2004

^Many thanks sade it was a good read. Keep them coming sis.

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Here is a piece from the Islamicity.

Grandfather's Wisdom

3/26/2004 - Social Religious Family - Article Ref: IC0403-2259

Number of comments: 41

By: Mir Mahmood Ali

IslamiCity* -

Play fair in sports, as well as in all worldly matters. Justice is the cardinal law in Islam

Share every thing with others --- there is blissful joy in sharing and caring.

Put things back where you found them, you will be happy to find it there when you need it.

Clean your mess --- how awful it is, if others see our dirty stuff!

Do not take things that are not yours, beware taking anything without permission is thieving.

Say you are sorry when you hurt anybody, bodily or mentally. Allah does not like it when someone hurts another person.

Do not forget to brush your teeth before you go to bed and take a bath every day.

Do not forget your prayers. It helps us keep God in our hearts.

Always greet elders and young ones with As Salaamu Alykum when you get up in the morning.

Do some physical exercise in the morning before breakfast. Yoga exercise is simple and good.

Shabby exterior gives a bad impression, when you dress up make sure your clothes and are clean and ironed.

Flush the toilet after use. Clean the mess wherever you find it. Cleanliness is half of the faith.

Choose some good hobby to spend your leisure hours. Why not book reading? You will never be alone with a book in your pocket.

Unless you make a public commitment, your faith will not take hold. You can not be a private Muslim.

Make sure people know you are a Muslim and always be a good example.

Time is your friend. Don't kill it.

The best way to destroy an enemy is make them your friend.

Don't be liberal in making promises, when you make any fulfill it as a word of honor.

Respect is a matter of give and take, as love begets love.

Talk politely even in disagreement --- it is better to lose an argument than to lose a friend.

Talk in even and low voice tones, whining and braying is a donkey's trait. Talking softly is a sign of being cultured.

Always be humble. God does not like arrogance.

Kindness is more important than wisdom, and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom.

Do not say I cannot, say God willing I will try. If you have a will to do --- Allah will help you in your endeavor.

It is better to have tried and lost, than not to have tried at all.

You can accomplish anything under the sun, with determination followed by hard work.

If you pray for anything pray for knowledge and wisdom.

There is nothing that can defeat honesty and hard work.

One who asks a question may be a fool for a minute, but one who does not ask is a fool forever. So don't be shy to ask.

Take lesson from the candle ... which burns itself to give light to others, and banishes darkness.

It is said "wise people talk less, eat less, and sleep less".

Never eat anything unless you are hungry. And according to our Prophet when you do eat keep one third of your stomach for food, one third for water and one third empty.

Oppression is the vilest manifestation of barbarism. Neither oppress anybody nor be oppressed.

Any activity can be made creative by a dint of zeal and enthusiasm.

It is through passion that people achieve success. Find your passion.

Read, Understand and live your life by the Quran.

Paragon · April 1, 2004

Collective Consciousness and Cultural Healing series

The Potential for Collective Madness. [Are we (Somalis) possibly suffering from it?]

http://www.community-intelligence.com/

If we have the potential to awaken together as a species, do we also have the potential to go mad together? The concern for the sanity of collectives is not new. In 1841, Charles Mackay wrote of the madness of crowds:

In reading the history of nations, we find that, like individuals, they have their whims and their peculiarities; their seasons of excitement and recklessness, when they care not what they do. . . . Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.74

Nearly a century later, in 1930, Sigmund Freud expressed his concern for the neuroses of civilizations in his book Civilization and Its Discontents:

If the development of civilization has such a far-reaching similarity to the development of the individual and if it employs the same methods, may we not be justified in reaching the diagnosis that, under the influence of cultural urges, some civilizations or some epochs of civilization--possibly the whole of mankind--have become "neurotic"?75

There are enough examples of collective madness through history to make us concerned for our future. Let us consider two examples here--Easter Island and the witch hunts in Europe during the Middle Ages.

Statue on Easter Island

With a mild climate and rich, volcanic soil, Easter Island was a paradise covered by forests and filled with diverse animal and plant life when it was first settled by Polynesian colonists in approximately 500 A.D. As the Islanders prospered, their numbers grew to 7,000 or more, and they used the resources of the island beyond its regenerative capacity. Archeological evidence shows that the destruction of the forests on Easter Island was well underway by the year 800--about 300 hundred years after people first arrived. By the 1500s, the forests and palm trees had disappeared as people cleared land for agriculture, and used the remaining trees to build ocean-going canoes, burn as firewood, and build homes. Jared Diamond, professor of medicine at UCLA, describes how the animal life was eradicated:

The destruction of the island's animals was as extreme as that of the forest: without exception, every species of native land bird became extinct. Even shellfish were over exploited, until people had to settle for small sea snails. . . . Porpoise bones disappeared abruptly from the garbage heaps around 1500; no one could harpoon porpoises anymore, since the trees used for constructing the big seagoing canoes no longer existed. . . .76

The biosphere was so devastated that it was beyond short-term recovery. With the forests gone, ocean fishing no longer possible, and animals hunted to extinction, people turned on one another. Centralized authority broke down, and the island descended into chaos with rival groups living in caves and competing with one another for survival. Eventually, according to Diamond, the islanders, "turned to the largest remaining meat source available: humans, whose bones became common in late Easter Island garbage heaps. Oral traditions of the islanders are rife with cannibalism."77 By 1700, the population had crashed to between one-quarter and one-tenth of its former level. When the island was visited by a Dutch explorer in 1722 (on Easter Sunday), he found it a wasteland almost completely devoid of vegetation and animals.

The parallels between Easter Island and the Earth are strong: Easter was an abundant island of life floating in a vast ocean of water. The Earth is an abundant island of life floating in a vast ocean of space. "By now the meaning of Easter Island for us should be chillingly obvious," professor Diamond concludes. "Easter Island is Earth writ small. Today, again, a rising population confronts shrinking resources. . . . we can no more escape into space than the Easter Islanders could flee into the ocean."78

As Easter Island reveals, we humans have already demonstrated our ability, on a small scale, to descend into collective madness and to devastate the biosphere irreparably. The witch hunts of the Middle Ages in Europe are another dramatic and sustained example of humanity's capacity for collective madness. The witch hunts were unlike the militaristic madness of Hitler's army and the efficient killing of millions behind barbed wire fences; instead, this was the religious madness of the Catholic church that resulted in the public torture and cruel deaths of at least several hundred thousand women, men, and children over a period of more than two and a half centuries.

The witch hunting craze began in the 1400s with the encouragement of the Catholic church. A declaration issued in 1484 by Pope Innocent VIII provided the moral authority and official encouragement for the witch hunts. It reads, in part:

. . . many persons of both sexes, heedless of their own salvation and forsaking the catholic faith, give themselves over to devils male and female, and by their incantations, charms, and conjurings, and by other abominable superstitions and sortileges, offences, crimes, and misdeeds, ruin and cause to perish the offspring of women, the foal of animals, the products of the earth, the grapes of vines, and the fruits of trees. . . . We therefore . . . remove all impediments by which in any way the said inquisitors are hindered in the exercise of their office. . . it shall be permitted to the said inquisitors . . . to proceed to the correction, imprisonment, and punishment of the aforesaid persons. . . 79

During these dark centuries, the idea persisted in Europe that departed spirits still inhabited the earth, and that some people had the power to summon evil spirits among them in order to bring misfortune to their fellow humans. An epidemic of terror seized Europe. Few thought themselves secure from the invisible powers of evil spirits. A witch was suspected as the cause of every calamity: If a storm blew down a barn--it was witchcraft. If cattle died unexpectedly, or if a beloved person died suddenly--it was witchcraft. Someone was calling on disembodied spirits in order to bring harm to others. Mackay gives the following account of the "witch mania:"

France, Italy, Germany, England, Scotland, and the far north successively ran mad upon this subject, and for a long series of years furnished their tribunals with so many trials for witchcraft, that other crimes were seldom or never spoken of. Thousands upon thousands of unhappy persons fell victims to this cruel and absurd delusion.80

Throughout Europe, people were obsessed with this delusion, generating an avalanche of trials. One bishop (of Geneva) burned 500 "witches" within three months, another bishop 600, and another 900.81 After two and a half centuries, this wave of cultural madness began to subside, gradually giving way to the rationalism of the industrial era.

These two examples reveal how vulnerable we are to collective madness. Still, I have to confess that I was surprised that one of the largest areas of agreement that emerged from the 18 interviews that I conducted concerned humanity's potential for mass insanity. Here are several illustrative responses:

Ram Dass: "Is it possible for a civilization to become psychotic or neurotic? I think we already are. Philosophical materialism is a collective psychosis, and we are spreading it around the world as fast as we can."

Mwalimu Imara: "Can a whole civilization be neurotic? Absolutely."

Margaret Wheatley: "Yes, an entire civilization can go crazy. The nature of a group in this self-organizing world depends on the set of beliefs around which it is organized. If a group is organized around a 'self' that is filled with hatred and paranoia (for example, the Nazis or Stalin or self-styled militia), it will lead to self-destructive behavior. It is possible, then, for a whole civilization to embrace a set of beliefs that will eventually lead to self-destruction because they are not congruent with the deeper cosmological reality. Any tribe, clan, group, or nation whose set of beliefs is not founded in love, but who organize only around self-protection and fear, go against the natural order, whose nature is love. In turn, they will not succeed."

Roger Walsh: "Is there the potential for regress? Absolutely. Look at the Dark Ages. The implications are very disturbing, for it suggests that with one major natural disaster, we could be back into tribal warfare. Our lifestyles are dependent on complex technical systems. We could regress with disturbing ease."

Juanita Brown: "The transpersonal is neutral. People can be transformed into the darkest selves as well as the lightest and most generative selves. The collective can create hate and horror as much as love. Therefore, evolution requires our attention/intention."

Consciousness researcher Dean Radin conjectures that:

. . . there may be a mental analogy to environmental ecology--something like an ecology of thought that invisibly interweaves through the fabric of our society. This suggests that disruptive, scattered, or violent thoughts may pollute the social fabric. . . . Perhaps periods of widespread madness, such as wars, are indicators of mass-mind infections.82

We do have the potential for collective madness. There is no guarantee that we will rise to the opportunities before us. It is not difficult to imagine a scenario where humanity descends into species neurosis and we veer off on a long and needless evolutionary detour

Source:Here

Further Reading: A blog of Collective Intelligence

Baashi · April 1, 2004

I appreciate this post Jamaal_11. I've read Charles Mackay's madness of crowds and there is e-version of the book on the net somewhere if anyone is interested.

Very good read. Many thanks again.

Paragon · April 2, 2004

Baashi sxb, you're welcome. I am abit interested in finding atleast a fair explanation as to why the collective conscience and psyche of our Somali society is the way it is currently. The article above seems to correlate historical societal conditions to ours, and so I thought I should share it here.

This topic does have some very informative articles indeed. Thanks.

Status Anxiety

Everyman's pocket thinker

[nomads, this is a review of Alain de Botton recent: Status Anxiety. for more information visit his homepage and watch some of the documentary. UK nomads would have seen de Botton on the TVs. He is a philosopher and an author. Warning, he is of Jewish Desent.]

Alain de Botton talks to Geraldine Bedell about culture, status and the best way to raise children

Alain de Botton, distiller of droplets of culture for general edification, has a new subject, which he explores in a book and an accompanying Channel 4 documentary, both called Status Anxiety (Viking £16.99, pp340). With his customary command of the philosophical and literary canon, de Botton sets out to examine why the fragile modern self depends so crucially on the good opinions of others and what we might do in order to feel better about it.

There are, it seems, at least two kinds of public, popularising, intellectuals - the AC Grayling sort, who specialise in explaining complex and difficult argument in simple language, and another lot, in which we might include de Botton, who deploys a more allusive, meandering, episodic method of illumination. (De Botton sees himself as not unlike Adam Phillips here, a writer he admires.) This style seems particularly effective for subjects that aren't usually subject to serious intellectual rigour, such as travel, or, in the case of de Botton's next book, architecture.

The trouble with status anxiety as a subject is that, despite de Botton's insistence that he could discover very little that had been written about it, philosophers are worrying away at it all the time (Charles Taylor's Sources of the Self and Richard Layard's recent lectures on happiness, to take just a couple of examples, are both substantially preoccupied with it). So, for that matter, are sociologists, psychologists and economists.

Social economist Fred Hirsch published his Social Limits to Growth as long ago as 1977, arguing that beyond a certain level of comfort, all consumption is positional, ie about status, meaning that we are consequently trapped in self-defeating cycles of desire and dissatisfaction. Even journalists have had the odd pithy observation to contribute. Andrew Sullivan observed that status has less to do with how much money you earn than with who returns your phone calls.

So status anxiety seems a rather unwieldy, overweight and overdone theme for de Botton's elegant mosaic method. As he acknowledges, his subject is 'really the story of the modern West, attitudes to rank, status, money; what's happened to art, religion...' To which one can just squeak: 'Blimey! And some of the sections are only 28 words long!'

This is not meant to imply that de Botton is lightweight, nor that he *******ises or diminishes thought by writing in a fragmentary way. Neither charge is true, besides which, he has had to deal with far too much intellectual snobbery already. The hostility to him has been prompted by his precocity (he published his first book, Essays In Love, when he was 23) and partly by status anxiety on the part of academics: 'Trying to be a sort of intellectual in the public arena is very irritating to people. They think, "Why is this bugger on television?" ' (It has, incidentally, taken odd forms, frequently involving derogatory remarks about his physical appearance, although he is attractive enough to be on television and has piercing, beautiful eyes.) He also thinks the distrust might be to do with 'having a very strange name, which makes me sound like a French aristocrat'.

He is, in fact, of Sephardic Jewish extraction, born in Switzerland (his father founded and ran Capital Asset Management) but educated from the age of eight in England. He went to Harrow and Cambridge and says: 'I had a really bad experience in my education. I felt terrifically let down, particularly by university, which all felt a bit irrelevant. I ticked all the boxes educationally; I'd gone as far as you could go, and I still felt hollow inside. That made me lose fear. I thought, even if the academics will say, "The guy's an ***** ", I'm going to try to write the sort of books I wish someone had directed my way.'

What that means in practice is 'somehow using culture, broadly speaking, to interpret, define our lives. I think there is something lovely and very important in the idea of a book that can in some way help you to live.'

His first book was primarily concerned with ideas about love and, he says, 'shouldn't ever have been called a novel', but was taken to be fiction, so he wrote two more novels ('terrifically bad; as novels: any value they may have is because of the ideas') before How Proust Can Change Your Life catapulted him to fame.

He developed his method in The Consolations of Philosophy and The Art of Travel, which both obviously derived from his own preoccupations: one of the pleasures of The Art of Travel was to watch him take off intellectually from an argument with his girlfriend on a beach or from a glimpse into a room in Amsterdam.

There is less de Botton-direct in Status Anxiety, which may be because the condition is too excruciating to admit to, although he says merely that he 'wanted to make it feel inclusive'. But there's little doubt that his interest in the subject begins with deep-seated concerns of his own. He tells me that his parents expected him to get 'not merely As but A-pluses'. When I marvel at how they pulled this off without rebellion and major drug-taking, he says: 'You probably give your children, whether you mean to or not, a sense that whatever they got, you would love them. I think you do that because it's true. My parents, I believe, genuinely didn't think that. They genuinely believed it's what you achieved that counts, not what you are. Not some indefinable essence of your being.'

Status Anxiety is divided into two parts: an analysis of the problem, followed by 'solutions', which are, in fact, less solutions than consolations (they include philosophy, art, politics, bohemia, a certain kind of opting out, and Christianity, for which, as an atheist with no Christian background, he says he is able to have a 'weird sympathy'). This second half seems to me much better suited to his fragmentary, stylised method and much more successful in approaching his ambition to add to those books 'that have given me a language in which to see and discuss certain things'.

His work has an interesting relationship to self-help, as he playfully acknowledged with the title of How Proust Can Change Your Life. 'What annoys me about most self-help books is that they have no tragic sense. They have no sense that life is fundamentally incomplete rather than accidentally incomplete. I find a certain kind of pessimism consoling and helpful. Part of fulfilment might be recognising how awful life is.'

Today, de Botton is married and lives in a tall Victorian house in west London, coolly done out with white walls, bare floors, books. He doesn't have children yet but says he 'might soon'. So will he withhold his love if they don't get As? 'It's a balance, isn't it? You don't want to go, "It's great to get an F", but you also want to give the sense that there's something outside achievement. I've seen a lot of so-called high-achievers who don't feel they've achieved much.'

He has the useful knack of picking topics that are in the ether, that seem to demand thoughtful elucidation. (There's nothing slick about this, he says: 'It's only because they're in my mind.') So does he worry he'll run out? 'No, there are many things I'm interested in thinking more about. I guess my overall life plan is to think about issues that concern me and try to use culture generally to make sense of them. I'm more worried that I'm going to die before I've had time.'

End.

Source: click here please

Sophist · April 6, 2004

The boy is very smart; he knows what sells in the circles of the middle classes in Europe.

Maymuunah · April 18, 2004

thank you all I indeed enjoyed reading all these articles. keep it coming guys.

postman · April 19, 2004

"Warning, he is of Jewish Desent"

That is laughable. And it is in bold too.

postman · April 19, 2004

Maybe it is as Jung argued, from his own profound inner work and what he saw around him, that we are tied to a much greater archaic collective unconscious mind that emits universal symbols and processes we all share.

And maybe,we Somalis, all of our current struggles and conditions are representative of one aspect of the collective, tribalism. You see normal (or should I say ideal) people are meant to take on the archetypal human situations such as Birth, Death, Childhood, Marriage, Maturation, Transformation, and so on. Along with the archetypal personages like Mother, Father, Lover, Hero, Healer etc. However, we Somalis just took this little bit further and added "loyalty to the tribe" as a human situation and "tribal leader" as personage. This is not to say this is a bad thing, but it is an important aspect of the collective.

So, when the whole tribal aspect took on a negative character so did the "collective" (can't get more negative and bloody than a civil war); and the attributes of hatred, strengthened loyalty, and a almightier tribal leader got loaded up into the collective psyche. And now these aspects are just doing what they naturaly do: reinforce themself through the collective.

Question is, how do you explain all those Somalis who don't share these aspects: non-tribal and not loyal in a negative way. The answer is to the passive/conforming (majority) mind they are seem natural but to the critical mind, they are unnatural. Because they are distructive.

Oh yeah, this is the article I wanted to post. Not related by the way.

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Against Blind Imperial Arrogance

by John Nichols

Edward Said closed one of his last published essays with the lines: "We are in for many more years of turmoil and misery in the Middle East, where one of the main problems is, to put it as plainly as possible, U.S. power. What the U.S. refuses to see clearly it can hardly hope to remedy."

Said's frustration was obvious, but so too was the determination of the man Salman Rushdie once said "reads the world as closely as he reads books" No one worked harder and longer than Said to awaken Americans to the damage their government's policies had done to the prospects for peace and justice in the Middle East. It cannot be said that he succeeded in that mission, but nor can it be said that he failed. If successive presidents refused to listen to Said's wise counsel, millions of citizens were influenced directly and indirectly by his speeches, writing and tireless advocacy. To the extent that there has been a broadening of sympathy for the cause of Palestine and Palestinians in the United States in recent years -- especially among younger Americans -- it can be traced in no small measure to the work of the world-renowned scholar, author, critic and activist who has died Thursday at age 67 after a long battle with leukemia.

Born in 1935 in British-ruled Palestine, and raised in Egypt, Said came to the United States as a student. He would eventually become a professor at Columbia University and the author of internationally acclaimed books on literature, music, culture and imperialism. His groundbreaking 1978 book, Orientalism, forced open a long-delayed and still unfinished debate about Western perceptions of Islam.

Said was horrified by the ignorance and distrust of Islam, Arabs and, in particular, of Palestinians that he found in the United States. "Every empire... tells itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires, that its mission is not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate. These ideas are by no means shared by the people who inhabit that empire, but that hasn't prevented the U.S. propaganda and policy apparatus from imposing its imperial perspective on Americans, whose sources of information about Arabs and Islam are woefully inadequate," Said wrote in July. "Several generations of Americans have come to see the Arab world mainly as a dangerous place, where terrorism and religious fanaticism are spawned and where a gratuitous anti-Americanism is inculcated in the young by evil clerics who are anti-democratic and virulently anti-Semitic."

Said bemoaned the "blind imperial arrogance" of the United States and argued that, "Underlying this perspective is a long-standing view -- the Orientalist view -- that denies Arabs their right to national self-determination because they are considered incapable of logic, unable to tell the truth and fundamentally murderous."

Echoing the concern he had expressed for many years, Said reminded his American readers that, "Since Napoleon's invasion of Egypt in 1798, there has been an uninterrupted imperial presence based on these premises throughout the Arab world, producing untold misery -- and some benefits, it is true. But so accustomed have Americans become to their own ignorance and the blandishments of U.S. advisors like Bernard Lewis and Fouad Ajami, who have directed their venom against the Arabs in every possible way, that we somehow think that what we do is correct because ‘that's the way the Arabs are.' That this happens also to be an Israeli dogma shared uncritically by the neo-conservatives who are at the heart of the Bush administration simply adds fuel to the fire."

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PS: Baashi, here is the link to Charles MacKay's

Extraordinary Popular Delusions And The Madness Of Crowds

Paragon · April 20, 2004

"Warning, he is of Jewish Desent"

"That is laughable. And it is in bold too."

Postman, it is indeed 'able. I had to enbold the enthnicity of the author for fear that of be accused of favouritism.

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Language Development, Human Intelligence, and Social Organization

Noam Chomsky

In Walter Feinberg (ed), Equality and Social

Policy, Illinois, 1978

investigation in principle, a system that provides a unique form of intelligence that manifests itself in human language, in our unique capacity to develop a concept of number and abstract space,28 to construct scientific theories in certain domains, to create certain systems of art, myth, and ritual, to interpret human actions, to develop and comprehend certain systems of social institutions, and so on.

On an "empty organism" hypothesis, human beings are assuredly equal in intellectual endowments. More accurately, they are equal in their incapacity to develop complex cognitive structures of the characteristically human sort. If we assume, however, that this biologically given organism has its special capacities like any other, and that among them are the capacities to develop human cognitive structures with their specific properties, then the possibility arises that there are differences among individuals in their higher mental functions. Indeed, it would be surprising if there were not, if cognitive faculties such as the language faculty are really "mental organs." People obviously differ in their physical characteristics and capacities; why should there not be genetically determined differences in the character of their mental organs and the physical structures on which they are based?

Inquiry into specific cognitive capacities such as the language faculty leads to specific and I think significant hypotheses concerning the genetically programmed schematism for language, but gives us no significant evidence concerning variability. Perhaps this is a result of the inadequacy of our analytic tools. Or it may be that the basic capacities are truly invariant, apart from gross pathology. We find that over a very broad range, at least, there are no differences in the ability to acquire and make effective use of a human language; at some level of detail, it may be differences in what is acquired, as there are evidently differences in facility of use. I see no reason for dogmatism on this score. So little is known concerning other cognitive capacities that we can hardly even speculate. Experience seems to support the belief that people do vary in their intellectual capacities and their specialization. It would hardly come as a surprise if this were so, assuming that we are dealing with biological structures, however intricate and remarkable, of known sorts.

Many people, particularly those who regard themselves as within the left-liberal political spectrum, find such conclusions repugnant. It may be that the empty organism hypothesis is so attractive to the left in part because it precludes these possibilities; there is no variability on a null endowment. But I find it difficult to understand why conclusions of this sort should be at all disturbing. I am personally quite convinced that no matter what training or education I might have received, I could never have run a four-minute mile, discovered Godel's theorems, composed a Beethoven quartet, or risen to any of innumerable other heights of human achievement. I feel in no way demeaned by these inadequacies. It is quite enough that I am capable, as I think any person of normal endowments probably is, of appreciating and in part understanding what others have accomplished, while making my own personal contributions in whatever measure and manner I am able to do. Human talents vary considerably, within a fixed framework that is characteristic of the species and that permits ample scope for creative work, including the creative work of appreciating the achievements of others. This should be a matter for delight rather than a condition to be abhorred. Those who assume otherwise must be adopting the tacit premise that a person's rights or social reward are somehow contingent on his abilities. As for his rights, there is an element of plausibility in this assumption in the single respect already noted: in a decent society opportunities should confirm as far as possible to personal needs, and such needs may be specialized and related to particular talents and capacities. My pleasure in life is enhanced by the fact that others can do many things that I cannot, and I see no reason to deny these people the opportunity to cultivate their talents, consistent with general social needs. Difficult questions of practice are sure to arise in any functioning social group, but I see no problem of principle.

As for social rewards, it is alleged that in our society remuneration correlates in part with IQ. But insofar as that is true, it is simply a social malady to be overcome much as slavery had to be eliminated at an earlier stage of human history. It is sometimes argued that constructive and creative work will cease unless it leads to material reward, so that all of society gains when the talented receive special rewards. For the mass of the population, then, the message is: "You're better off if you're poor." One can see why this doctrine would appeal to the privileged, but it is difficult to believe that it could be put forth by anyone who has had experience with creative work or workers in the arts, the sciences, crafts, or whatever. The standard arguments for "meritocracy" have no basis in fact or logic, to my knowledge; they rest on a priori beliefs, which, furthermore, do not seem particularly plausible. I have discussed the matter elsewhere and will not pursue it here.29

Suppose that inquiry into human nature reveals that human cognitive capacities are highly structured by our genetic program and that there are variations among individuals within a shared framework. This seems to me an entirely reasonable expectation, and a situation much to be desired. It has no implications with regard to equality of rights or condition, so far as I can see, beyond those already sketched.

Consider finally the question of race and intellectual endowments. Notice again that in a decent society there would be no social consequences to any discovery that might be made about this question. An individual is what he is; it is only on racist assumptions that he is to be regarded as an instance of his race category, so that social consequences ensue from the discovery that the mean for a certain racial category with respect to some capacity is such-and-such. Eliminating racist assumptions, the facts have no social consequences whatever they may be, and are therefore not worth knowing, from this point of view at least. If there is any purpose to an investigation of the relation between race and some capacity, it must derive from the scientific significance of the question. It is difficult to be precise about questions of scientific merit. Roughly, an inquiry has scientific merit if its results might bear on some general principles of science. One doesn't conduct inquiries into the density of blades of grass on various lawns or innumerable other trivial and pointless questions. Likewise, inquiry into such questions as race and IQ appears to be of virtually no scientific interest. Conceivably, there might be interest in correlations between partially heritable traits, but if someone were interested in this question he would surely not select such characteristics as race and IQ, each an obscure amalgam of complex properties. Rather, he would ask whether there is a correlation between measurable and significant traits, say, eye color and length of the big toe. It is difficult to see how the study of race and IQ can be justified on any scientific grounds.

If the inquiry has no scientific significance and no social significance, apart from the racist assumption that an individual must be regarded not as what he is but rather as standing at the mean of his race category, it follows that it has no merit at all. The question then arises, Why is it pursued with such zeal? Why is it taken seriously? Attention naturally turns to the racist assumptions that do confer some importance on the inquiry if they are accepted.

In a racist society, inquiry into race and IQ can be expected to reinforce prejudice, pretty much independent of the outcome of the inquiry. Given such concepts as "race" and "IQ," it is to be expected that the results of any inquiry will be obscure and conflicting, the arguments complex and difficult for the layman to follow. For the racist, the judgment "not proven" will be read "probably so." There will be ample scope for the racist to wallow in his prejudices. The very fact that the inquiry is undertaken suggests that its outcome is of some importance, and since it is important only on racist assumptions, these assumptions are insinuated even when they are not expressed. For such reasons as these, a scientific investigation of genetic characteristics of Jews would have been appalling in Nazi Germany. There can be no doubt that the investigation of race and IQ has been extremely harmful to the victims of American racism. I have heard black educators describe in vivid terms the suffering and injury imposed on children who are made to understand that "science" has demonstrated this or that about their race, or even finds it necessary to raise the question.

We cannot ignore the fact that we live in a profoundly racist society, though we like to forget that this is so. When the New York Times editors and U.N. Ambassador Moynihan castigate Idi Amin of Uganda as a "racist murderer," perhaps correctly, there is a surge of pride throughout the country and they are lauded for their courage and honesty. No one would be so vulgar as to observe that the editors and the Ambassador, in the not very distant past, have supported racist murder on a scale that exceeds Amin's wildest fantasies. The general failure to be appalled by their hypocritical pronouncements reflects, in the first place, the powerful ideological controls that prevent us from coming to terms with our acts and their significance and, in the second place, the nation's profound commitment to racist principle. The victims of our Asian wars were never regarded as fully human, a fact that can be demonstrated all too easily, to our everlasting shame. As for domestic racism, I need hardly comment.

The scientist, like anyone else, is responsible for the foreseeable consequences of his acts. The point is obvious and generally well understood: consider the conditions on the use of human subjects in experiments. In the present case, an inquiry into race and IQ, regardless of its outcome, will have a severe social cost in a racist society, for the reasons just noted. The scientist who undertakes this inquiry must therefore show that its significance is so great as to outweigh these costs. If, for example, one maintains that this injury is justified by the possibility that this will lead to some refinement of social science methodology, as argued by Boston University President John Silber (Encounter, August, 1974), he provides an insight into his moral calculus: the possible contribution to research methodology outweighs the social cost of the study of race and IQ in a racist society. Such advocates often seem to believe that they are defending academic freedom, but this is just a muddle. The issue of freedom of research arises here in its conventional form: does the research in question carry costs, and, if so, are they outweighed by its significance? The scientist has no unique right to ignore the likely consequences of what he does.

Once the issue of race and IQ is raised, people who perceive and are concerned by its severe social cost are, in a sense, trapped. They may quite properly dismiss the work on the grounds just sketched. But they do so in a racist society in which, furthermore, people are trained to consign to questions of human and social importance to "technical experts," who often prove to be experts in obfuscation and defense of privilege -- "experts in legitimation," in Gramsci's phrase. The consequences are obvious. Or, they may enter the arena of argument and counterargument, thus implicitly reinforcing the belief that it makes a difference how the research comes out and tacitly supporting the racist assumptions on which this belief ultimately rests. Inevitably, then, by refuting alleged correlations between race and IQ (or race and X, for any X one selects), one is reinforcing racist assumptions. The dilemma is not restricted to this issue. I have discussed it elsewhere in connection with debate over murder and aggression.30 In a highly ideological society, matters can hardly be otherwise, a misfortune that we may deplore but cannot easily escape.

We exist and work in given historical conditions. We may try to change them, but cannot ignore them, in the work we undertake, the strategies for social change that we advocate, or the direct action in which we engage or from which we abstain. In discussion of freedom and equality, it is very difficult to disentangle questions of fact from judgments of value. We should try to do so, pursuing factual inquiry where it may lead without dogmatic preconception, but not ignoring the consequences of what we do. We must never forget that what we do is tainted and distorted, inevitably by the awe of expertise that is induced by social institutions as one device for imposing passivity and obedience. What we do as scientists, as scholars, as advocates, has consequences. We cannot escape this condition in a society based on concentration of power and privilege. This is a heavy responsibility that a scientist or scholar would not have to bear in a decent society, one in which individuals would not relegate to authorities decisions over their lives or their beliefs. We may and should recommend the simple virtues: honesty and truthfulness, responsibility and concern. But to live by these principles is often no simple matter.

Notes

1. Robert Goodman, After the Planners (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1971).

2. K. William Kapp, The Social Costs of Private Enterprise (1950; paperback ed., New York: Schocken Books, 1971), p. 231.

3. Cf. Seymour Melman, "Industrial Efficiency under Managerial versus Cooperative Decision-making," Review of Radical Political Economics, Spring, 1970; reprinted in B. Horvat, M. Marcovic, and R. Supek, eds., Self-Governing Socialism, vol. II (White Plains, N.Y.: International Arts and Sciences Press, 1975). See also Melman, Decision-Making and Productivity (Oxford: Blackwell, 1958); and Paul Blumberg, Industrial Democracy: The Sociology of Participation (New York: Schocken Books, 1969).

4. Stephen A. Marglin, "What Do Bosses Do?," Review of Radical Political Economics, Summer, 1974; Herbert Gintis, "Alienation in Capitalist Society," in R.C. Edwards, M. Reich, and T.E. Weisskopf, eds., The Capitalist System (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1972).

5. J. E. Meade, Efficiency, Equality and the Ownership of Property (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965).

6. Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 3 (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House 1959).

7. Giambattista Vico, The New Science, trans. T. G. Bergin and M. H. Fisch (Garden City, N.J.: Anchor Books, 1961).

8. David Ellerman, "Capitalism and Workers' Self-Management," in G. Hunnius, G. D. Garson and J. Case. eds., Workers' Control (New York: Random House, 1973), pp. 10-11.

9. Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, cited by Marglin, "What Do Bosses Do?"

10. Edward S. Greenberg, "In Defense of Avarice," Social Policy, Jan./Feb., 1976, p. 63.

11. "The Fearful Drift of Foreign Policy," Commentary, Business Week, Apr. 7, 1975.

12. In fact, in this case, sheer robbery backed by police power is a more likely explanation.

13. On the interpretation of the "lessons of Vietnam" by academic scholars and liberal commentators as the war ended, see my "Remaking of History," Ramparts, Sept., 1975, [reprinted in Towards a New Cold War (Pantheon, 1982)] and "The United States and Vietnam," Vietnam Quarterly, no. 1, Winter, 1976.

14. For a discussion of this topic, see my introduction to N. Blackstock, Cointelpro (New York: Vintage, 1976).

15. See, for example, Herbert J. Gans, "About the Equalitarians," Columbia Forum, Spring, 1975.

16. Rudolf Rocker, "Anarchism and Anarcho-Syndicalism," in P. Eltzbacher, ed., Anarchism (London: Freedom Press, 1960), pp. 234-5.

17. I have discussed some of the roots of these doctrines elsewhere: e.g., For Reasons of State (New York: Pantheon Books, 1973).

18. Rocker, "Anarchism and Anarcho-Syndicalism," p. 228. Rocker is characterizing the "ideology of anarchism." Whether Marx would have welcomed such a conception is a matter of conjecture. As a theoretician of capitalism, he did not have very much to say about the nature of a socialist society. Anarchists, who tended to the view that the workers' organizations must create "not only the ideas but also the facts of the future itself" within capitalist society (Bakunin), correspondingly provided a more extensive theory of post-revolutionary society. For a left-Marxist view of these questions, see Karl Korsch, "On Socialization," in Horvat et al., Self-Governing Socialism, vol. 1.

19. Evidently there is a value judgment here, for which I do not apologize.

20. Quotes are from Salvador E. Luria, Life: The Unfinished Experiment (New York: Scribner and Sons, 1973).

21. For references and discussions, see note 17, and Frank E. Manual, "In Memorium: Critique of the Gotha Program, 1875-1975," Daedalus, Winter, 1976.

22. Fredy Perlman, Essay on Commodity Fetishism, reprinted from Telos, no. 6 (Somerville, Mass.: New England Free Press, 1968).

23. Istvan Meszaros, Marx's Theory of Alienation (London: Merlin Press, 1970).

24. Cited in Meszaros, Marx's Theory of Alienation.

25. See my Reflections on Language (New York: Pantheon Books, 1975) for reference and discussion.

26. Walter Sullivan, "Scientists Debate Question of Race and Intelligence," New York Times, Feb. 23, 1976, p. 23. His account may well be accurate; I have often heard and read similar comments from left-wing scientists.

27. Cf., for example, the remarks on language in Luria, Life: The Unfinished Experiment; Jacques Monod, Chance and Necessity (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1971); Francois Jacob, The Logic of Life (New York: Pantheon Books, 1973); For some recent discussion of this issue, see my Reflections on Language.

28. It is extremely misleading to argue, as some do, that certain birds have an elementary "concept of number" as revealed by their ability to employ ordinal and visually presented systems up to some finite limit (about 7). The concepts one, two, ..., seven are not to be confused with the concept natural number, as formally captured, e.g., by the Dedekind-Peano axioms, and intuitively understood, without difficulty, by normal humans, as an infinite system.

29. See For Reasons of State, chap. 7.

30.American Power and the New Mandarins (New York: Pantheon Books, 1969), introduction.

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Source: www.chomsky.info

Raxmah · April 21, 2004

Loved reading your posts. This is a long article(sorry)- some of his points are debatable but its still superb read.

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Women Scholars of Islam:

They Must Bloom Again

Dr. Mohammad Omar Farooq

Courtesy: Monthly Message International [August-September 2003]

Ever since becoming conscious about Islam on one hand and the contemporary social reality on the other, I have often been disturbed by realizing that, in many aspects, there is a huge gap between what Islam stands for and what the social reality is. A vital area where this gap is so pronounced is gender issues. After tying the knot with my beloved wife and then joining the parents club through two most wonderful daughters, I was compelled to take a much closer look at gender issues.

I have remained keen over the years to learn more about these issues. However, I have been increasingly dissatisfied as I continued to discover directly from the Qur'an, Qur'anic literature, Hadith, Seerah and history that what we are generally adhering to, and traditionally defending and promoting in regard to gender issues stands in sharp contrast to the Qur'anic and Prophetic vision as well as the heritage.

There is a general notion among the religious establishment of Islam, and derived therefrom, among the common Muslims, that Islam recognizes superiority of men over women. Even in Sayyid Abul Ala Maudoodi's well-known and highly respected urdu commentary, Tafhimul Qur'an, verse 4 of Surah an-Nisa erroneously got translated into English as following: "Men are superior to women ... not in the sense that they are above them in honor and excellence..." [Tr. by Ch. Muhammad Akbar, Islamic Publications, Lahore, 1997 ed.; Vol. 1, p. 121; note: a more recent transation from Islamic Foundation, UK has a different rendering]. Even though some qualifier and clarifier have been added in the preceding rendering, the very expression, "men are superior to women" - in whatever sense it may be - is questionable, because if honor and excellence are excluded from the scope of "superiority," what exactly is the meaning and basis of superiority or excellence then?

Indeed, completely discounting birth-related distinctions, he commented on verse 13 of Surah al-Hujurat: "... In that (Islamic) society there is no distinction based on color, race, language, or nationality. ..." One should be impressed by Maulana Maudoodi's articulation as to the sweeping implication of the verse that destroyed the foundation of any other concept of superiority/excellence. However, is it not proper to include gender in that list, too? Once again, unless we are willing to accept the implication that this Qur'anic declaration (49:13) - Verily the most honored of you in the sight of God is (the person who is) the most God-conscious. - applies to males only, it is only Islamic that Maulana Maudoodi's comment should have read, inclusive of gender, as following: "... In that society there is no distinction based on color, race, language, nationality or gender. ..."

Muslims routinely take the position that Islam does not recognize any unfair distinction based on color, race, language, or nationality. Unfortunately, however, even in this age of gender consciousness, we are failing to uphold and present Islam in consonance with the full scope of the Qur'anic vision and the Prophetic heritage.

Not too long ago, a friend of mine from Los Angeles, California (teaching at a university there) called me and among other things, lamented the fact that his otherwise devoted Muslim family is finding a difficult time to have rooms assigned for them in Masjid with appropriate or adequate ventilation. Might a little bit of natural light and wind be hazardous to our women's as well as our spiritual health and well-being?

There are many Muslim countries where women going out for their regular needs find little or no facility for women to wash and pray. Several years ago I participated in the Shura (consultative) committee of one of the Islamic Centers in USA. By the vote of the community, the elected chairman of the Shura was joined by his wife (also elected as a member) in the Shura as well. At the very first meeting, one of the brothers - who must have felt that the presence of the sister, even with her husband present, was a violation of Islam - to protect his own piety and lodge his silent but otherwise conspicuous protest, stood up and left.

Several years ago, I visited a Masjid in one of the Midwestern states in USA, where I found the facilities for washing for men was not that good but survivable. However, due to neglect or poor maintenance, whatever might be, my young daughter, going around by herself into the women's section, later on, came out crying at what she experienced there. A non-Muslim woman in one of the places of America was refused the taxi-service by a Muslim driver because she had a dog with him. It did not matter that she was blind. The brother, feeling dutybound (?), offered a prodigious lecture to this blind, non-Muslim lady. Although there are many examples to the contrary, there are some disturbing patterns that Muslims themselves should be confronting and scrutinizing in a self-critical and proactive manner.

The literacy rate is already poor in the Muslim countries and the rate for women is disproportionately lower. Let us not talk about the poor women in various countries who are without any protection and whose life, honor and property are anybody's game. Women were robbed of their professional and out-of-the home positions under strict public code in Taliban's "Islamic" Republic of Afghanistan. In contrast, Muslim women in Iran are doing relatively a lot better, but the top-tier religious hierarchy is still a drag on the society's overall progress. In the heartland of Islam with Makkah and Madina, controlled by a externally-installed dynasty and dominated by Wahhabism, women don't have the right to drive. It is so ironic and outrageous, because the sacred city of Makkah was founded through the valiant and exemplary struggle and sacrifice of a lone woman, Hajera, the wife of Ibrahim and the mother of Ismail (a). Yet, now a woman does not have the right to drive by herself.

More seriously, quite often we hear about women being meted out capital punishment for illicit sexual relations. Usually, women bear the brunt of the orthodox Shariah codes, even though we all know that even when raped, women, for a multitude of reasons, can't be so easily expected to step up and claim to have been raped. In many countries, women are routinely deprived of their property and inheritance. As personal and family matters, women rarely can secure their rights even from their relatives. In many Muslim countries, women are routinely subjected to physical violence, often lethally, which is condoned or tolerated by the broader society as personal or family matter. Vulnerable women are routinely married to be added to a husband's collection and also divorced at random as it pleases the husbands. The existing laws, values, customs and power structures - in combination - make and keep women weak, vulnerable, marginalized, and even oppressed.

Of course, women are completely absent from the pertinent discourse to shape and reshape the Islamic laws and codes. Islamic movements in various parts of the world are chanting about the progress they have made in promoting the cause of the women in accordance with Islam and vainly arguing how Islam is rightfully superior in dealing with women's rights. As they are still groping with the issues whether women should veil themselves (i.e., use niqab, face-covering), they have no problem with men playing games, such as soccer, with albeit "longer" shorts! In some Muslim countries, leading Islamic parties still stubbornly insist that women must cover their face as well. They might be super-lenient in regard to interpreting Islam in matters of political expediency, but regarding women's issues they have to be most extremely conservative. Many such organizations are also promoting separate women's educational institutions as well as separate women's organizations for Islamic causes. At the same time, Islamic parties in many Muslim countries remain at bay without broad support, especially from women, while they have to contend with challenges from many home-grown, viciously anti-Islamic feminists. Indeed, a whole new generation of men and women is growing up with the entrenched impression - and even conviction - that Islam is seriously biased in terms of gender issues. These are Islamic MOVEments that seem rather unable to MOVE in a contemporary context.

I should clarify that my arguments and opinions herein are to be applicable within the context of Islam. For example, when I am referring to the insistence by Jamaat-e-Islami in Bangladesh on veiling of women, it is because I consider this veiling (face-covering) Islamically unwarranted and the insistence unacceptable. Such position is based on extreme conservatism, especially when it comes to gender issues. Let me raise some further questions now. Are men really superior to women according to Islam? Why don't we have women Islamic scholars, experts, and Mujtahids (jurisprudents)? To solve the problems of women, do we need, or is it Islamic, to have separate Islamic schools/colleges/mosques? Is it alright for women to give lectures to a mixed gathering of Muslim men and women? How about doing so at Islamic Centers/mosques?

I hope that I have not already rung too many alarm bells. Based on my study of the Qur'an, Hadith, Seerah and history, I have concluded quite a while ago that what we are promoting, both by saying and doing, today are mostly opposite to what Islam teaches. Then, several years ago it was by chance I came across a book Struggling to Surrender by a new American Muslim, Dr. Jeffrey Lang. The book was captivating. But apart from its richness in terms of the experience he frankly shared and thoughts he provoked, it was an important eye-opening experience for me in regard to gender issues. We are generally aware that Muslim women, such as Hadhrat Aishah, Fatima, Khadija ®, and others, have played distinguished role during and immediately after the Prophet (s). In that book, there were some brief references to a forgotten, but very distinctive role Muslim women have played in Islamic history.

My interest was deeply aroused. I followed up by reading the original reference, Hadith Literature: Its Origin, Development, Special Features & Criticism by Dr. Muhammad Zubayr Siddiqi, a late scholar from Calcutta University [Cambridge: The Islamic Texts Society, 1993]. This book had a chapter titled "Women Scholars of Hadith," [pp. 117-123] which was an eye-opener for me.

For the first time I realized one of the most basic defects in our contemporary Muslim attitude and thinking in regard to gender issues. We all know that beyond the few towering women personalities in the earliest part of the Prophetic era, we can hardly name any woman scholar. It is well-known that in our contemporary century, Islamic scholars, Imams, experts, as well as leaders of Islamic movements, HAVE NOT been educated by men AND women. Going back further, even noted scholars such as Shah Waliullah Dehlavi and Shaikh Ahmad of Sarhind, popularly known as Mujaddid Alf Sani did not (correct me, if I am wrong) have any woman among their educators. It was simply not possible, because "women scholars" of Islam - teaching men and women, in public context, where many of them were, overall the best of the best of their time, not just among women - have become an extinct species.

What am I saying? Learning of Islam by men from men AND women? Tell me, isn't it true that the founder of Tabligh Jamaat (Maulana Muhammad Ilyas), founder of Ikhwan al-Muslimoon ( Shaikh Hasan al-Banna), Saudi Arabia's late chief Mufti Shaikh Ibn Bazz, or even the founder of Jamaate Islami (Sayyid Abul Ala Maudoodi) did not have among their educators any contemporary women scholar? How many of us have ever heard or known that there were times spanning many centuries when top male Islamic scholars sometimes used to recommend their mixed groups of students, men and women, to learn a particular text such as Sahih al-Bukhari or Sahih Muslim from none other than some specific woman scholar? If we have not, the attitude of these generations of Muslims, including their leaders, scholars, mentors, vis-à-vis women, can be better understood.

The role of women scholars of hadith is unique in the human history, prior to our modern times. There is simply no parallel to this special and valuable role played by women scholars in the development, preservation and dissemination of Islamic knowledge. In the words of Dr. Zubayr Siddiqi, "History records few scholarly enterprises, at least before modern times, in which women have played an important and active role side by side with men. The science of hadith forms an outstanding exception in this respect. ... Islam produced a large number of outstanding female scholars, on whose testimony and sound judgment much of the edifice of Islam depends. ... Since Islam's earliest days, women had been taking a prominent part in the preservation and cultivation of hadith, and this function continued down the centuries. At every period in Muslim history, there lived numerous eminent women-traditionists, treated by their brethren with reverence and respect." [p. 117]

Muslims are generally familiar with a handful of female luminaries from the time of the Prophet. However, what they are generally unfamiliar with is a large number of women scholars over many centuries after the first generation. This is an unforgivable lapse for the Ummah.

Just to mention a few, hopefully, would spark our interest in learning about this neglected dimension of our remarkable history. Do we know that Umm al-Darda (d. 81/700) was regarded by some of her contemporary leading male traditionists as "superior to all the other traditionists of the period, including the celebrated masters of hadith like al-Hasan al-Basri and Ibn Sirin." 'Amra was specially recognized for her authority on traditions related by A'isha and among her many notable students was Abu Bakr ibn Hazm, the celebrated judge of Medina, who was ordered by none other than the caliph Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz himself to write down all the traditions known on her authority. [p. 118]

Zaynab bint Sulayman (d. 142/759) "gained a reputation as one of the most distinguished women traditionists of the time, and counted many important men among her pupils." [p. 118] Almost without any exception, the compilers of major collections of hadith also lists a good number of women traditionists and scholars as their teachers. "A survey of the texts reveals that all the important compilers of traditions from the earliest period received many of them from women shuyukh: every major collection gives the names of many women as the immediate authorities of the author. And when these works had been compiled, the women traditionists themselves mastered them, and delivered lectures to large classes of pupils, to whom they would issue their own ijazas." [pp. 118-119]

It is so unfortunate and ironic that now this hadith literature in particular is used to suppress and deny the role, rights and status of women and confine them to the corners of our households. During the fourth century, there were women scholars, whose classes were always attended by many other scholars of great repute. Karima al-Marwaziyya (d. 463/1070), is one of those names that we should proudly know and remember, "who was considered the best authority on the Sahih of al-Bukhari in her own time. Abu Dharr of Herat, one of the leading scholars of the period, attached such great importance to her authority that he advised his students to study the Sahih under no one else, because of the quality of her scholarship." Among her students were al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, a noted Islamic scholar and historian. [p. 119]

Fatima bint Muhammad (d.539/1144) received from her contemporary hadith specialists "the proud tittle of Musnida Isfahan (the great hadith authority of Isfahan)." Shuhda 'the Writer' (d.574/1178) "was a famous calligrapher and a traditionist of great repute ... Her lectures on Sahih al-Bukhari and other hadith collections were attended by large crowds of students; and on account of her great reputation, some people even falsely claimed to have been her disciples. [p. 119]

Sitt al-Wuzara became well-known as an authority on Bukhari. Her acclaimed mastery included Islamic law as well. Crowned as 'the musnida of her time', she delivered public lectures on the Sahih and other works in Damascus and Egypt. [p. 120]

In fourteenth century, Zaynab bint Ahmad (d.740/1339) used to deliver public lectures the Musnad of Abu Hanifa, the Shamail of al-Tirmidhi, and the Sharh Ma'ani al-Athar of al-Tahawi. Do we remember the great traveler Ibn Battuta? He studied hadith with her and various other women during his stay at Damascus. [p. 120]

Learning was by both men and women. So was teaching, and the environment definitely was not a segregated one, where the learning as well as teaching took place. There were hardly any notable men during those centuries who did not receive teaching from women scholars as well. Furthermore, it was not just one or a few isolated cases. But there were a large number of women whose contribution to the field of learning and teaching remains an honored tradition that we may have altogether forgotten and neglected. Worse; many of us become vehemently opposed to it.

The famous historian of Damascus, Ibn Asakir, studied under more than 1,200 men and 80 women. He obtained the special ijaza of Zaynab bint Abd al-Rahman for the Muwatta of Imam Malik. The famous Qur'anic commentator Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti studied the Risala of Imam Shafii with Hajar bint Muhammad. Zaynab bint al-Sha'ri (d.524/615-1129/1218) studied hadith under several important traditionists, and in turn taught many students - "some of who gained great repute - including Ibn Khallikan, author of the well-known biographical dictionary Wafayat al-Ayan." [pp. 120-121]

Further account of the women scholars' contribution can be found in the works of Ibn Hajar, the author of the most important commentary on Sahih al-Bukhari. In one of his works, he provides short biographical accounts of no less than about 170 prominent women of the eighth century. Most of them were hadith scholars and under many of whom the author himself had studied. According to him, some of these women were acknowledged as the best traditionists of the period. For example, Juwayriya bint Ahmad, studied a range of works on traditions, under scholars both male and female. She then taught at the great colleges of the time, and then offered famous lectures on various Islamic disciplines, which used to attract an audience of high reputes. Some of Ibn Hajar's own teachers and many of his contemporaries attended her discourses. Another teacher of him was A'isha bin Abd al-Hadi (723-816). She was regarded as the finest traditionist of her time. Students from diverse backgrounds used to travel long distances "in order to sit at her feet and study the truths of religion." [p. 121]

In a book al-Daw al-Lami, biographical dictionary of eminent persons of the ninth century, Muhammad ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Sakhawi (830-897/1427-1489) provides information about the great women scholars of that period. In another book, Mu'jam al-Shuyukh, Abd al-Aziz ibn Umar ibn Fahd (812-871/1409-1466), provides biographical notes about "1,100 of the author's teachers, including over 130 women scholars under whom he had studied." Many of these women scholars were of the highest repute and trained many of the great scholars of the following generation. [p. 121]

There were women scholars whose field of expertise went far beyond hadith. "Umm Hani Maryam (778-871/1376-1466), for instance, learnt the Qur'an by heart when still a child, acquired all the Islamic sciences then being taught, including theology, law, history, and grammar, and then traveled to pursue hadith with the best traditionists of her time in Cairo and Mecca. ... She pursued an intensive program of learning in the great college of Cairo, giving ijazas to many scholars, Ibn Fahd himself studied several technical works on hadith under her." [pp. 121-122]

A'isha bin Ibrahim (760/1358-842/1438) studied traditions in Damascus and Cairo, and "delivered lectures which eminent scholars of the day spared no efforts to attend." [p. 122]

For various reasons that should be subject of a serious study, the "involvement of women in hadith scholarships, and in the Islamic disciplines generally, seems to have declined considerably from the tenth century of the hijra." [p. 122] There are several other biographical dictionaries that list names of women scholars of the subsequent period, but in vastly reduced numbers. Yet, as part of an endangered group, there were women who continued their valuable contribution. Asma bint Kamal al-Din (d.904/1498) wielded great public influence. She delivered public lectures on hadith, and trained women in various Islamic sciences. A'isha bint Muhammad (d.906/1500) taught hadith to many students. She was a professor at the Salihiyya College in Damascus. [p. 122]

The last known woman traditionist of the first rank, Fatima al-Fudayliya, also known as al-Shaykha al-Fudayliya, settled at Mecca. She founded a rich public library there. "In the Holy City she was attended by many eminent traditionists, who attended her lectures and received certificates from her." [p. 123]

History records that these women scholars "took their seats as students as well as teachers in pubic educational institutions, side by side with their brothers in faith. The colophons of many manuscripts show them both as students attending large general classes, and also as teachers, delivering regular courses of lectures." These were NOT gender-wise segregated institutions either. "[O]n folio 250, we discover that a famous woman traditionist, Umm Abd Allah, delivered a course of five lectures on the book to a mixed class of more than fifty students, at Damascus in the year 837/1433." [p. 123]

Although one can't draw a superficial connection between the decline of the Islamic civilization and the gradual disappearance of the women scholarship and participation, the reality is that our collective foundation of knowledge and heritage is based on the proud and noble contribution of scholarship of both men and women, as students and teachers, side by side, and there must have been substantive consequence from this loss of women scholarship.

The conditions of the Muslim world in general, and that of Muslim women in particular, stand in sharp contrast with the Islamic vision and heritage that continued through many centuries after the Prophet. Today, Muslim women are rarely welcome in the public life and especially in the mosque, let alone being part of our pool of educators, experts and mentors. This has created serious disenchantment among the women in the Muslim world, and turned some of them into bitter opponent to religion in general and Islam in particular. The existing conditions are a clear perversion of Islamic teachings and guidance. The absence of women scholars has also caused a great imbalance in our Islamic discourse in general and Islamic law (fiqh) in particular, by leaning toward the most extremely restrictive positions, opinions and provisions for the women.

In our contemporary time, there are Muslim women, particularly educated in the West or in the western tradition, who are establishing themselves as scholars of Islam. This is a very encouraging development. They are making critical contributions toward a new legacy of quality scholarship, especially in the field of gender issues. However, their emergence is not internal to Islam, and the broader Muslim society is yet to embrace them as part of the religious establishment, toward which they turn for religious scholarship. Of course, the religious establishment continues its orthodox resistance against such development of women scholarship and participation to protect their traditional turf.

In order to adequately empower women from the Islamic perspective, women need to equally and fully participate in our society, beginning with education and scholarship. The principle of Shura (mutual consultation) requires that those whose lives are affected by various decisions/opinions of Islamic laws and dictates ought to be full participants in the pertinent discourse. Women need to take interest in and men come forward to facilitate women's development in the field of education and scholarship. Muslim men need to demand such changes, as our Islamic pursuit for positive change can't be either complete or balanced without women being our full and equal partners. We need to cherish an environment where Muslim men, side by side with women, can engage in Islamic education and discourse, as students as well as teachers. We need women in all fields of Islamic and other studies, where men must excel in a competitive environment. We need to take this pursuit seriously, until we have qualified Islamic jurisprudents (mujtahids) and scholars among women, side by side with men, whose joint input would reshape our Islamic discourse and laws.

This does require no less than a revolutionary change, but it is an Islamic must. It is like turning Islam in our lives downside up, because Islam as we understand and practice it has been turned upside down. Muslims need to coalesce together to revive this glorious tradition of women's scholarship. Without them, our society would be fundamentally deficient and imbalanced, which will be reflected in all walks of our lives. That is why we again need women scholars back: THEY MUST BLOOM AGAIN.

Baashi · April 22, 2004

Many thanks ya'all...Jamaal_11, postman, and Raxmah. postman welcome to SOL. Raxmah that was a good read indeed. Keep them coming plz.

Here is a report (88 pages) by RAND that you might wanna read. The subject under microscope is Islam and Muslims. The report divides Muslims into five main categories, namely:

The fundamentalists who "put forth an aggressive, expansionist version of Islam that does not shy away from violence. They want to gain political power and then to impose strict public observance of Islam, as they themselves define it, forcibly on as broad a population worldwide as possible."

The traditionalists are those who believe that Islamic law and tradition ought to be rigorously and literally followed and Muslims orthodoxy should make some concessions in the literal application of sharia.

The modernists are those who seek far-reaching changes to the current orthodox understanding a practice of Islam, while the secularists are those who believe that religion should be a private matter separate from politics and the state.

The sufis are those who believe in a peaceful isolationist tendency.

The report suggests that secularists may not be trusted as they have radical ideas based on anti-colonial, and imperialistic or communist ideologies. The fundamentalists and traditionalists can also not be trusted.

However, the report suggests that fundamentalists and traditionalists must never be allowed to develop an alliance. Rather they should be encouraged to fight against each other. The only group that can serve as a dependable ally of the American and European elites are those modernists who are willing to argue that human will can assume supremacy over the will of the divine. In other words, who are willing to acknowledge the limitations of the Quran in guiding Muslims or others. The report suggests that such groups should be promoted and supported.

The report also recommends that those belonging to fundamentalist brand of Islam must be exposed and their character must be questioned or even assassinated.

Check it out for yourself and share with us what you make of it. Here is the original RAND report.. Excerpt:

There is no question that contemporary Islam is in a volatile state, engaged in

an internal and external struggle over its values, its identity, and its place in the

world. Rival versions are contending for spiritual and political dominance. This

conflict has serious costs and economic, social, political, and security implications

for the rest of the world. Consequently, the West is making an increased

effort to come to terms with, to understand, and to influence the outcome of

this struggle.

Clearly, the United States, the modern industrialized world, and indeed the

international community as a whole would prefer an Islamic world that is compatible

with the rest of the system: democratic, economically viable, politically

stable, socially progressive, and follows the rules and norms of international

conduct. They also want to prevent a “clash of civilizations” in all of its possible

variants—from increased domestic unrest caused by conflicts between Muslim

minorities and “native” populations in the West to increased militancy across

the Muslim world and its consequences, instability and terrorism.

postman · April 23, 2004

Bashi,

Thank you, I know we are meant to share articles but first I would like to say few words on the above article.

Without involving ourselves in these vexed definitions, let us consider the parody of the notion. I have always wondered can belief in the Divine Unity be so un-unified? I think not. It is my believe that traditionalists, modernists, fundamentalists and secularist are nothing but self-interested parasites. Let me express my views about these different groups.

Modernists. The word itself implies a notion of superiority. To be a modernist Muslim, I believe, is to be that like that forgetful genius who invented a machine in his garage, which can turn gold into copper. The basic assumption to modernise is to progress, although progress is something inevitable and natural I feel as if these modernists are using the west as their standard yardstick. Their objective is to remake Islam in the image of the west, or some other Marxist communist utopia. In their fear of traditionalist they reject tradition, not understanding that traditions are different from traditionalism. While traditionalism is nostalgic and futile, tradition on the other hand change with its own parameters because if they were to vacate their position a meaningless vacuum would be a created, a vacuum, which has to be filled because society cannot exist with a huge gab in its soul —a gap that is most likely be filled with fundamentalism. Blinded by notions of modernisation they forget any change needs to be a meaningful change with an integrated and meaningful sense of progress with its sense of identity still attached.

Traditionalists. These I believe are the worst. They are nothing but a contradiction in term, they love Islam so much they are willing to romanticise a golden past and thus suffocate all life from it. They are nostalgics who validate tradition as it exists on the basis of a roseate vision of their own history. This is the easiest position to advocate because it appeals to the defeated masses, ministering as it does to battered pride and replacing insult with confidence-boosting assurance. The biggest problem with this group is that they produce a disease, a disease that is complacency. They think all questions are answered by tradition and thus there is no real questions to be addressed. They believe tradition need not to be questioned for urgent solutions to current dilemmas and disasters. Merely one just needs to dig a hole in the ground and keep his head low while received tradition brings a return to the Golden Age.

Fundamentalists. I think fundamentalism is a direct result of the failure of secular nationalism in the Muslim world. Dictatorial nation-states stripped Muslim societies of their plurality by marginalising all except the westernised elites from power, and ruthlessly suppressing all minorities. However, when nationalism and modernity have failed fundamentalism has inspired many Muslims with its success. Fundamentalism is very much related to traditionalism, their very nature is based as they are on the retrieval of an imagined ‘pristine’ beginning. However, since both of them lack Islamic authenticity they are pretty much reactionary in everything. Their whole world is made up of false dichotomies: fundamentalism vs modernism, normativism vs acculturationism, revivalism vs re-entrenchment, Islam vs the west. Thus everything must be rejected; and the rejection begins by cutting of everything that is western with all its ills, and this ends with intolerance of all interpretations of Islam which differ from those of the clan aka many of the fundamentalist groups. Hence this narrow version of Islam can only come into power by force and rule by terror.

Secularists. I don’t really have much to say on this group other than that I can only tolerate a secularist insofar he or she does not claim to be a Muslim. How can Islam be separated from everything? It is nonsensical to suppose Islam, a worldview, can only govern the private aspect of life. I think this group formed out of intolerance to all the other moronic factions, fundamentalists and traditionalists in particular.

Sorry this has turned out to be more than a few words. Here is the article I wanted to post.

-------------------------------------

Islamic Liberation Theology

November 2, 2002

by Chuck Morse

It's become quite fashionable for leftist intellectuals to blame Islamic terror on religion without differentiating between radical Islam and Judeo-Christian faith. Psuedo-scientific jargon is used to equate religious Jews and Christians with Islamic extremists with the preposterous contention that any belief in G-d somehow leads to violence and fanaticism. Somehow the violent and fanatic record of anti Judeo-Christian Nazism and atheistic Communism, movements that evolved out of the modern enlightenment, go unmentioned.

While violent Jihad against the infidel is certainly an integral part of Islam, the Islamic world nevertheless reached a fork in the road in the early 20th century. The choice was between the enlightened leadership of Kemal Ataturk, who sought to modernize and westernize Turkey and Prince Faisal, who signed an internationally recognized peace treaty with Zionist leader Chaim Weitzmann on the one side, and the Nazi backed Haj Amin al Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and, later, his Soviet backed nephew Yasser Arafat on the other. For the most part, the Islamo-Nazism of the Grand Mufti and the Islamo-Communism of Arafat seems to have carried the day.

The Grand Mufti, undoing the progress made by Prince Faisal, introduced terror into Palestine and elsewhere in the Middle East. The Mufti mixed some of the more violent aspects of traditional Islam with modern National Socialism, which he participated in while spending World War II in Berlin as head of a Nazi/Muslim government in exile.

The Egyptian born Arafat, a creature of the left-wing Soviet Union, founded the terror cell al-Fatah in the early 1960's after spending a year in Russia. According to terrorism expert Yossef Bodansky, the Soviet Union developed a network of international terror cells for the purpose of destabilizing the West. In 1972 at a terror conference held at the Baddawi refugee camp in Lebanon, Marxist PFLP chairman George Habbash, Soviet KGB head Yevgeny Primakov, Arafat, and others formed an "alliance of progressive movements and terrorist organizations."

After Baddawi, terrorists struck first in Quirat Shemona, Israel, April 11, 1974 murdering 18 people, including 8 children, and then in Maalot on May 15, 1974 murdering 25 schoolchildren. This was followed in short order by the forced landing of a hijacked airplane at Entebbe Airport in Uganda where Jews were separated from other passengers for execution. After the Jewish hostages were rescued by Israeli commandos, terrorists murdered Dora Block, an elderly passenger left behind in a hospital bed. Soon afterward, on a passenger ship called the Achille Lauro, terrorists threw Leon Klinghoffer, an elderly Jewish man, overboard in his wheelchair.

The left-wing Soviets, through arms, finance, training, and propaganda, are responsible for launching the international Islamic terrorism of today. The left continues to serve as a fifth column in the non-Islamic world by supporting an anti-American, anti-Israel posture as well as appeasement. But has the left actually influenced the radical Islamic faith of Osama bin Laden and his fellows?

My suspicion is that communists created an Islamic liberation theology not unlike the Christian liberation theology that has been so effective for the communists in Catholic Latin America. Christian liberation theology isolates a couple of passages in the New Testament, placing them in a context that creates a false illusion that Jesus Christ advocated communism. Once this idea is embraced, the "liberated" Christian is more susceptible to support a violent communist revolution in the name of Christianity. Communists have also been able to work a version of this type of perverse magic within Judaism.

By isolating and emphasizing the more violent aspects of Islam, perhaps the modern socialists, first the Nazi's and then the Communists, created, or at least fostered the development of the current lethal "liberation" version of Islam. While posing as traditional Islam, this communized form retards modernization. Radical Islam today, employing all the jargon of modern communism, including the strident language of victimization and conspiracy, seems to be in the service of the modern Islamic despot.

FORUM

Somalia Online Weekly Bulletin: Informative articles only

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