| In other words, let's make phone calls and show our interest in their culture, in their history and in their progress. If we buy more Iraqi pistachios and dates from Afghanistan, then the children of farmers might have a better education. |
BIBBI Building International Bridges By Internet The evolution of an idea (What can ordinary people do?) People to People (The Eisenhower program) What if it's unsafe in the other country? Technology plus good will = BIBBI English Lessons page 1 page 2 page 3 page 4 English Links Discussion about Islam FORSUBS SEE Karen Armstrong's writings More Discussion about Islam |
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| Discussion about Islam (a list of articles and comments) Please use these columns in classes and in letters to pen pals (pen friends) to promote greater awareness of other cultures. Britain May 13, 2004 Carey fears world peril over Islam By Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent LORD CAREY OF CLIFTON, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, launched an unprecedented attack on Islamic states last night, saying that the world was in great peril. In a lecture that will anger Britain’s allies in the Middle East, he said that countries in the Islamic world do not reflect “the true values of Islam”. In his second attack on Islamic countries in two months, he was careful to differentiate between the religion, which he praised, and its contemporary political expression, which he once again criticised. “I am talking rather about a sharp ideological tension that separates the West from another world, that we call Islamic,” he said. This Islamic world, he went on to argue, “does not reflect the true values of Islam”. Calling for more elasticity between doctrine and science, he said: “The challenge to Muslim countries, it seems to me, is to create environments where learning — religious and theological, scientific, artistic and literary — can flower unrestricted and be open to women as well as to men.” Lord Carey, in the seventh annual Sternberg lecture to an audience of academics and students at Leicester University, said that there was a failure of understanding between the West and Islam. The lecture, the fourth in a series on Islam by Lord Carey, was endowed by Sir Sigmund Sternberg, the philanthropist who helped to found the International Council of Christians and Jews. In the third lecture in the series, at the Gregorian University in Rome in March, Lord Carey provoked anger in the Muslim community for his accusation that Islamic societies had become authoritarian and committed to power and privilege. The former Archbishop declined to apologise and raised similar concerns as he did in March. He said that his fears arose “from deep appreciation of Islam and indeed of all mainstream religions and, yet, from an increasing frustration that we have not yet managed to achieve a real and fruitful dialogue based upon understanding and truth.” He challenged the association of the West with decadence in the Muslim mind and of Islam with terrorism in the Western mind. He had become aware of deep-rooted Islamaphobia in Britain. He said that it was not effective to dismiss such worries as nonsense. Lord Carey also voiced disquiet about America’s policy in Iraq and the abuse of Iraqi prisoners. He described the decapitation in Iraq of Nick Berg as barbaric but added: “In our disgust the West must resist the temptation to take the moral high ground.” RESPONSE TO CAREY'S ATTACK Iqbal Sacranie, secretary- general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: “The real problem is that he fails to recognise the sovereignty of Muslim countries and their right to govern their affairs according to their own genius, their own culture and their own faith.” Dr Zaki Badawi, principal of the Muslim College, said: “I feel his diagnosis is not totally correct. George is a great friend of mine. I am going to send him a library on Islam dealing with the areas where he thinks there is a conflict.” ========================= This article is mentioned in N's commentary Subject: The Weekly Standard - article "Killing Christians" (Nov. 2002) Killing Christians By Amitai Etzioni (http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/authors.asp?ID=1003) The Weekly Standard | November 12, 2002 On October 17, bombs killed 6 people and wounded 143 in Zamboanga, the Philippines. While press accounts mentioned in passing that the victims were Christians, few conveyed to the reader that these were people assaulted by Muslim extremists because of their religion. On September 25, militant Muslims shot dead 7 Christian Pakistanis execution style in Karachi. Most of the media failed to report this at all, though it was at least the fifth bloody attack on Christians in Pakistan in the last twelve months. And the media almost never point out that Christians are being killed, often at places of worship, in several countries with Islamic majorities or governments, not because they are Westerners or Americans (many are neither) but because they are Christians. Nor is the White House or Congress nearly as attentive--to put it mildly--to this pattern of killing as it is to any injury on either side of the conflict in Israel. People who follow international news are aware that a civil war raged in Ethiopia for more than 30 years. But few realize that it was a religious war--between Muslim Eritrea and Christian Ethiopia--in which tens of thousands perished. Many know that the people of East Timor were savaged, but it is rarely mentioned that most East Timorese are Christian, while the Indonesian militants who killed many of them and brutalized the refugees in West Timor are Muslim. Indeed, Christians in other parts of Indonesia have hardly fared better; for instance, thousands died during riots in the Moluccan Islands in 2000. The bloody war in the Sudan, similarly, pits the Muslim government in the North against the Christian and animist South. And in Nigeria, as Muslims try to impose a strict version of the legal code called sharia in several provinces, armed conflicts between Muslims and Christians have erupted and thousands have died. Just lately, in the Ivory Coast, Muslims in the North have been attacking Christians in the South. On a smaller scale but very much along the same lines, scores of Coptic Christians were killed in Egypt in January 2000; several churches were burned in Kenya the following year. It seems somehow inflammatory to point to the religious element of these and many other conflicts. Nearly every day, meanwhile, some scholar assures us that Islam is a peaceable and loving religion. What is going on here? >From the beginning, Islam drew a distinction between Christians and Jews and other non-Muslims. The former were "people of the book." They had to pay special taxes and wear identifying clothing, yet their status reflected a certain respect for what Muslims saw as the earlier but incomplete and corrupted revelation recorded in the Bible. In the modern period, Christians and Jews are typically called Kuffr, or infidels. In countries under strict sharia, apostasy is a capital crime, and in the minds of extremists like Osama bin Laden, infidels too deserve death. While Muslim societies differ widely in their levels of tolerance, pluralism, and religious freedom, full respect for Christianity is virtually absent. This matter came up last spring at a conference held by Iranian reformers in Isfahan. The gathering brought together a number of Islamic and Western intellectuals in opposition to the thesis advanced by Samuel Huntington of Harvard University that Western and Islamic civilizations are bound to clash. During his presentation, Ebrahim Moosa, an imam from South Africa now teaching at Duke University, urged that Islam be recast so as to accommodate liberal attitudes. He stressed the need for three changes: recognition of women's equality with men; toleration of capitalism; and recognition of the full dignity and humanity of nonbelievers. But we are still waiting to hear from many other Muslim leaders as to whether they wish to move Islam in this direction. The White House has solid tactical reasons for stating and restating that our fight is only with terrorists, not Muslims. We must face the fact, however, that while the prophet has many moderate followers, the terrorists command great sympathy in the Islamic world not only because Islamic populations are anti-American or anti-Western, but also because the terrorists are attacking infidels. An elderly Afghan freed from detention at Guantanamo last week made a telling statement to a Washington Post reporter: "The Americans treated me well, but they were not Muslims, so I didn't like them." It is true that other religions have passed through violent and intolerant phases. And it is possible that moderate interpretations of Islam may again come to predominate. But we shall be unable to recognize and foster that development if we refuse to acknowledge that the violence currently erupting in many parts of the Islamic world is aimed not simply at the political and economic leadership of the West but also at its Judeo-Christian tradition. When Christians and Jews are no longer characterized as Kuffr, we shall know we have turned a corner. =================================== |
This is a really long on-going discussion between Steve and a fellow named N. The correspondence is frank. Steve welcomes coments at talkinternational@yahoo.com The discussion started about a tree... and grew to include Islam... > From: N Sent: Thursday, May 27, 2004 3:59 AM > To: Steve McCrea > Subject: RE: reply > Steve, Thankyou for being so understanding! I know I shouldn't let it bother me, but I react badly - very critically - to vagueness or lack of clarity, as it seems to leave so much confusion and extra work in it's wake. I guess it was that that partly triggered my sarcasm. ++++++++++++++++ STEVE REPLIES > I'm a minimalist, too, although I put it in other terms. Why use an > elephant gun to kill a sparrow? > Why use millions of decrees C to boil water? (renewables instead of nuclear power) > Look at the life cycle costs, not the purchase price.... what will the costs of the project be over time. > That's why the tree is just a symbol and the cheaper the better. The plaque is under $100, cheaper than the $600 brass that I was initially quoted. Better to have a small plaque and a web address than to expend many dollars to create a perfect plaque. Better to get the money to work in the endowment fund than to build an altar to old staff. Can we move an electron and then watch the chain reaction? Why push hard when we need only step aside? If you haven't heard of aikido, I'm sure you will find it attractive. Allow the force of the enemy to be used against himself. In Iraq, the USA would do well to stop pushing and start pulling away. Minimal effort is often the humbler, less self=centered approach. Bravo to you. "Minimalists of the world, stay where you are." *(this is a poor paraphrasing of Marx's call to Workers of the > world...) > Another aspect of minimalism.... "Good enough." My wife thinks I'm Russian, as in Boris Goodenof... Rather than make a fabulous job, I'll do it "good enough." === Steve > > So, I salute you, fellow minimalist. If you care to send a memory or > a tribute to a staff member,that would be a minimal effort…and > wouldachieve the same thing. I have the first page started at > www.oocities.org/talkinternational1 /watts.html ++++++++++++++++++++ FROM N.... As for Iraq, I wonder if it really matters what happens to them, or what the Americans and British do. Despite a veneer of civilisation, all Arab nations tend to fall into the bottom of the heap of humanity when it comes to civilised practices (they are still barbaric) and the awareness of the rights of the individual. Good grief, in about 1997 the Egyptian government even reversed a law they had just passed, prohibiting the practice of female genital mutilation. If that practice is not barbaric, I don't know what is. --- N ====================== FROM STEVE I've had the pleasure of teaching math to students from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Very polite and civilized people. It's hard to characterize all Arabnations as barbaric. I don't defend the governments, but many of the people who experience life in the USA and Europe tend to altertheir viewpoints and become more moderate. The writings of Karen Armstrong have made more more optimistic. You're right… I'm a conservationist… ++++++++++++++++++ Steve Yes, well, your reply looks to me like a sort of "As a matter of fact some of my best friends are Iraquis and they don't seem to to eat their own children alive..." So you taught maths to Arabs? How droll. My history lessons informed me that the Arabs taught us maths (algebra) in the first place. You say you hear me? Then listen more carefully please, this time. In my eMail I wasn't talking about the Arab people, I was talking about the Arab nations. I am sure the Arabs you met, like most Arabs, were very nice, and probably just like you and me, the only real difference being a different - sometimes quite alien to us - CFR (cultural framework of reference) with which they view the world. As you pointed out "...many of the people who experience life in the USA and Europe tend to alter their viewpoints and become more moderate". That's because they were able to adjust their CFR. It's the same as what I did when I lived and worked in SE Asia for a few years. Nothing to it, usually. The difficulty comes when, for example, some Muslims might have the same experience of Europe (say) as those you have observed, but they make no similar CFR adjustment, and end up hating the "lax and liberal" and non-Muslim standards of their hosts. The thing is that the latter leads to the sort of situation you get in the UK, for example, where there are fundamentalist Muslim clerics living in the country and preaching a fanatical hatred towards non-Muslims. I sometimes wonder why these people don't go back where they came from if it's so horrible where they are currently living, but that's another matter. I don't recall reading anything by Karen Armstrong, but what gave me hope was the Stanford Research Institute's report "The Changing Image of Man", published in the 1980's, I think (that's when I read it). That was compiled from the collected thinking of a number of erudite and internationally recognised scholars and thinkers from different parts of the world. They postulated a model for change - a graph - which had things like 2 sine waves moving in a recurring cycle through time on the X-axis, up from zero on the left hand side to a higher number (a measure of development) on the Y-axis on the right hand side. This graph represented a journey along a continuum. These two sine waves, they postulated, were out of sync, diametrically opposed at times, and intercepting at intervals, making a chain pattern. One sine wave was the image enforced or published by the CFR of a nation state, and the other was the IPM (the image in the people's minds in that nation state) as to what humanity was about or what it was possible for humanity to be about. The thinking was that when these two were furthest apart, then there was the greatest pull for convergence, and so they did converge, and then intersected. Thus, sometimes the CFR was leading the way (i.e. it was ahead of the IPM, dragging it along, as it were), and sometimes vice versa. This abstract concept was seen to have been in operation in Hitler's Nazi Germany, and in Iran, where in both cases the CFR was so out of whack with the IPM, that something (the CFR) had to give - had to change - and it did. Japan would be another example. Look how their CFR has been changed. Because this cyclical chain pattern trended upwards from left to right, the model did not suggest the possibility of something such as a falling back into the Dark Ages, for example. So it was a positive view of a future in which each change in society was an incremental change - ratchetting up the chain continuum - improvement, however hopeless we seemed as a species at present. At any rate, this chain concept made me more optimistic about mankind's future, though I still become frustrated with us. As W.Edwards Deming said, when asked by one of his MIT students what slogan he thought they should put on a T-shirt to support the Deming Quality Institute, "Why are we all so damn stupid?" (It was a good question and also a good slogan, but that was the point - Deming abhorred slogans because he reckoned they stopped us from thinking - but not many people seem to know about Deming's 14-point philosophy, and why that remark had different meanings - it was so very true to the point, and also a rather funny but sad reflection on the student in question - who had the same difficulty in changing his CFR as I and many others had when attempting to understand how Deming needed us to change our thinking.) In the case of some Arab non-democratic and repressive states (some possibly fascist states or dictatorships), we can see examples of how the Muslim religion has been and still is used as a device for manipulating the people and wielding power over them. The Arab nations are still held back in this way - the CFR is cruel and rigid and dictated by the state (and incidentally, it seems to be the men and not the women who devise and perpetuate the cruellest CFRs). This is how it used to be all across Europe, with Christianity, before the Reformation. The Arab nations may not be able to move forwards without having their own Reformation, and I suspect it has to come from within - the IPM leading the CFR to the next level up. In the longer term, it will probably happen, but, in the shorter term, as I said "As for Iraq, I wonder if it really matters what happens to them, or what the Americans and British do." - they are stuck where they are, at the bottom of the heap. And this is why Arabs generally - and Egyptians particularly because of their barbarism (QED) - are still not the sort of people I'd like to invite round for tea, unless they demonstrated a recognition of the need for them to pull themselves as a nation or nations up by their own bootstraps. We could all learn a lot from people such as that, and I would even give them cake to encourage them to stay a little longer. Why am I telling you this? Are you interested? I don't know and I suspect not, respectively. Thinking too much hurts one's head, and changing one's cherished and unfounded beliefs is painful for the ego, and so both are best avoided at all costs. Still, I am interested in these things, which are not based on principles and not on my beliefs, and anyway, I think I enjoy the attempt at communication. I think it was the famous American economist J.K.Galbraith who once said, "Given the choice between changing one's mind and proving one's point of view, most people get busy with the proof." ;-) Regards, N ++++++++++++++++++++ FROM N.... As for Iraq, I wonder if it really matters what happens to them, or what the Americans and British do. Despite a veneer of civilisation, all Arab nations tend to fall into the bottom of the heap of humanity when it comes to civilised practices (they are still barbaric) and the awareness of the rights of the individual. Good grief, in about 1997 the Egyptian government even reversed a law they had just passed, prohibiting the practice of female genital mutilation. If that practice is not barbaric, I don't know what is. It's like they are still learning to be inhumane and barbaric and have yet to get to the hellish level of the Europeans as they were in the Middle Ages and Dark Ages. Maybe they have to go through that baptism of fire before they can come out changed. Whether Iraq is occupied or not, unless something changes internally, they will continue to hate, fight and kill each other as they have successfully been doing for centuries, despite being "Arab brothers". They have also yet to go through the change that most of the Western world experienced, where the church and the state were separated (even in Italy). Consequently, religion and power are still combined in those God-forsaken Arab countries, and I'm not sure that Israel is not included in that group. I reckon it all boils down to tribalism and religious differences. In Northern Ireland, the Protestants and Catholics continue to fight and kill one another in the same way, Christian against Christian, as the Arabs fight amongst themselves, Muslim against Muslim - in both cases, each believes the opponent's religious views are not quite "right" enough to alow them to live. Which are madder? The Arabs or the Northern Irish? Your guess is as good as mine. The trouble is, there are a lot more of the Arabs, and they have not been contained in their territory, and longer term may (actually do now) present a threat to the rest of humanity if they continue the way they have been going. A bit like the Japanese before the US dropped a couple of bombs on them to make them rethink their strategy. N.... ==================== +++++++++++++++++ Good to hear from you. I have missed our email exchanges. By the way, the apple tree (a species I never suggested) produced two apples already...and were flown to the Wattses. I take no credit for this. Kudos to Rebecca at Alumni office. She has a photo if you're interested Steve McCrea -----Original Message----- From: N Sent: Friday, October 08, 2004 10:38 PM To: Steve McCrea Subject: The Weekly Standard - article "Killing Christians" (Nov. 2002) Steve How are you? I'm having a ball. Tonight I go out to a religious party to celebrate a young girl's coming-of-age - she is going to have her clitoris and vaginal labia removed under local anaesthetic in front of the assemblage. ============ You are a clever fellow! t's a great honour for her - and of course for us too, to witness such an occasion. After that we will stone one of the women in the girl's family who would not stay in her burka in public, AND she wore makeup. She's considered to be just a prostitute for that, of course - and she's damnably attractive too, bitch. However, her husband seems a little subdued by it all. He'll get over it - he has two other wives. In the belief that you are still trying to think about the food for thought that I gave you, I thought you could find this article (follows) useful additional fodder. I found it on a new (for me) web site: http://www.frontpagemag.com /Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=4560 =========== Thanks for the link. == Steve Some people might say that the more Christians that were killed, the better, but I couldn't possibly comment. What would you say? Regards, N-al-Afathead ================ Many thanks, Estefe al-InShallah-eet-Mai-Hat a.k.a. Steve ================= To: Steve McCrea [analyst@comcast.net] Subject: Mango tree. Sent: 2004/08/17 at 11:30 Message: Hi Steve, So, how did you get on with your pondering? Did you change your thinking or was it in the " too hard" basket? Probably best to carry on as you were, I expect - right? I hope the mango tree planted for the Wattses didn't get killed by the frost. Regards, N ============= From: Steve McCrea [analyst@comcast.net] To: N Bcc: Subject: much Time: 2004/06/05 at 23:56 Message: Thanks for the reference to the refusenik page. You've given me much to ponder. Steve I believe that vitriol andstrong words like these given above will be discussed best with yahoo instant messenger and other ways of getting students in the West and students in Islamic countries talking to each other... and even having students in Islamic Bronx taking with students in Fort Lauderdale... -- Steve |