The Ground Zero mosque

It's really shocking to witness the discourse that's happening around me about this proposed Islamic center near Ground Zero in New York City.
When I say shocking, I really mean shocking. I am completely dumbfounded by what I'm reading, hearing and seeing. It's quite sad that the American public has descended into such a state of sheer insanity and bigotry. Now, I realize that many of us are privately bigoted in our own way, but we usually keep that to ourselves. Sadly, the situation now has changed and deteriorated into open hostility.
When someone, until a few years ago, wanted to build a mosque somewhere here in the States, sometimes certain obstacles would be placed in front of those wanting to build it. They would hear something about "traffic", or "permits" or something like that. Now, it is openly and blatantly anti-Islamic.
Narrow-minded, fear-mongering politicians like Sarah Palin or Newt Gingrich have descended into pure hatred. I can find no other word or it. I was watching AC360 on CNN a few days ago and was shocked into silence (which doesn't happen easily I have to say) by one guest. He was some idiot fundamentalist Christian preacher who was clearly driven by a pathological hatred for Islam. Again, he has the right to hate Islam, but his hatred was coupled with ignorance and narrow mindedness (which I think usually go hand in hand). He said that Muslim Americans really can't be regarded as real citizens because they have pledged allegiance to "Allah".
Humm, interesting.
How about we have them walk around with a crescent sewn into their clothes and painted on their homes? How about we prohibit them from owning businesses?
Do any of these suggestions sound familiar?
Gingrich said that we cannot permit mosques to be built in the US as long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia.
Incredible, so we are now comparing our political system to that of Saudi Arabia?
Instead of calling on them to open up their backwards and puritanically repressive system, we will instead sink down to their level.
Right. That's really nice.
I won't even talk about the wretched things being said on right wing blogs.
It really is scary.
What I'm seeing around me is truly frightening.
I can find no other words to describe it.
I applaud Bloomberg for his words and stance on this issue.
I'll get into what I personally think about this issue later.

Blindness

I was having this discussion about politics and religion and how they interact in this part of the world a while back and was completely dumbfounded by just how ignorant most people are. I would not like to use the word stupid, but perhaps it wouldn't be too out of place here.
I was comparing the situation in the Arab world with how things are in Europe or the USA and the guy interrupts me, "what the USA?" he shouted, "those kafirs (infidels)? How can you talk about them? Those are people that do nothing but have sex with each other all day and take each others' wives.?
Needless to say, they guy had never been to the USA, he had never even been outside of Egypt.
"How do you know such things?" I asked.
"It is very well known how corrupt the west is. Their fate is to burn in hell," He responded with apparent happiness at the conclusion.
I am well aware that such ignorance is present in many parts of Europe, as well as the USA, about the rest of the world, especially the Muslim world, but the problem is the in the Muslim world it is the extremists who are loud and are forcing their ideas on the rest of society.
Another time i was having a discussion about religion with another guy i know who is Christian (Coptic that is). I was also in a complete state of shock about just how narrow minded people can get. Perhaps is is the culture in this part of the world, it's not only the religion.
The discussion was about the various prophets that God is supposed to have sent to humanity. I asked the guy to forget about religion for a moment and just discuss God. His response was to talk about Jesus. When i asked him to just forget about Jesus for a minute so we can talk about the various religions in the world today, his response was this "I am not talking about any religion here, i am talking about Jesus, Jesus has nothing to do with religion. How can you be so simple?"
When i tried to tell him that Jesus is the Christian way of looking at things and that others might disagree with him, he would not even admit this, to him Jesus was "beyond religion and not a Christian figure."
The discussion ended there, because there was no need to go on. If i am trying to talk "outside religion" and you still cannot remove yourself from whatever beliefs you have just for a few minutes, then it is useless.
I wonder if i had this discussion with a fanatic Muslim what would have happened?
I will have to try it sometime soon.
It is sad how the mass interpretation of religion is basically to blind ourselves to anything else, to each other and to the "other".
If i am a Muslim and i continue to discredit Christianity, aren't i indirectly discrediting Islam? I mean Islam is clear in saying that it is based on Christianity and is a continuation of its teachings. How can i judge someone for the beliefs that have reached them? How can held accountable for what they are being teached?
If everyone is blind, will they actually know that they are blind?
Interesting question.

The hypocrisy of Muslims and the west

I don't know why the Islamic world, and most Arabs and Muslims, are so hypocritical. Why do we treat the world in way different than we would like to be treated?
Saudi Arabia is a prime example of this hypocrisy. There are no churches in Saudi Arabia, actually nothing that is not Muslim. I am sure that some of the large expatriate compounds might have a "place" of worship, but the fact remains that it is forbidden to build anything that is not Muslim in Saudi Arabia, the same goes for the bible. It is illegal to have a bible in Saudi Arabia, and even if not "illegal" outright, I doubt you would be able to bring it into the country if customs officials find it in your luggage.
I am not even going to talk about pork.
Even in the more open Arab countries, say Egypt, Jordan or Syria (I am talking open in the social sense, not the political. Syria is definitely not open politically), it is very, very difficult to build a church. Anyone that is even suspected of proselytizing is harshly punished. The media is filled with Islamic shows, Muslim preachers and clerics, but there is nothing to serve the substantial Christian minorities there. Only recently through satellite television and the internet have these minorities been able to assert some of their views, and this has only led to even more tension.
It is a common source of tension, even violence, in a place like Egypt when Christians decide to build a church. The residents of the area will sometime rise up and prevent the church from being built.
How dare those Christians build a church here? A church? Here? Next to our mosque? Never.
With this in mind, now look at Muslim activity in the west. I do not think that there are many limitations to their activity, whether building mosques, preaching or proselytizing. Many Muslim clerics are very open and honest about their "da'wa" or efforts to spread Islam among westerners. Compare that to any Christian who goes public with his intentions to convert Muslims.
Muslims in the west do of course face problems, there is no doubt about that, but most are problems that can be overcome.
Muslims do not accept any limitations on their faith in the west, but yet have no problem putting limitations on others back in a Muslim country. I had a friend who was living in Saudi Arabia for a while. He got into a minor traffic accident and so went to the police station, with the other guy, (remember, women can't drive in Saudi Arabia) to file a report. When the cops there found out that he was Christian, they kept him in the police station for hours, I think he said close to seven hours, trying to convince him to convert to Islam, saying things like "oh come on, you know its better, convert."
Now imagine the reaction in the Muslim world if this had happened to a Muslim somewhere in Europe, or even some small town in the middle of nowhere in the states, in Texas or Arkansas or something. Muslims would be rioting in the streets.
I do not know when the Middle East will join the rest of humanity, maybe once Muslims realize that the beliefs of others are just as valid as theirs and learn to tolerate them.
I honestly do not know when this will happen, but it doesn't look like it will be anytime soon.

Middle class activism and the old man

I've been looking around at the different blogs/sites, etc, set up by Egyptian activists. It is scary, very scary, and quite sad to see the lengths that this government will go to in order to silence people.
We are not talking about bearded Muslim fundementalists, we are speaking about highly educated, liberal, middle class Egyptians. We are talking about people who know about the rest of the world and want Egypt to finally be something other than the private property of its ruler, whether sultan, king or "president".
Throughout history, real movements of change have always sprung from the middle class. That's where real innovation comes from. The rich are usually happy with their circumstances and fear change, while the poor are, in most cases, too busy trying to survive to think of any kind of meaningful change, other than hating the rich.
But the middle class, they are different, they have the time and the education to work for a better system. The status quo for them is not always to their benefit like the rich, but they also posses enough capabilities to look beyind their day to day existence.
No wonder most of the world's oppressors have always come down hard on the middle class. There is no reason for the current Egyptian regime be any different.
The problem though with the current regime in Egypt is that it is creating enemies everywhere, or at least it has become so paranoid that is seeing enemies everywhere. Everywhere you go, you seem to see one of those huge central security vehicles. Whenever there is any gathering of people of any sort, there they are with their sticks, shields and guns.
Sometimes i think that if i have a really big party at my place they'll come knocking, just to make sure that we're not saying anything we shouldn't be.
Sad, very sad. The regime is like one of those grumpy old men we see, always frowning and always with a stick in hand to smack anyone he doesn't like.
Now that stick can hurt, actually from what i read, it can hurt alot, but the hand that is holding it is old, shaky and very insecure.
I am happy to see the beginnings of political activity in Egypt's middle class because there was a need for someone else to talk besides the Islamist opposition.
The government will come down hard, very hard, i am sure of this.
Let's see how long that old man can swing that stick...

The old man of the world

What is insanity? How do we know that a person is insane? If a person thinks that he is the only sane person, while the rest of the world around them is crazy, does that count as insanity? Parania? If one believes that the whole world is out to get them, for whatever reason, can we call that person unstable? unbalanced?

Ok, so what about cultures and socities? Can they suffer from those conditions as well? Can a culture or a society be considered as a living person? Why not i say, that would surely explain a lot.

Arab socities, if that above metioned definitions are correct, are totally crazy, insane, unstable, paranoid, whatever the word you'd prefer can be used here.

Why? Well, they seem to think that the whole world is out to get them, everyone, from the smallest to the largest nations. are conspiring against them, to keep them down, to prevent "the great Arabs" from ever rising up and "taking their rightful place" in the world. Interesting, i wonder what professional pshyciatry would think of this.

A man, old, wrinkled, angry, bitter, mentally rigid. He had some "good days" in the past when he did have some respect among other men but now all of this is gone. No one pays his any attention because he going senile, he only speaks nonsense. Those around him really don't get the stuff he's talking about. He sits there talking to himself, cursing everyone else for being different, for ignoring him, but cannot comprehend the idea that it might be him that is at fault, not that's can't be, everyone's just gone crazy.

"I am great," the old man says, "in my youth i did this and that, everyone feared me, they respected me. I think i'll just sit here and think about the good old days, but first i must shut everyone up, because their talking, their culture, their ideas, their mere appearence really disturbes me, i can't think about my glory if i have to listen to that garbage."

This is the Arab world, this is the medieval mentality that is like a black spot on the face of the world.

Whenever anyone says anything to the old man, he quicly shuts them up, by violence if necessary.

Now we woudn't want to disturb that old man now would we.

A Danish newspaper publishes a few cartoons or caricatures about the Muslim Prophet Mohammad. Some of them were silly, some immature, while others were just dirty and downright insulting. This wasn't something new, such things have appeared regularly in European papers and other publications. I really don't see what the problem was here in this case. Anyway, the Muslim world, at least segments of it, just exploded. I admit that I did not see that coming because it had been months since the Danish incident and I noticed that people around me had not even taken much notice of this.
I believe that this should teach us a lot of lessons about the psyche in the Muslim world and how people in this area really think and respond to provocations. I use the world provocation because those cartoons are an insult and a provocation in the Muslim. There is a cultural difference here. The Muslim world is not very tolerant when it comes to some religious issues. The level of maturity that it takes to accept such things is still not present here. I'm sure this day will come, but it just won't be now.
Another important lesson, perhaps even more important, is that the extremists voice in a lot louder than the moderate voice in this part of the world. While most moderate Muslims were offended and upset at the cartoons, they understood well the cultural differences with Europe and knew that such open attacks on religion and religious figures was a normal occurrence. The extremists on the other hand have no such understanding and no such tolerance of any cultural differences. The self victimize that the Arab/Muslim world loves to wallow in, in addition to the sense of injustice, were the fuel that the extremists used to ignite this fire. Such a fire played right into their hands. The religious fanatics are as equally fanatically opposed to the west and all its ideals. When the west is demonized and portrayed as a group of Islam-hatters and racists then this makes the process of demonizing western ideas a lot more easier and this is the fanatics' ultimate aim.
We have alll also learned the true power of the media and how it, for months, slowly stocked the fires of anger among Muslims until the situation exploded. The incitement in the Arab media was incredible with everyone, religious leaders, political leaders, journalists, all tripping over each other trying to outbid each other and appear as the loudest defender of the faith.
I don't know what else to say except that when a western cartoon tried to portray Muslims as violent, barbaric and intolerant, then the response here should have been the opposite. The response should have been a calm, logical and quiet dialogue or even a lawsuit, a lobbying of European lawmakers about the incident. Instead, the response we saw, deadly violence, churches burnt, embassies destroyed, merely confirmed this stereotype that those "Arabs" really are like that the cartoons implied.
Was this really worth it? Are Muslims so insecure that a couple of drawings can shake their faith. If we are as strong in our faith as we say we are, if we are secure in our beliefs, then such things shouldn't rattle us, we shouldn't give them a second glance. Instead, the response here caused the cartoons to be republished all across the world and everyone got to see them. The whole matter was counterproductive, but the real threat is the increased sense of power that extremists have, the sense that they are in the lead and have caused some sort of religious revival in the region, an Islamic rebirth.
We just have to wait and see what those religious nuts are going to do next. Needless to say there will be those in Europe who will no doubt do something else that Muslims extremists will use.
I can only tell the civilized world to treat us like children, because we are the young and immature member of the global family, we don't think much before we act, we have no ability to think in the long term and old stories myths about ghosts and demons, gods and devils, heaven and hell still scare us. We still need someone to sooth us and put us to bed at night and we really get upset when someone interrupts our little bedtime stories.

disgust

I've been sitting watching the political developments here and i've reached a point of utter disgust. I never thought that'd i'd actually feel this negatively, but i do. There is absolutely no hope for change, we knew that, but i had actually hoped that there was some shame left in those ruling this country, some hint of any kind of honesty, self respect, but even that seemed to have been too much to hope for.
The recent parliamentary elections have shown, once and for all, that we are ruled by a group of self serving, isolated hypocrites who will stop at nothing to maintain the status quo. The level of corruption and nepotism in this country is so high it smells and i must say that the stench is becoming unbearable. What can we do? What can the average person do? Absolutely nothing and that's how they want it to stay.
Yusif Wali, the vice head of the ruling National Democratic Party and the former long time (over 20 years) minister of agriculture is widely suspected (dare i say known) to be a corrupt figure, so corrupt in fact that he authorized the entrance into Egypt of pesticides that were internationally known to be harmful, he even went so far as to cancel the committee that regulated the importation of pesticides. For those that do not know, Egypt is heavily dependent on pesticides with one of the world's highest consumptions of such materials, considering the size of its agricultural land.
Anyway, to make a long and depressing story short, Wali was nominated again by the NDP in the parliamentary elections. What the hell were they thinking? Have they no shame? Ok, he lost in the second round but what'sthe difference here? Any self respecting party would not have nominated such a figure in the first place, but like i said, self respect and shame are not abundant charecteristics in this part of the world
I do not mean to pick on Wali in particular, he is just an example of the level of stench in the Egyptian political system. It's sickening, i really really feel disgusted at what i see here. I am not even going to mention the blatant cases of rigging, violence and voter intimidation that went on. All of those were well documented in some of the respected independent papers here. But this is what i mean, it becomes well know that a certain NDP candidate has won his seat by full blown rigging and intimidation, yet that person, without missing a beat, or flinching an eyebrow, goes ahead and gets his parliamentary documents. Again, no shame, no self respect, no nothing.
Before the elections, the president and the rest of the NDP kept talking and talking about the need to increase the political participation of women and Copts but then what happened? They nominated about 6 women and 4 or 5 copts i think, that's out of 444 candidates. That's one percent, one freakin' percent and with the exception of the one Coptic government minister, they all lost.
It would have been nice to see more Copts in the parliament to counterbalance the increased number of Muslim Brotherhood members there. Does no one think? Are they only after their own personal interests?
I used to hope not, but now i know that this is the truth. I don't think any amount of deodorant can cover a smell like this.