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Shameless Advice

Posted September 17th, 2014 by Lesley Hazleton

The advice-to-young-people racket is utterly shameless. Even William Burroughs gave in to the temptation, proving that the best advice-to-young-people may be to ignore all advice-to-young-people. Unless, of course, it comes from The Stranger, Seattle’s ornery, Pulitzer-prize-winning alternative weekly, whose annual back-to-school issue confronts incoming freshpeople with all manner of weird, ironic, and occasionally even useful advice on life, love, and… oh yes, sex.

This year, they decided to go for broke and include religion, and who else would they turn to but the Accidental Theologist? — who obligingly came up with ten questions for “young people” to ask if they’re trying to choose a religion:

1. How loud do its proponents talk? If they’re shouting, that doesn’t make what they say truer. On the contrary: There’s generally an inverse relationship between decibels and truth. Besides, do you really enjoy being preached at?

2. Do they know what God wants/thinks/intends? If so, either they are God or they think they are God. That’s called heresy if you’re religious, and psychosis if you’re not.

3. Are they obsessed with sex? If they’re threatened by women or are LGBT-phobic, there’s weird sexual stuff going on. If you’re similarly threatened and phobic, Westboro Baptist Church or Mars Hill Church will happily provide a home for your penis.

4. Do they have good music? Christians might have this one beat (Bach’s Mass in B minor, gospel music…), but if you’ve never heard Pakistan’s Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, you have an ecstatic Sufi feast in store.

5. Talking of feasts, do they have good food? Communion wafer, anyone? At least Jews have matzo-ball soup and four glasses of wine at Passover. And Muslims get to dine on fatted lamb at Eid al-Adha—but winelessly.

6. Do they cite chapter and verse at you? This is the primo tactic of fundamentalists: cherry-picked quotes, out of context. Try tossing this one back at them: “The letter kills, but the spirit gives life.” (And since they can’t hear you unless you add numbers, that’s 2 Corinthians 3:6.)

7. Do they have any idea what “metaphor” means? If not, gently suggest they sign up for English Literature 101—no, demand it. Do not put up with literalism.

8. Are they into social justice? That’s the essential subtext of both the Bible and the Quran: social and economic protest against corrupt elites. The Big Three monotheisms began as the Occupy movements of the ancient Middle East. Where do you think Marx got his ideas from?

9. Do they insist on your swearing belief/loyalty/obedience? If they lack a sense of mystery and claim to have all the answers, run like hell. That’s not faith, that’s dogma.

10. Are they into joy? Do they celebrate life—in this world, not a next one? Do they make you want to laugh, cry, hug, dance, stay up all night and watch the sunrise? Do they make you happy and grateful and goddamn humbled by this strange thing we call existence? A++ if they do.

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File under: agnosticism, Christianity, existence, fundamentalism, Islam, Judaism | Tagged: Tags: 2014 Back to School Issue, advice-to-young-people, ten questions, The Stranger | 14 Comments
  1. Chad says:
    September 17, 2014 at 12:14 pm

    Well said. Can’t think of any more questions to add. Of course, by following these wuestions, a person would have excluded the vast majority of religions out there. So we are better off drawing our own path to spirituality. And I am guessing that’s why you put between quotation marks the words “choosing a religion”. Awesome.

    By the way, speaking of great spiritual music, one great Sufi musician who is trying to bring Sufi music into the 21st century and also adding jazz influences is Dhafer Youssef. Check out his album labelled “Electric Sufi”. Would love to hear your feedback about it if you do check it out!

  2. Katherine Sbarbaro says:
    September 17, 2014 at 2:03 pm

    Shoot! Why weren’t you around giving out advice when I was a kid?! I LOVE #10 – the be all and end all of what any religion should be about. Thank you, Lesley Hazleton. You’re my heroine for today.

  3. Nuzhat says:
    September 17, 2014 at 8:56 pm

    Spot on Lesley, as usual. Do call me when the mullahs/ evangelists etc. come for you….you’ve touched the rawest nerves!

  4. Nancy McClelland says:
    September 17, 2014 at 9:44 pm

    Love it. LOVE it. Well done.

  5. jveeds says:
    September 18, 2014 at 11:13 am

    Excellent job Lesley.

    On a side note, I discovered your “First Muslim,” “After the Prophet” and “Mary” books a year ago and highly recommend them to others.

    • amin tan says:
      September 20, 2014 at 5:08 pm

      BRAVO, lesley Hazleton. I too heartily concur with Mr jweeds. It is an excellent book for Muslims as well as non muslims. The book is an intelligent insight into the events that took place more than 1400 years ago, that has so much bearing on our todays lives.

      amin tan

  6. chakaoc says:
    September 22, 2014 at 2:43 am

    Bravo, Lesley…it leaves little room for all those with an agenda other than a spiritual life.

  7. Tea-mahm says:
    September 22, 2014 at 8:48 am

    Yes! to post on every playground fence, How about daycare centers. Come to think of it waterproof-words on every shower stall at school and home, and at the grandparents’ house!

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      September 22, 2014 at 7:06 pm

      Waterproofed words? Love it, T!

  8. Bernard S. Sadowski says:
    September 24, 2014 at 2:10 pm

    Fantastic! I am a 75 year – old Roman Catholic who needed to read this. Thank you!!!

  9. Omer says:
    October 4, 2014 at 10:29 pm

    Leslie,

    As a theist and a Muslim, I resonate with much of what you say.

    Just now, I saw your interview with Edip Yuksel. I liked your candor and I appreciate your openness to his views. Thanks much for that openness.

    I completely agree that it is indeed sheer arrogance for someone (finite creation) to know the will of God (the transcendent One) in some all encompassing way.

    I feel (and agree) that many of your points you provided to this Seattle paper speak to this snobbish attitude (of some who try to manipulate religion).

    Regarding your last point, I think that if one views this transitory life of ours as a test for the everlasting life ahead, then to me it is wise to prepare for that immortal hereafter.

    However, I empathize that if we don’t appreciate and wonder about this strange thing called existence, then we have not reflected enough. Such reflection should lead us to celebrate life.

    As a theist, I think it should also lead us to celebrate the source of all existence.

    Also, if we don’t strive to make life good in the here and now and to do so for all people, then we are being selfish and I agree that is a shortcoming.

    Thanks for sharing and thanks much for hearing me as well.

  10. Brigitte Lee says:
    October 30, 2014 at 12:45 pm

    I read ‘The First Muslim’, and ‘Zealot:the life and times of Jesus of Nazareth’. Very informative.
    Is there a comparable, factual book on the historical basis of Judaism?
    Thanks for any suggestion.

    Brigitte Lee

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      November 8, 2014 at 10:09 am

      Well of course there’s my own book ‘Jezebel,’ which reaches from Jezebel’s epic confrontation with Elijah in the 9th century BC to the Babylonian exile three hundred years later, when much of the bible as we know it was written. For a more general introduction, you might want to take a look at Simon Schama’s ‘The Story of the Jews,’ which takes the story up to 1492 AD.

      • Brigitte Lee says:
        November 8, 2014 at 2:25 pm

        Thank you very much. I am looking forward to reading your book.

        Brigitte Lee

“I Had No Idea…”

Posted May 20th, 2014 by Lesley Hazleton

macklemore2There’s a back story to this post.  I was asked to write it yesterday by Seattle’s alternative paper The Stranger.  Specifically, they asked for some “historical perspective” to singer Macklemore’s perverse twist on wardrobe malfunction onstage last Friday night, when he decided it’d be cool to perform in what’s sold in variety stores as a “Sheik/Fagin mask,” huge hook nose and all.

When the shit hit the fan, the Seattle-born Macklemore said his get-up was merely a “witch mask” and there was nothing anti-Semitic about it.  This morning, Tuesday, he finally issued an apology: “I had no idea,” he said.  And later this morning, despite huge numbers of comments on its coverage, The Stranger decided that “this story is over.”

I disagree, so am posting what I wrote right here:

———

For years I thought of myself as a wandering Jew. I moved not just between cities but between continents — London to Jerusalem to New York to Seattle. It was as though I fit the stereotype of the “rootless cosmopolitan.” Yet while I now seem to have become rooted after all, or at least as rooted as anyone whose houseboat floats on forty feet of water can be, I still can’t help thinking of rootless cosmopolitanism – anti-Semitic code for shiftless, untrustworthy, disloyal Jewishness — as a rather attractive existential state of being. And I still romanticize the idea of the wandering Jew, even though I know it began as an anti-Semitic legend in Christian Rome.

The story goes that a Jewish cobbler wouldn’t allow Christ to rest on his stoop during the trek to Golgotha, for which Christ condemned him to wander the world for eternity, with no rest. The Crusaders brought the legend back to England in the 12th century, where it was embroidered and expanded, and where this particular wandering Jew was born several centuries later. I’d be the only Jew in a Catholic convent school whose nuns referred to me as “the Hebrew girl” — with a certain pause before the word Hebrew, as though to emphasize that they were using a delicate euphemism. At least they refrained from telling me that I’d killed Christ (or given him no rest). Instead, they told me I was going to limbo, which seemed to be a kind of mezzanine between heaven and hell. To their horror, I kind of liked the idea of limbo.

This was only a few years after the end of World War Two. No, I’m not going to bring the six million in here; I have no desire to contribute to the obscenity of invoking their memory in support of current argument. My point is that despite its anti-Nazi stance, England was still deeply anti-Semitic. Which is not surprising given that it was where the “blood libel” first burst into murderous flame.

The blood libel was a medieval urban legend about Jews ritually slaughtering Christian boys and draining their blood to mix into Passover matzos (I kid you not). It spread like wildfire. Thousands of Jews were burned alive and otherwise massacred (and several boys declared saints) until Jews were expelled completely from British shores in 1290, to be allowed back only in 1655. In the light of which, Queen Isabella of Spain’s much better-known expulsion of Spain’s Jews in 1492, followed by that of all Spain’s Muslims thirty years later, seems pretty par for the course.

The two most infamous Jews in all of literature were created by Englishmen strong and true: Shylock in the 16th century and Fagin in the 19th. Both were portrayed as hunch-backed, lecherous-lipped, greedy-eyed, and of course, flamboyantly hook-nosed (a word that is inherently prejudicial — in Arab countries, it’s known as an eagle’s nose, and has traditionally been considered a sign of nobility). But neither Fagin nor Shylock were new creations. They were personifications of cartoon stereotypes that had become widespread with printing. The Nazi tabloid Der Stürmer didn’t invent the style, but it did help propagate it so widely that it still features on hysterically anti-Semitic websites from the USA to Poland to Yemen. It appeared in Egyptian schoolbooks and newspapers for years. And it turned up with an ironic twist in Denmark in 2006 with the publication of cartoons caricaturing Muhammad and all Muslims as terrorists, all with the “Sheik/Fagin nose” sold so amusingly as a mask at party stores. One Semite apparently looks pretty much like another.

Mild-mannered Seattle might seem a sweet respite from all this. Yet it was in Seattle that I first heard someone say “he Jewed me down” — quite blithely, with no self-consciousness, as though it were perfectly normal. Here that someone tried to make me her token Jew (“Wow, I’ve never had a Jewish friend before,” she said, and she didn’t after either). Here that a former Catholic schoolboy who didn’t realize I was Jewish (“that’s Jewish, you don’t look funny” went the old music-hall joke) assumed that I’d join him in changing the words of the carol “Joy to the world” to “Fuck all the Jews.” Here that I get a finger-pointing “you people” or “you Jews” as I’m held responsible for the actions of an Israeli government I criticize far more bitterly than those to whom the accusatory fingers belong. And it’s here, in the comments on The Stranger’s coverage of the Macklemore affair, that I find all the usual anti-Semitic code words: “touchy,” “thin-skinned,” and that old standby “pushy.”

Seattle is a young city, almost an ahistorical one compared to Jerusalem, and this ahistorical sense has allowed me to find calm writerly perspective on what happened halfway round the world in the Middle East of fifteen hundred, two thousand, even three thousand years ago. I’m immensely grateful for that. But could an absence of historical awareness just be another way of saying innocence? Or should that be ignorance?

When the subject of literary fraud came up in conversation not long ago, for instance, I mentioned the most infamous example of all – “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” And was stunned to realize that nobody had heard of this screed, which first surfaced in Russia in 1903. Purportedly the record of a meeting of leading Jews plotting to take over the world, it’s a classic demonstration of the ornate convolutions performed by the paranoid-conspiratorial mind, and has thus proved remarkably resilient to all evidence that it’s a fiction. Hitler made much use of it, of course, and America’s own tainted automotive titan Henry Ford had half a million copies printed and distributed in the 1920s. You can still find the full text on anti-Semitic websites, while print versions, complete with the usual hook-nosed illustrations, continue to sell steadily in Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East.

macklemorePerhaps Seattle is a bit less innocent after Macklemore’s now infamous twist on the idea of wardrobe malfunction. Or perhaps not. I opt to believe him when he says that he had no idea of the anti-Semitic stereotype, and can understand his initial defensiveness — nobody likes to have their unconscious biases paraded in public. But as he now acknowledges, it’s precisely this no-idea-ness that’s the problem. And that may be true for Seattle as well as for him.

We pride ourselves here on being progressive and tolerant. That’s part of our civic image. But tolerance is an ambiguous ideal. You only need to tolerate what – or whom — you don’t really accept. Stereotypes are inherent in the idea of tolerance, and until we can get beyond them, our proud progressiveness runs the risk of being… well,  just another mask.

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File under: Christianity, Judaism, ugliness | Tagged: Tags: "rootless cosmopolitan", "wandering Jew", anti-Semitism, Fagin, ignorance, innocence, Islamophobia, Macklemore, Seattle, Shylock, The Stranger | 45 Comments
  1. Mary Scriver says:
    May 20, 2014 at 6:13 pm

    Ask your nice Seattle liberals how they feel about Native Americans. Better yet, watch them walk down the sidewalk past a few guys with brown paper bags, having a great time.

    Prairie Mary

  2. candacedavis2013 says:
    May 20, 2014 at 7:10 pm

    Oh dear, the constant human need to define ourselves against some “other” that we feel free to denigrate and project on doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon. Thank you Lesley for calling us on it.
    How disappointing a species we are sometimes. Gratitudes, ace

  3. shuaib says:
    May 20, 2014 at 8:57 pm

    its a great article based on facts ,its also a fact that western civilization couldn’t have been possible without contribution the Muslims n Jews

  4. Ross says:
    May 20, 2014 at 11:25 pm

    Perhaps, as you refer to the Blood Libel in England, you are aware of this historical document. preserved in the Child Ballads? FYI anyway:
    http://www.contemplator.com/child/sirhugh.html

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      May 21, 2014 at 8:10 am

      Hadn’t seen this one before. Thanks (I think!). The one I remember because it’s wicked short is this, from about the same time: “Repent, repent, oh England / Repent while thou hast space / And do not like the wicked Jews / Deny God’s proffered grace.”

  5. fatmakalkan says:
    May 21, 2014 at 7:39 am

    Wow Lesley! Growing up at Izmir, Turkey with Jewish neighbors I never heard of this stories. There was a mutual respect one another and I never heard any belittling remarks or this kind of stereotyping. My parents let me visit Jewish neighbors by myself during my childhood because they did not have children and they adored me. Every morning they greet each other from windows or at the entrance of our apartment. Jews lived in my city or country as a respected citizens. We never mix the two. Israilie governments wrong actions towards Palestenians and our Jewish citizens .

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      May 21, 2014 at 8:15 am

      Thanks, Fatma — I appreciate the positive counter-balance.

  6. pah says:
    May 21, 2014 at 1:33 pm

    whew! Leslie…i mean this could take days and months to discuss.
    i am just re-reading “Ivanhoe” and surely Sir Walter Scott also stereotyped Jews….The truth is, as Humans, we don;t seem to move on….in fact, in may ways, we are becoming more “medieval.”
    But, on the up side, Leslie, glad to see you back in the fray. take care

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      May 21, 2014 at 2:53 pm

      You’re right: there’d be hardly any English lit left if were to judge by anti-Semitism alone. I choose to still adore T.S.Eliot, for instance, despite lines like “The Jew squats on the windowsill / The rats are underneath the piles” (Gerontion). Sigh.

      • sweetk8 says:
        May 21, 2014 at 10:40 pm

        When I suggested to my English Lit professor that T.S. Elliot was anti-Semitic, she looked at me aghast, saying it wasn’t possible! She said no one had ever broached this idea to her… I could read his works then and find instances, why was I able to, and not her or anyone else?
        I enjoyed your article and hope it brings awareness to the countless who remain in the dark about racial, ethnic and religious bias.

  7. anolivedaily says:
    May 21, 2014 at 2:18 pm

    I feel a little torn reading this. First, I think you did an amazing job of explaining the history behind this whole ordeal. I think anyone, Macklemore included, would see how offensive the costume is after reading this. But I also think to myself, do I know any better? I didn’t know most of what you wrote about. It may seem crazy, but the reality is our schools teach us white American history. Every different nationality and race are left out of the text books, or only mentioned in relation to a white American topic. It really is a shame. There should be no way a person can get into their 20s and 30s and still be ignorant about these things, but what if they are never taught?

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      May 21, 2014 at 2:45 pm

      Excellent point about the mono-cultural focus of American education (which also accounts for American helplessness with world geography). There’s a parochialism behind all this that I find very disturbing.
      I guess my point with the brief historical tour was that I fell in love with the ideas of the wandering Jew and the rootless cosmopolitan before I knew their origins in anti-Semitism — i.e. biased ideas work their into our minds without us knowing it, let alone why. I should have made that clear. But I’m sure you recognized that “Sheik/Fagin” mask nevertheless for what it was.

  8. A.J. Valliant says:
    May 21, 2014 at 7:28 pm

    The man at one point had a debilitating cough syrup addiction and saw no issue with a straight white dude being the spokesman for the LGBT community’s relationship to hip-hop.

    “Sorry, I’m more than a little slow” is a shockingly plausible defense in his case.

  9. brinkling says:
    May 21, 2014 at 8:39 pm

    Great post!! I wasn’t aware of all the history.

    It’s sad that there’s still so much ignorance and prejudice in the world.

  10. simaroseblossom says:
    May 21, 2014 at 9:21 pm

    I definitely related to a lot of what you said. I feel like Macklemore had to have known and just wanted attention. It’s so insensitive t a people that have always been put on trial.

    • M2M says:
      May 22, 2014 at 1:48 am

      Like others I had no idea about the depth and history of these feelings. I remember asking what anti-semitism actually meant after Mel Gibson made the news – or rather where it came from. – as I struggle to comprehend that people can seem to decide to hate on an entire human ‘group’ without cause. So it seems to be a believing in old/urban stories and legends? Really? Incredible. How are practical men like Henry Ford or educated men like TS Elliot able to be drawn in by this nonsense? On the other hand I have been stabbed, axed, beaten and singled out for prejudice by members of my ‘own kind’ thanks to nothing more than an accent. So I do get it. People can be shallow, arrogant, ignorant…innocent?
      Great post, thanks.
      Al

  11. shek1na says:
    May 21, 2014 at 9:46 pm

    Much of the Jew hatred today comes from Islam and the Quran, but it is not the whole picture. We must admit that much hatred throughout history have come from the so-called Christians, the Catholic Church and the Lutherans. It is unfortunately the truth.

    (Let me remind you all of Pope Urban II’s speech when he started the very first crusade. All Jews they found on the way to Jerusalem to be killed without mercy).

    Where did the Nazis come from? Only one crazy man? If you investigate you will find that many SS officers had backgrounds in Catholicism […]

    But after the Holocaust the attitude of the Jews improved a lot. I hope it lasts. If you read the Bible, you will understand that Salvation comes from the Jews. No man took the life of Jesus, He gave it as a sacrifice for ALL sin.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      May 22, 2014 at 9:42 am

      On the other hand (and there are many hands here), this from the Quran (Sura 2, verse 62): “Surely they that believe, and those that follow the Jewish scriptures, and Christians, and Sabians — all who believe in God and the Day of Judgment, and do right — shall have their reward with their Lord. No fear shall be on them; neither shall they sorrow.”
      Plus of course the justly famous “To you your religion, to me mine.”

  12. Dani says:
    May 21, 2014 at 10:26 pm

    Brilliantly written.

    Thank you.

  13. rjjainrahul97 says:
    May 22, 2014 at 12:38 am

    I respect your relatively unbiased opinion and the fact that you respected Macklemore’s apologies and were open to the fact that people can make mistakes.

    Since my knowledge on the topic is nearly non-existent i will refrain from diving into the heart of the issue but I think we can say that there are a lot of things in the world and it is hard to keep track of all the symbolism. Also given what a commenter above (or is that below) said regarding the mono-cultural focus I guess we should consider giving a public apology by these stars as genuine for if nothing else, the relatively obscure topic became that little bit less obscure and may help in raising the issue and awareness hopefully in the right manner.

  14. awax1217 says:
    May 22, 2014 at 6:03 am

    I am a Jew. I married a Jew and had three Jewish children. I try hard not to be offended but it seems there something offensive in his actions. I believe people should think first and then no apology is needed.

  15. amelie88 says:
    May 22, 2014 at 10:23 am

    I’m from the suburbs of NYC so we have plenty of Jews here. But even as someone who grew up surrounded by Jews, I didn’t see the costume as anti-Semitic at first. I was just confused as to why Macklemore decided to wear a really ugly mask since it wasn’t Halloween. After seeing the reaction, I see it now in context and I understand. Though I probably would not have made the connection had a Jew not pointed it out to me. Like a commenter posted above, it is difficult to know what symbol may be offensive to others. It all depends on your personal experiences.

    I remember being very surprised when I first went to Spain to see that during Holy Week, all the men carrying the religious floats were decked out in what looked like the Ku Klux Klan uniform. As it turns out, the KKK appropriated that costume for their cause and it became a negative symbol here in the US. However in Spain they’ve been using that uniform for hundreds of years during their processions and it carries no negative association and is part of Catholic tradition. It’s still jarring for me to see, but the symbolism doesn’t have KKK connotation over there. Not sure if it’s in the same vein as Macklemore’s situation since he has lived in the US his whole life and should be more aware of these things. But it’s just a thought.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      May 22, 2014 at 11:02 am

      Thanks, Amelie — that’s an excellent and (in this context) wonderfully ironic example of the need for awareness not only of cultural context, but also of its history.

  16. SISI DA FIZ says:
    May 22, 2014 at 12:51 pm

    ROTFL

  17. Roxy Hathaway says:
    May 22, 2014 at 2:13 pm

    In this case ignorance is not bliss. He went down several notches in my esteem.

  18. Harry Underwood says:
    May 22, 2014 at 2:38 pm

    Reblogged this on World of Values and commented:
    A good post regarding Macklemore’s jarring appearance in a “Jewish costume”, and why the costume has a long and highly-bigoted history in Abrahamic religion. On point:

  19. Relatable XO says:
    May 23, 2014 at 1:20 am

    I enjoyed reading your post. You have great opinions and I agree Macklemore’s costume was a bit absurd, no matter what his goal or angle was. I think your opinion is a BIT broad, saying that Seattle is innocent/ignorant because of the people you have met. Well, I’m from Germany and people know that, and I have not once been called a Nazi whereas when I have travelled other places people aren’t afraid to make that “joke.” It depends who you surround yourself with. You will find innocent/ignorant people everywhere! Don’t let them get to you. They’re uneducated and have nothing better to do.

    Thanks for posting!

  20. Ethen Hunt says:
    May 23, 2014 at 1:43 am

    I spent last 2 hours reading your articles ! And must say: awseome website ! !

  21. Swiss-Ami-Mom says:
    May 23, 2014 at 4:08 am

    That he has has been known to dress in costume, and hang outside the venues with his fans in costume, I can honestly believe his intent was none other than what he stated. As a Jewish person myself AND a as a person that respects Macklemores work, I think this has been hyped out of control. If you listen to his music, his words of support for various walks of life, you would be gretting him with an apology. This is anti-semetic paranoia.

  22. syrbal-labrys says:
    May 23, 2014 at 1:03 pm

    I was horrified to recently read that the majority of younger Americans do not even know what “the Holocaust” means as a phrase. Shocking lack of history teaching…

  23. christiancontrarian says:
    May 24, 2014 at 6:30 pm

    A White guy who sings in a traditionally African-American style dressed as a Jewish man. Confused much?

  24. murphyji says:
    May 26, 2014 at 8:26 am

    Marginalising people for their religion, nationality, or cultural background is what sells copy, gets people elected and starts wars. In Britain a right wing political party is causing a feeding frenzy on immigration. This is no new event. History is full of examples of pea brained thinkers who have caused untold misery and death. Current world events, which I don’t need to list, focus on difference rather than similarity and look where that has led. So be grateful for dialogue giving the culprit an opportunity to review their act or statement which has caused offence, rather than filling the coffers of arms manufacturers and dealers.

  25. Author Catherine Townsend-Lyon says:
    May 26, 2014 at 9:19 am

    Great Post, but lets keep ‘It Real” as we all know when a band hits the stage? No matter what they are wearing, dressed up in, or masks or not, it’s “Entertainment” not downing on some group of people…..

    No matter what Macklemore does in a their show, lets remember, It’s A Show, not to be taken seriously. Give them break already. Their messages in their Music is really the point…… I still, and always will LUV them!

    Author, Catherine Lyon 🙂

  26. cerabellum says:
    May 29, 2014 at 11:04 am

    Interesting. As a British male 20yo I grew up with a lot of the anti-semitic nonsense without really associating it with Jewish people. I didn’t know any Jewish people but if I did, they would have just been normal friends. As I got older though I still laughed at Jewish jokes about money or whatnot. Just as I laughed at a tonne of un-pc jokes relating to race, gender, religion.

    The side of me which studies this knows the world would be a whole lot better if Israel had more power. That the Jewish population was 500 million rather than what… 40? but then, this kind of silly costume is what I would laugh at… Ok not in this context, maybe on Family guy but… It doesn’t change the fact I support Jewish people far more than Christians and FAR more than Muslims.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      May 29, 2014 at 1:36 pm

      But hey, Cerabellum, why would you “support” any one religious group as a whole, whether Jews, Christians, or Muslims? Maybe think about it a moment, and then ask if this isn’t another form of stereotyping…
      Plus you seem to have fallen into the trap of confusing Israel with Judaism. The Israeli government may present itself as representing all Jews, but I’m damned if it represents me, or the majority of Jews I know, or even half of Israeli Jews.

      • cerabellum says:
        May 29, 2014 at 2:30 pm

        Yes I do hear that as a consensus among Jewish people who don’t live in Israel. I am not a religious man so I don’t prefer religions based solely on their teachings. I prefer them on how they are implemented in communities – a function of social evolution.

        Christians a few hundred years ago were the epitome of regression and savagery. Now they just have a few pockets of extremists, all bark and no bite. Islam to this day envelops a country in darkness. I haven’t found a majority Muslim country so far which doesn’t implement some part of Sharia.

        This isn’t just about censoring opinions. It is about all kinds of horrible issues. Some extremely similar to Christianity a few hundred years ago, others a whole new species of evil. Marrying children, raping wives – treating women like property. Murdering minorities; gay people, atheists, bloggers and activists. murdering apostates despite their heritage being christian – it’s all about the men…

        Who knows whether Islam will evolve to the extent Christianity has – I hope it does. But I sympathize greatly with Israel. By all accounts not the most rational, morally sounds country in the world but… To be surrounded with such hatred, often directed at exterminating Jews as well… I could never understand that feeling.

        I guess Jewish people have just been the most innocuous, placid religious influence on my life. I like it that way 🙂

        • Lesley Hazleton says:
          May 29, 2014 at 6:37 pm

          “Innocuous and placid”? — I wish! But…
          Sometimes I fear Israel is well on the way to becoming a kind of Jewish Saudi Arabia, with fanatic believers dictating a distorted hypernationalist “death-to-Arabs” form of extreme Judaism. No religion has a monopoly on either “truth” or ugliness.
          And another “but”:
          Sharia is not the monolithically repressive system you seem to think it is. As Boyd Tomkin wrote in The Independent re Sadakat Kadri’s wonderful history of sharia, ‘Heaven on Earth’ (an ironic title, of course), “the kinds of sharia now trumpeted by theocrats and militants always owe more to human arrogance than to divine inspiration.”
          The problem here is the confusion of militant extremist forms of a religion with the whole of that religion, whatever religion we may be talking about.

          • cerabellum says:
            May 30, 2014 at 3:44 am

            That is interesting – I don’t know much about Israel to be honest save a couple of documentaries. It would be mortifying if Israel took such a path but given Jewish history, I guess anything’s possible…

            As for Islam, divine inspiration can only get you so far, I agree. Although I have read the Koran and it is a shocking book. Of course a lot of it is just repetition and the divinity of Allah but… There are teachings in there that frankly are pure evil. Now this isn’t to say the old testament – even to some extent the new – doesn’t have shocking things in it.

            But it certainly plays out differently in today’s world and that is, as a non religious person, what i am interested in. What I see is that nearly all Islamic majority country has psychological and physical abuse of women built into society. That an influx of immigrant from places like Saudi and Pakistan into Sweden has directly resulted in Sweden now having the second highest rape per ca-pita in the world. Highest in Europe.

            I have the same view as you on Israel turning into some rabid, foaming mouthed anti all Muslim country but… Given all the surrounding caliphates have a similar stance toward them, I don’t think I would see things any better or act better.

          • Lesley Hazleton says:
            May 30, 2014 at 8:08 am

            “Surrounding caliphates”? “A couple of documentaries”? Cerabellum, I think it’s time to do some serious reading so that you can avoid coming to weird, uninformed, and unwarranted conclusions. You might start with actually reading the Bible, since the Quran is a pussycat by comparison. And by looking at exactly where that Swedish-rape statistic comes from, since it sounds like racist urban legend to me.

      • anonyme13 says:
        June 8, 2014 at 1:20 pm

        I am sorry Lesley, but you are wrong! Now when somebody attack Israel, it is a disguised anti-Semitism, flat out. Some people are so ignorant about Israel, but they love to feel sorry for Palestinians. They have no idea that “Palestine” and “palestinian” the words are a modern invention, that jews bought the land in Israel with hard money, and that the Arab Lands are huge and Israel is the tiniest country possible. That sixty years later, the so called palestinians, for political reasons, still leave in refugee camps. How about all the refugees from Arab countries, were are they, my family included(from algeria, out of Spain from the time of Isabella)? I will tell you why you can’t find any jewish refugees, because they started to rebuilt their lives as soon as they were expelled!

        • Lesley Hazleton says:
          June 8, 2014 at 5:19 pm

          It takes some chutzpah to talk about ignorance so ignorantly!
          Palestine is a very ancient name, used by the Greeks, the Romans, and the Byzantines. Though you are right that Palestinians still live in the refugee camps for political reasons — because Israel has confiscated their land.

  27. venuscallipyge says:
    May 30, 2014 at 6:47 pm

    Fellow Seattleite here. I’ve noticed Seattle’s subtle racism on many occasions, first when I was living in the CD and being told several times I would get raped or stabbed for being “white” if I walked home alone often like I did, later I saw the disproportionate treatment by police toward those of color on the street when I was caught up in my active drug addiction. I’ve been told that Seattle police are more racist than those in many other urban centers, and I believe it. If the general population here were less prejudiced, the behavior of our police force would not be countenanced like it is now and in the past. I am aware that I am privileged because I look white, and I don’t take that for granted… I do my best to counter the unjust discrimination I see around me, whether for a person’s color, age, sexual identity, creed, religion, and so on. Thank you for your thoughtful post.

  28. epicrevieweradmin says:
    June 3, 2014 at 1:28 am

    Let me think about this, a white guy who does rap and is looking like a jewish guy……………………..

  29. terzahcain says:
    June 5, 2014 at 11:24 pm

    I have entirely too much to say in response to this wonderful article and all the thoughtful comments. May I post a pingback link to your article in an upcoming post on my site?

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      June 6, 2014 at 8:52 am

      Sure — it’s public domain. — L. (Just remember to link and/or attribute.)

Best Valentine of the Year

Posted February 12th, 2012 by Lesley Hazleton

Hallmark card lovers, avert your eyes.

This piece by the transcendentally gifted Rebecca Brown is in the Valentine’s Day issue of The Stranger.  It’s called “Make Clean Our Heart Within Us,” and it makes me laugh and makes me want to cry and kind of blows me away.

Bleach it. Scrub it. Sandblast or power-wash it, hose it down. Dip it in lye.

Please, be my guest.

Nothing I have tried has worked: It’s crusty, brown, and scabbed. A lump. It has been bit into, chewed up, gnawed on, spat ou—no—wait—not “out.” It can’t get out. It’s stuck inside. Beneath “‘dem bones” and skin and other stuff.

Tear open the skin, dig in and grab and break ‘dem bones and yank. Do it by hand.

Or leave it in and nuke it. I don’t care. I gave up that malarkey long ago.

It’s weirdly shaped. Like an octopus with not enough arms and also twisted with osteoporosis. Or a plastic child’s toy such as a baby shoe, doll, or action figure melted in the sun in that top part of the back of the car, made slowly soft and droopy, and burning, hot—it hurts to touch—until after the sun has gone away and it cools to a hardened blob.

One often thinks of it as red, but maybe it’s not if the blood’s seeped out. Maybe it’s kind of pinkish, even white in some places, almost translucent, as pretty as a pearl, almost. Except for what it is.

Did it look worse when beating? Like a gelatinous clod of something from a grade B horror movie (such as the mushrooms then the people, in Matango: Attack of the Mushroom People [1963], directed by Ishiro Honda, who also did the Godzilla movies, in which, after a storm at sea, a boat washes up on a mysterious island. Shipwrecked together are a wealthy playboy, a professor-psychologist, a famous sexy female singer, an ingenue, a couple of others, and of course the skipper of the ship and his loyal sailor, just like on Gilligan’s Island which debuted on American television the following year. Who giveth unto whom? Who taketh what?), pulsating, throbbing, burbling, its slick or dull or smooth or shiny but certainly pokeable surface expanding and collapsing, expanding and collapsing like miner’s lung or heaving cow or great pink scarlet bubble of Bazooka Joe bubble gum some rowdy kid is just about to pop.

St. Catherine traded hers with God.

I remember seeing a picture of it. She’s standing on the ground and He is hovering in the air a bit above her. He’s on a tasteful little throw rug of a cloud. Her hand is up and out to him. Can I see something red in it? A thing to be got rid of? Or to keep? A thing of want. His hovering hand is open, too, and heading down toward her, but I can’t see if his hand is full or empty. Her hand is white and His is very, very white! As pure and clean and pure and cold as snow.

Has he just given His to her? Does she give hers to Him? Did one or the other do it first? Or did they do it simultaneously? Who opened whom? Each other or themselves? There must have been a lot of blood. What happened to the blood? What happens when the traded heart does not fit in the other’s waiting hole?

Whose great idea was this, anyway?

If it was His, was he just—uh—uh—ribbing her? Not ever thinking she would take Him up on it and—uh—uh—do it literally. But then when she said Yes, she wanted, Yes she would, Oh please, and started clawing at her chest, whatever else was He supposed to do?

Or did she simply stick her hand inside and pull? Like those amazing Filipino healers? They don’t use anesthetics! Tools! Or anything! They rearrange or take the bad things out of you, a secret done with just their hands, and with some poor pathetic miserable fuck who’s desperate with belief. They also only do it to someone else, not to themselves the way St. Catherine did. Though, of course, St. Catherine was not a Filipina, but Italian, from Sienna. I went there to her church one time and saw her mummified head. (It looked like a giant raisin.) The rest of her body is somewhere else. Rome, maybe? I don’t know where the heart is.

Or if there was a tool involved, what tools would they have had back then in Italy? A knife, a sword, a saw? A pair of tongs? Did someone else, not Him, give her a hand? (“Give her a hand…?” Hmmm… Don’t go there.) Was someone passing by who saw her clawing at herself and crying, crying, crying inconsolably because she couldn’t, she just could not do it, could not get it right, she could not break herself, so then did someone (angel? Or Samaritan?) appear to help and if so, was this then a miracle?

Or had she asked a friend to help?  Though of whom could one ask a thing like that?

What’s too unclean to be made clean must be removed alone. For superpower Him, this would be easy. But not for her. No, not for her. She had to work at it.  This took her long.  This took her years.  This took her life.

Pull the muscle and meat away like pulling the fat from the rib of a pig.  Now, yank it out.  Now give it to Him.  It may be good, what’s given back, but by the time it does you’re halfway dead.

My hands were never white like hers.  And the other’s more than mere unclean;  it’s fucking filthy.

To try would render filthier.

At least that’s my excuse.

If this whets your appetite, as it were, for more of Rebecca Brown, check out two of my favorite books of hers:   ‘American Romances‘ and for the very brave (you have been warned!)  ‘The Dogs‘.

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File under: art, Christianity, existence | Tagged: Tags: American Romances, Rebecca Brown, Saint Catherine of Sienna, The Dogs, The Stranger, Valentine's Day | 1 Comment
  1. Mary Johnson says:
    February 12, 2012 at 5:53 pm

    I love Rebecca Brown’s work! Thanks, Lesley, for sharing this. And all those pictures and statues of Jesus with his heart in his hand, the heart surrounded by thorns, with flames shooting out from the top–how I hated those statues. Now, after reading this, I can laugh at those Sacred Hearts and Immaculate Hearts and Bleeding Hearts in a new way, and feel what it is to yank one’s heart out, day by day by day.

Accidental Genius

Posted August 11th, 2011 by Lesley Hazleton

Being a hermit‘s a cakewalk when you open your door and get presented with something like this:

Seattle Stranger's Genius Award

Yup, I’m a certified genius, the certifier being The Stranger, Seattle’s famous (make that infamous) alternative weekly.  The cake is sweet notice that they’ve given me a 2011 Stranger Genius Award.   Which is way cooler than I have words for.

Now all I have to do is live up to it and produce, um, a work of genius.  I’m thinking the chocolate might help…

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File under: existence | Tagged: Tags: chocolate cake, Genius Award, The Stranger | 17 Comments
  1. stevegiordano says:
    August 11, 2011 at 12:47 pm

    Great big happy-for-you congratulations!

    Hey, how did gravatar hijack me?

  2. Dora Hasen says:
    August 11, 2011 at 1:52 pm

    You have worked hard to earn your chocolate reward…congrats!

  3. Tea-mahm says:
    August 11, 2011 at 3:58 pm

    I love it. Well deserved. A tasty prize indeed. Yay Lesley! ~ T’m

    “The Stranger Genius Awards is a cross between the MacArthur Grants and Publisher’s Clearinghouse: Every fall since 2003, we have given a check for $5,000 and an obscene amount of attention to four artists and an arts organization…”

  4. rachel cowan says:
    August 11, 2011 at 6:52 pm

    No sweat You are already doing that on a weekly basis! How totally cool

    with love
    Rachel Cowan

  5. jad05078 says:
    August 11, 2011 at 9:52 pm

    aaaa~~~
    would love to get a cake like that..

  6. Lamiaa says:
    August 14, 2011 at 2:15 pm

    num num congrats L :))

  7. Azad Ibrahim says:
    August 16, 2011 at 10:19 am

    Dear Madam

    My name is Azad Ibrahim and I am from Sri Lanka. Can not remember when, but one of my friends sent me a link of your talk at TEDx. I was mesmerized by your speech and ordered your book, After the Prophet. Needless to say, every time I read it, I am reduced to tears. But I do have a problem in ordering your other books. I would also like to know if I can pre-order the book your working on now (The First Muslim). I wish you all the best with your work and may you finish it quickly!.

    Azad

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      August 19, 2011 at 10:37 am

      Thanks Azid. Sorry, but no pre-orders on The First Muslim yet, since publication will not be until late 2012/early 2013.

  8. Mykolas says:
    August 19, 2011 at 9:33 am

    You’re very cute Acid dental Theologist! 😉

    , -Mykolas

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      August 19, 2011 at 10:37 am

      I like the “acid dental,” but “cute”? Moi?

  9. Harry Katz says:
    September 14, 2011 at 9:12 pm

    Just seeing this now — better late than never. Congratulations. Lesley.

  10. Carol Kane says:
    September 15, 2011 at 2:14 pm

    L- You are absolutely the coolest ‘muscular agnostic’ ever!! Hearty – sweet – congrats! Well deserved. Makes us miss Seattle, despite our cool hangout in NM.
    Carol & Tim

  11. Huw Price says:
    October 13, 2011 at 8:46 am

    What a photo, what a cake, what an …..er er appetite. HP & team

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      October 13, 2011 at 11:45 am

      Hey there HP and team — glad it ticked your chocolate fancy. Here’s the glam version: http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/lesley-hazleton/Content?oid=9936684

  12. Rosy says:
    October 13, 2011 at 11:59 am

    Absolutely outrageous – both you and the cake! Congratulations genius. Rosy

  13. Mary Sherhart says:
    October 19, 2011 at 5:37 pm

    Lesley:
    I thought you’d be interested in something. A young Bosnian author is going to be a U Bookstore on November 7, 7pm. His first book was just published entitled Shards. I picked up a copy at a Bosnian organization’s annual meeting in St Louis recently. After seeing you speak and reading your books I just have a feeling you’re really going to like his writing.

    Also met Alexander Hemon who is in the same organization and picked up his new book, Love and Obstacles. So gifted.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      October 19, 2011 at 6:04 pm

      Thanks Mary — can’t make the 7th, but will read his book on your recommendation.– L.

The Antidote to 9/11?

Posted February 16th, 2011 by Lesley Hazleton

There’s been a ton of punditry about what the Tunisia and Egypt revolutions mean for America, and you can bet there’ll be several tons more.  But I suspect its biggest effect is yet to register, and that is psychological.  Because these two revolutions – achieved through determinedly non-violent action – constitute a radical, positive challenge to the politically manipulated atmosphere of fear and paranoia about Islam.   In fact, as New York Times columnist Roger Cohen put it, 2/11 may be the perfect antidote to 9/11.

Too optimistic?  I think not.  There’s a very good chance that we’re due for a major paradigm shift here in the United States — one that seemed unimaginable just a few weeks ago (and one even a congressman like Peter King, head of the HUAC-like committee due to start ‘examining’ the supposed radicalization of American Muslims (“are you now or have you ever been an American Muslim?”), might have to take into account).

What’s happening all over the Middle East challenges the crude stereotypes of “Arabs = riots.”  Of “Islam = terrorism.”  And above all, of Islam as somehow fundamentally anti-democratic.

These stereotypes run deep.  Think of the scenes shown in the American media from the first week of the Egypt uprising.   A close-up of 200 people prostrated in prayer, excluding the tens of thousands who stood behind them, not praying.   A protestor holding a poster of Mubarak with horns and a Star of David drawn on his forehead – the only one of its kind, it turned out, in the whole square.  Or a few days later,  the replay after replay of Molotov cocktails – “flames lead” being the mantra of TV news – reinforcing the image of rioting Muslims out of control, “the Arab street.”  It was exactly the image Mubarak was aiming for.

Thus the pumping up of the Muslim Brotherhood as a threat by both the Mubarak regime and conservative western pundits, as though the Egyptian protesters were extraordinarily dumb and naïve.  As though they were not highly aware of  how the 1979 Iran revolution was hijacked and perverted.  As though they couldn’t see the fundamentalist regime in Saudi Arabia or the Hamas regime in Gaza.   As though the Brotherhood itself were unanimously stuck in the 1950s mindset of ideologue Sayyid Qutb.  As though the only way to be Muslim was to be a radical fundamentalist.

Thus the surprise in the west at the sophistication of the Tahriris, when “the Arab street” turned out to include doctors and lawyers and women and IT executives (you could practically hear the astonishment:  “you mean there’s Muslim Google executives?”).

Thus the continually stated fear, stoked by the regime and by conservative pundits, that the protestors would shift from nonviolence to violence – that the nonviolence was merely a cover for some assumed innate propensity to violence.

Thus the slowness to realize that the old anti-West sloganism had been superseded, and that this wasn’t about resentment of the west;  in fact that it was about the very things President Obama had talked about in his speech right there in Cairo in June 2009 – about democracy and freedom.

In short, what we heard and saw in those first few days was the modern version of Orientalism:   The idea that the ‘Orient’ – that is, the Middle East (it should come as no surprise here that the geography is as weird as the idea itself) — is an inherently violent, primitive, medieval kind of place.  Or as right-wing Israeli politicians have been endlessly repeating for decades, “a bad neighborhood.”   And that the responsibility of ‘enlightened’ westerners and despotic leaders alike was to keep these benighted people under control.

But as the uprising went on into the second week, something began to change. Nobody at the blog of Seattle’s alternative newspaper The Stranger, for example, which one would have thought the first to support any kind of uprising, even bothered to comment on it at first.  When they began to, it was with their usual weary stance of pseudo-sophisticated cynicism.   But by the day after Mubarak unleashed his goons in Tahrir Square, when the protestors’ response was to turn out in larger numbers than ever, even The Stranger gave in to excited support.   How not, when millions of people stood up to repression and dictatorship in the full knowledge of what they faced if they failed – arrest, torture, and death?   Would you have such courage?  Such determination?

So here’s what I saw here in the States:   more and more Americans abandoning their unconscious Orientalism in favor of stunned admiration.

And that’s the beginning of something new, the very thing Obama declared twenty months ago in Cairo:  respect.

Finally.

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File under: Islam, Middle East | Tagged: Tags: Cairo, Egypt, Google, HUAC, Islamophobia, media images, Mubarak, Muslim Brotherhood, Obama, Orientalism, Peter King, respect, Roger Cohen, Sayyid Qutb, The Stranger, Tunisia, Wael Ghonim | 10 Comments
  1. Sana says:
    February 16, 2011 at 8:07 pm

    There’s hope in the air…. Thanks Egypt!

  2. Lana says:
    February 17, 2011 at 1:42 am

    Thanks Lesley … i do wish there is hope …

  3. Mary Sherhart says:
    February 17, 2011 at 1:57 pm

    Hope is a rare commodity these days. Thank you Egyptian people!

  4. Adila says:
    February 18, 2011 at 6:27 pm

    Wonderfully written. Exciting times indeed.

  5. Shishir says:
    March 14, 2011 at 6:41 am

    I am sorry I don’t agree. The long term effects of these revolutions are still not known. It remains to be seen if Muslim Brotherhood will not form a parallel government or at least have extra constitutional authority. It remains to be seen if these countries will demonstrate same eagerness in throwing out religious fundamentalists. It also remains to be seen if a truly secular democratic country would arise out of Egypt.

    The evidence from the past suggests that secularism
    and Islam don’t gel. Even with the charter of Medina.
    I believe you are a scholar of Quran, or at least you’ve studied it, I’d suggest you also study the history of Islamic kingdoms and Islamic republics.
    Lets have a look at Iran and Pakistan, these are two
    countries which are “democracies”, but have you ever looked at their blasphemy laws or their constant
    persecution of religious minorities. I wouldn’t say that
    it doesn’t exist in India, and we claim India is a secular democracy (I laugh every time I say that). But at least we are not sponsors of international terrorists, may be because we are poor but yet. I also don’t understand how one can suggest that Islam is
    tolerant especially given that it doesn’t make any distinction between state and religion. If a believer
    and non-believer are not same in the eye of religion
    they can’t be same in the eyes of the state either, under such circumstances if the Islamic forces come to attain majority and it is indeed a distinct possibility in Egypt or Yemen or Bahrain etc do you think they’d
    transform these places into true secular democracies ? Do you think the support for Al-Queda or Hamas etc would reduce if pro-Islamic groups came to power?

    Yes, the revolution was by people oppressed, yes it was about respect but what will it end in? Russian revolution was not about socialism or Marxism it was
    about a set of people oppressed – where did it end up ..in Stalin and 50 years of cold war, countless lives lost in Vietnam, Afghanistan, India/Pakistan, Iran/Iraq.

    I am not an Islamophobe, I love what Islam and Islamic culture has done for my country for the world. I just think that time has come for all of us to reexamine these religions (hiduism/islam/christianity/judaism) and their tenets and if required throw them out.

    • hossam says:
      March 19, 2011 at 11:08 am

      @Shishir

      you are right the long the term effects of the egyptian revolution is not yet known, and whether or not the Muslim Brotherhood will “take over” like many people are afraid (noting that they are not running for presidency) but what does that have to do with Islam itself?

      The point is not to judge a religion by what people do;
      Islam is not what Muslim people do
      Judaism is not what Jewish people do
      Christianity is not what Christian people do

      do not judge Islam by what fundamentals or extremist or terrorists do
      do not judge Judaism by what the IDF does and what Israel does
      do not judge Christianity by what George bush did

      Even though i would prefer a secular egyptian state, who’s to say that secularism is a test of a religion?

      there are many states with christianity as a state religion (e.g. Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Finland) and there are also secular, muslim majority states (e.g. Azerbaijan, Gambia, Kosovo, Mali, Senegal, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan)

      can you let me know what evidence suggests that islam and secularism do not “gel”?

      as for blasphemy laws, they are always controversial, they are still being debated even in highly democratic european countries, some of which do have laws against blasphemy, of course the penalty there is not as tough as in pakistan, but again are we judging a religion based on what is the penalty on blasphemy? i don’t think you can post a cartoon in a german or danish newspaper with of a big nosed man with a star of david on his forehead and his armed wrapped around the world. so where is the freedom then?

      • Shishir says:
        March 24, 2011 at 3:27 pm

        I beg to differ.

        Would you disassociate communism from what Lenin, Stalin, Mao etc did you would not? If you read Marx, and he makes a very interesting read, you’d realize that his communism differs a great deal from what was actually practiced but do you make the difference?

        Religion is what majority of religious people do, nothing more nothing less. Because if you take away that and get down to essential core of it you’d find almost all religions are essentially the same.

        I think secularism is a test of a religion because it tells me whether or not this religion shows signs of growth (not in number of people of that faith but in true growth) in its philosophy via debate via exchange of ideas. I would say my definition of secularism is a secularism of ideas with absolutely no space for public god/religion.

        Why do I say Islam and secularism don’t gel? Well simply because it makes no distinction between borders of state and religion in public/private sphere. If you are going to quote me the charter of medina, I’m going to point to you that Mohammed created it only to ensure he had sufficient force and followers. It was a political treaty, and as such had nothing to do with religion of Islam. You realize it almost immediately when you look at the subsequent 10 years.

        As to your point about blasphemy laws, I don’t think in European country someone is going to issue a fatwa against you if you drew anything ..but in an islamic republic..??

  6. Shishir says:
    March 14, 2011 at 9:05 am

    Ms. Hazleton, I am not sure I said anything in my comment which could be construed as offensive, but my comment seems to have been censored/deleted.

    I’ve no issues with that really, I just wish to know what
    is the commenting policy.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      March 14, 2011 at 10:57 am

      First-time commenters need to be approved by me, and I’m deliberately not online 24/7, thus the delay. Re commenting policy: I’m fine with all points of view, no matter if they directly oppose my own, so long as they do not denigrate others. If that happens, I will ask the commenter to stop doing this. If they then do not stop, I will, however unwillingly, deny access.

  7. The Antidote to 9/11? | IslamiCity says:
    September 26, 2012 at 6:39 am

    […] The Accidental Theologist – Lesley […]

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