Blog


About


Books

 Latest Post: Flash!

Agnostic
A Spirited Manifesto
Available April 4, 2016

   Who is the AT?   Books by LH
  • Agnostic

  • The First Muslim

  • After The Prophet

  • Jezebel

  • Mary

  • More from LH

     

“Do Arab Men Hate Women?”

Posted February 27th, 2014 by Lesley Hazleton

Two excellent minds — liberal activist and journalist Mona Eltahawy and Huffington Post UK political editor Mehdi Hasan — went head to head at the Oxford Union on whether, per the provocative headline of Eltahawy’s article in Foreign Policy Magazine, Arab men hate women.

Go to it, accidental theologists!  But…

Please view the whole video before you comment.  Let’s get beyond knee-jerk reactions.  It’s true that it’s a long video, but if you don’t consider the whole issue important enough to merit 47 minutes of your time, I hereby suggest you forfeit the right to comment.

–

[youtube=http://youtu.be/T9UqlEmKhnk]

Share this post:  Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
File under: feminism, Islam, Middle East, women | Tagged: Tags: Egypt, Foreign Policy, Mehdi Hasan, Mona Eltahawy, Oxford Union, Saudi Arabia, sexism, Tunisia, Yemen | 15 Comments
  1. Stephen Victor says:
    February 27, 2014 at 2:27 pm

    I appreciate you for posting this video. Thank you!

    I am heartened with the fact that Mona Eltahawy is providing counterbalancing forces to the forces of misogyny in our world. And I applaud how she is doing this. Her provocative essay title landed her this interview. As a result, more of us have become informed. Well done!

    I see the issues of gender inequality as pandemic. Even though Ms Eltahawy spoke of this, her focus, in the context of this interview, was primarily the Muslim world. Good for her!

    To me misogyny is in our DNA whether we are women or men – girls or boys. Misogyny is in the atmosphere we breath. In the water we drink.

    Most compassionately intelligent aware and caring woman or girls, boy or men would be horrified to know that they behave, in subtle or not so subtle misogynist ways. If we are at all representative of our respective cultures, we cannot not do this. We perpetuate misogyny unwittingly and without intent. I see myself and Mehdi Hasan in this group as well.

    This is why your post, Mona’s work and Mehdi’s interview, and this video are so vitally important. We need to educate ourselves. We can no longer afford our ignorance. We need take on the disciplined personal responsibility and being wholly mindful – open-heartedly mindful:
    • in the reconstruction of our personal worldview – our personal cosmologies
    • of the states of being we embody
    • to consciously choose mental working models that genuinely work – that are just
    • in how and where we deploy our attention
    • of our thoughts, convictions and beliefs;
    • in our communicating and the actions we take.

    If we respect life…if we espouse justice…freedom…if we value gender-based relationships, whatever one’s orientation…if we purport to revere love, human dignity, beauty, and the innocence and lightness of being – we can no longer act in accord with a worldview that hates freedoms for any life-form, let alone girls or women. We must take a stand and change ourselves. This is not about others. This is about each of us individually.

    Those who subjugate others are themselves subjugated by this very act. Misogyny has colonized us all.

    Life cannot hate life. Yet we persist in acting as though we do. The great divide is between those with the capacity to intentionally and willfully injure another, and those who, though they can, and do injure others, do so as a consequence of unhealed injuries – never volitionally! We can change this. This is our responsibility.

    What possibly could be more important in our lives?

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      February 27, 2014 at 2:40 pm

      Thank you, Stephen — beautifully put.

      • Stephen Victor says:
        February 27, 2014 at 2:54 pm

        You are welcome… there is one more bit I believe relevant: Might it be worth considering that those who are reluctant to acknowledge the existence of witting and unwitting misogyny in our world are really reluctant to change themselves? If one allows oneself to see what is – one cannot help but be changed…and as such one must think and act differently…

  2. Lesley Hazleton says:
    February 27, 2014 at 2:37 pm

    And here’s another thoughtful — and more critical — response from my friend Tarek Dawoud here in Seattle.

    On my Facebook page, he suggested this video of a Deen Institute conference called “Can Muslims Escape Misogyny?”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leyJaLCf8ks
    and commented as follows:

    “Much more thoughtful and realistic, a lot less about “provoking” and “grabbing headlines” and a lot more about breaking down the areas where misogyny appears and offering solutions/alternatives.

    “As for this conversation, I watched the full video a few days ago. The main problem with it is of course that it’s completely unscientific and lacking in methodology. So, when one presents an argument “Arab Men hate women” one would need to present evidence based on some social studies that shows that Arab male attitudes towards women are particularly negative compared to others. Or perhaps even (God forbid) survey the women in question. Instead, she opts for the unscientific approaches of tokenization and over-generalization. She picks a bad act that happens in 1% of rural families to depict “an Arab male attitude towards women in this country” and then spreads that across to all other countries too, even those that do not have it. And then, without trying to understand the socio-economic reasons behind the bad act (say rural families marrying their daughters young to rich men from the gulf), she totally explains it away with hate/scorn for women. In addition, as the student cleverly asked her (and she dodged), she is committing the age-old colonialist crime of advocating for freedom, but only freedom she likes. She knows what is best for all Arab women, they don’t.

    “This is not scientific or helpful. She’ll neither get support from scientists, social workers or social leaders. In my opinion, this is 60s style feminist “controversial writing” only done in 2014 when not many like that style any more.

    “I assume she’s good intentioned and wants to bring about true reform, but I feel she copped out… She took the easy route of citing a few studies about the prevalence of female discrimination issues, made an outrageous claim out of it, published it in a high profile paper and thus has “sparked the debate.” I don’t see the solutions to the real issues she raises coming out of circus like debates and half-baked research.”

  3. Lesley Hazleton says:
    February 27, 2014 at 2:39 pm

    And here’s my Facebook reply to Tarek:
    “Thanks (I think — I posted a 47-minute video, and you responded with a five-and-half-hour one!). But the Deen Institute conference looks excellent, and I will watch it — just give me time.
    “Meanwhile, does Mona Eltahawy generalize? Yes. Is she angry? Of course — and she says so. Is she being deliberately provocative? Again, yes. Has she sparked the debate? As she herself acknowledges, citing the work of writers such as Leila Ahmed and Fatima Mernissi, the debate has been going on for some time and has still a long way to go. What then?
    “I think what Eltahawy has done is bring the debate far more into the open. By publishing in Foreign Policy magazine, she’s demanding that both men and women, liberal and conservative, pay attention. And by bringing her well-known energy and passion to bear, she’s helping reframe it not as a ‘Muslim issue,’ nor even (despite the title) as an Arab one, but as a human- and civil-rights issue.
    “My main criticism: that she didn’t widen her argument to what is happening with women in many countries in central Africa, where rape (most notoriously and viciously in Congo) has become a weapon of war.”

  4. Madhav says:
    March 2, 2014 at 12:22 pm

    I do believe that religion in misused by people who seek power and would do by any means to do so. Oppression is the key word.

    Women oppression :- 50 % of the population sorted out… Ticked off.

    Caste system: Another 75% (assuming 4 Castes) of the left over 50% done… Ticked off…

    That leaves just 12.5% of the population to sort out…..

    Then go on to Say above so and so age….. That would cuts say another 50% of the 12.5%… Ticked off……

    That now leaves only 6.5% of the original population to dominate…

    Financial Oppression: Eliminate about 5 numbers… That leaves only .5% against domination……

    It is a Legal system that is needed to prevent Oppression……

    I am indeed lucky to be in a part of the world that represents a much better future for mankind. The UAE.

  5. Hande Harmanci says:
    March 3, 2014 at 3:56 am

    Dear Leslie, thank you for introducing me to Mona. We need more women like her. I will be following her from now on.

  6. Ross says:
    March 5, 2014 at 8:06 am

    I do agree with those perceiving a generalised approach from Ms Eltawahy, but worry about her opening the door to dyed in the wool bigots. For instance I would hesitate to post a link to her lecture on Twitter for fear of the vitriol that I’m sure would ensue.

    Anecdotally, what I see of interpersonal relationships among Muslim men and women in Australia, where they are a minority, is that “generally” speaking they are loving and respectful, which I suspect to be the case in US.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      March 5, 2014 at 9:12 am

      Ross — Most of the response to this has come on my Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/lesley.hazleton), where I re-posted this on the same date. Maybe because people feel Facebook is more of a communal venture, instead of something ‘mine.’ If you go there, you’ll find not only a remarkable lack of vitriol, but an in-depth discussion both for and against. I realize this is partly a reflection of whose friend requests I respond to, but I also think that it’s possible to be overly cautious, anticipating negative feedback that doesn’t necessarily happen. Perhaps this is a conversation that the vast majority of Muslim men and women are ready to have.

  7. Niloufer Gupta says:
    March 14, 2014 at 6:27 am

    I watched the debate ,mehdi hassan and mona elthawy- as i listened ,my mind went to the country that is mine- india.her anger is well placed and i feel that ,we in india ,need what she is aspiring for- a n equality in reality and not in abstract- that equality in reality needs grass roots education ,in every way.

  8. Lesley Hazleton says:
    April 17, 2014 at 2:43 pm

    A month later, here’s “Pro-Feminists and Metrosexuals: the New Arab Men of the Millennial Generation,” a counter-argument from Khaleb Diab:
    http://www.juancole.com/2014/04/metrosexuals-millennial-generation.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

  9. Lesley Hazleton says:
    April 18, 2014 at 8:32 am

    And also a month later, Ziad Asali on how men must play their part in the struggle for women’s rights in Arab countries: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ziad-j-asali-md/men-must-play-their-part_b_5172728.html
    Looks like Mona Eltahawy has done what she aimed to do: start a real conversation.

  10. Omer says:
    May 12, 2014 at 5:41 am

    I recommend readers see the website of Professor Asma Barlas.

    Of course much of the discrimination against the female gender has nothing to do with Islam but is of Middle Eastern culture and history.

    Afterall, during Prophet Muhammad’s time, there were some crazy contemporaries who would bury their baby girls alive! So evil to kill innocent babies and moreover in such a painfully cruel way.

    But there is still some discrimination against the female gender that is supported by clerics…usually the subset of clerics that is less educated clerics whose smarter older siblings were sent by their parents to be physicians and engineers but told them to be clerics since they did not do as well in their exams.

    Even with the issue of the clerics which is to some extent across most of the clerics, please see the excellent talks and papers by Professor Barlas…. she shows that it is paternalistic biased reading of Islamic texts that leads to such issues and not a correct reading of the Qur’an itself.

    http://www.asmabarlas.com/talks.html

  11. سالم says:
    July 22, 2014 at 10:56 pm

    “Do Americans Men Hate Women?”
    Every minute American women get murder and rape in the U.S..
    Most killer in the U.S. are choosing women.
    American women are treated like sex objects.

  12. sam says:
    May 20, 2015 at 11:24 pm

    Do arabs hate women ? no, and we don’t care what you think ? and if we do….be it, let’s see what are you gonna do about it

American Influence?

Posted October 26th, 2013 by Lesley Hazleton

rohdeThe road to hell may be paved with good intentions, as the saying goes, but there’s a lot of understandable suspicion out there about exactly how good American intentions even are when it comes to the Middle East.  That’s the theme of David Rohde’s book ‘Beyond War:  Reimagining American Influence in the Middle East.’

The first step I’d suggest:  do some major reimagining of images, and forget Orientalist stereotypes like the camel-rider on  the cover.  The second step:  question the whole concept of influence.

The Catholic weekly America asked me to review the book, and here’s what I wrote:

When the Egyptian military seized power in June, American pundits instantly rushed to preach about democracy.  This took some hubris considering that two recent American elections – 2000 and 2004 – are still considered by many to be of questionable legality, and that redistricting is rapidly ensuring the minority status of Democratic strongholds throughout the south.

Is the US even in a position to preach democracy?  Especially since as with national elections, so too with foreign policy:  democracy is subject to money, and how it’s spent.

This is the hard-headed reality behind two-time Pulitzer prize-winner and former Taliban captive David Rohde’s new book, which focuses on how the US government spends money abroad, specifically in the Middle East.  It’s an argument for small-scale economic rather than large-scale military aid, and as such is immensely welcome in principle. The question is how to do it in practice.

As Rohde writes, “Washington’s archaic foreign policy apparatus” and its weakened civilian agencies mean that “in the decades since the end of the Cold War, the ability of the White House, State Department, and Congress to devise and carry out sophisticated political and development efforts overseas has withered.”

Whether Rohde is aware of it or not, the problem might be encapsulated in the subtitle of his own book, which assumes not only the existence of American influence, but also its necessity. Many of his sources are well-informed and palpably frustrated employees of the Agency for International Development (USAID) who are basically in conflict with both the State Department and Congress.  Yet the stated goals of USAID are clear:  they include providing “economic, development and humanitarian assistance around the world in support of the foreign policy goals of the US.” [my italics].

For all the talk about the need for humanitarian aid and intervention (most recently in Syria), the reality is purely political.  What’s presented as humanitarian aid is always a matter of foreign policy.  And American foreign policy is still intensely focused on George W. Bush’s GWOT – the “global war on terror.”

The principle is that US aid should act as a stabilizing force against militant Islamic extremism.  But the very idea of the US as a stabilizing force has been thoroughly undermined by the disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Even the best-considered foreign aid has now been rendered suspect in many parts of the Middle East, especially when there’s “a widespread perception of the American government as a finely tuned, nefarious machine, not an unwieldy cacophony of viewpoints,” and when authoritarian control fosters an intense rumor mill, with conspiracy theories rampant (most recently, for instance, Malala Yousufzai as a CIA plant, or American-backed ‘Zionists’ as the instigators of the new regime in Egypt).  In Egypt in particular, Rohde notes, “Washington faces an extraordinary public-policy conundrum.  Decades of support for Mubarak will not be forgotten overnight.”

Rohde details the conundrum in a series of country-by-country chapters, some intensively well-reported (particularly on civilian contractors’ takeover of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and on the use of drones in Pakistan and Afghanistan), while others (on Turkey, Libya, and Tunisia) seem more perfunctory by comparison.  But in the light of the June military coup, the chapter on American dollars-for-peace financing and the Egyptian army’s vast business empire is particularly fascinating and uncomfortably prescient.

Oddly, though, there is no chapter on Israel, the largest recipient of American aid.  This seems to me tantamount to ignoring the elephant in the room, since the intense investment in an Israel that seems willing only to prolong and intensify the conflict with Palestine undermines US efforts elsewhere in the region.  In fact you could make a pretty strong argument that American support of Israel, driven by domestic electoral politics, runs directly counter to its own foreign policy interests.  Inevitably, the US is perceived elsewhere in the Middle East as at least tolerating if not encouraging Israel’s land grab in the Palestinian territories;  if its funds do not literally finance the expansionist project, they certainly free up funds that do.

Even assuming the best American intentions, then, they’re all too often interpreted as the worst.  But what exactly are those best intentions?

At root, this book is, or could have been, about America’s perception of itself.  Are we the world’s greatest do-gooders, distributing our largesse (and our arms) where most urgently needed?  Or are we acting to secure a blinkered and out-dated conception of our own interests?

Either way, as Rohde wrote in a New York Times op-ed back in May, “We should stop thinking we can transform societies overnight…  Nations must transform themselves.  We should scale back our ambitions and concentrate on long-term economics.”  His economic recommendations are accordingly small-scale (sometimes to the level of pathos, as in his enthusiasm for an Egyptian version of ‘The Apprentice’).  Yet his emphasis on entrepreneurship may actually undercut his argument that trying to force Western models on other countries will backfire.  And this is the argument that matters.

Like Ambassador Chris Stevens in Libya, says Rohde, American officials need to listen rather than try to muscle their way in, whether economically or militarily.  A little respect, that is.   Preach less, listen more.  That may not be much of a “reimagining,” but it’s the really important message of this book.

Share this post:  Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
File under: Middle East, US politics | Tagged: Tags: 'America' magazine, 'Beyond War', Afghanistan, David Rohde, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Pakistan, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, USAID | 2 Comments
  1. fatmakalkan says:
    October 26, 2013 at 2:13 pm

    I agree with you Lesley. In reality after Eygptian over throw of Moursi next one was Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey. Turkey has much older democracy than Israel in Middle East but it is not in the interest of west to have strong Turkey with strong leader. West wants Soudi type regimes that will obey. Gezi park demonstrations at Istanbul in reality was an unsuccessful cue attempt of west. Thanks God it was unsuccessful. It would destabilize Turkey politically and economically and make Turkey again slave of west. Why West and Israil gov. Wants to get rid of Erdogan? Is he radical Islamist? No. Is he planing to bring sharia law back to Turkey ? No. If Turkey was a Christian state they would allow it to became another France or Germany but it is Muslim state very mellow understanding of Islam no treat to anybody but still even that much of Islam is not OK. There fore Turkey must remain as a third world country for western Judeo- Christian politicians.

  2. Jerry M says:
    October 28, 2013 at 10:57 am

    I can understand why the author left Israel out. I may not like our policy in Israel but it is a very different problem than what is happening in the Muslim world. In the case of the Obama administration, I don’t think they have a clue as to what they want to accomplish. Their lack of real preparation has led to them to keeping the mistakes of the Bush administration in effect long after they have left town. For example the spying on Germany has been going on for 10 years.

    Obama is a good administrator when he has a clear goal, but without ideas and without good advisors he is only a little better than an amateur.

The Real Muslim Rage

Posted September 23rd, 2012 by Lesley Hazleton

Oh what a bandwagon that noxious little anti-Islamic video has set in motion.  There seems to be no end of people eager to hop on it for personal and political gain, no matter how many lives it costs.

There’s Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut, reeling from backlash against his support of Bashar al-Assad’s ongoing massacre of Syrian civilians.  What a perfect opportunity to deflect criticism by calling for more and larger protests — not against the Syrian regime, but against America, in the name of “defending the Prophet.” Except that’s not what he’s doing. To cite the headline of Nick Kristof’s NYT column today, he’s exploiting the Prophet.

There’s Ayaan Hirsi Ali, she of the soft voice and the compelling back story, who just can’t stop talking about what she calls “the Muslim mentality.” (Pop quiz:  if someone who generalizes about a stereotyped “Jewish mentality” is an anti-Semite, what’s someone who generalizes about a stereotyped “Muslim mentality”?  Click here if you don’t know.)  Hirsi Ali told her story yet again in Newsweek‘s “Muslim Rage” issue (to which the best answer was the often hilarious #MuslimRage meme on Twitter).  Strange to think that the rapidly failing Newsweek was once a reputable publication.

There’s the sophomoric French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, whose idea of cutting-edge humor is cartoons of politicians with their pants down around the ankles.  This week they ran similar cartoons of Muhammad in order to inject some life into their plumetting circulation by creating controversy.  Oh, and as a beacon of free speech, of course.

There’s Pakistan’s Minister of Railways — the man responsible for the system’s chronic debt, constant strikes, and devastating crashes. What better way to distract people from his total failure than to make himself out to be a “defender of Islam” by offering a $100,000 bounty for the life of the director of that inane video?  There’s nothing quite like incitement to murder to cover up your own corruption.

There’s more — there’s always more of such people, including of course the miserable little bigots who made the video in the first place —  but that’ll do for now. Because none of this reflects the real Muslim rage:  the palpable outrage not only at the killing of Ambassador Stevens, but also at the blatant attempt of Islamic extremists (and their Islamophobic counterparts) to hijack Islam.

Listen, for instance, to Egyptian activist Mahmoud Salem, aka Sandmonkey, who was one of the voices of 2011’s “Arab spring” in Cairo’s Tahrir Square.  Violent protests over the video are “more damaging to Islam’s reputation than a thousand so-called ‘Islam-attacking’ films,” he writes, and calls on Egyptians to condemn Islamic fundamentalists as “a bunch of shrill, patriarchal, misogynistic, violent extremists who are using Islam as a cover” for political ambition.

Twitter is spilling over with similar protests and disgust from Muslims all over the world at the way the “defenders of Islam” are destroying it from within.  And this disgust was acted on in Benghazi on Friday when 50,000 Libyans marched to demand the disarming of the extremist militias suspected of attacking the US consular buildings, then stormed the headquarters of two of the biggest militias and forced them out of town.  Two other Islamist militias instantly disbanded.  Yes, if you unite, you can face down the thugs, even well-armed ones.  This, of course, is not something you’ll see on the cover of Newsweek.

As Libyans, Egyptians, Tunisians, Yemenis, and with especial pain, Syrians know, the “Arab spring” is not a matter of a single season.  The moniker itself is a product of Western media shorthand, of the desire to label a “story” and assign it a neat, self-contained timeline.  But this was no mere story for the people living it.  It was and still is the beginning of a long process.  But one that once begun, cannot be undone.

All over the Middle East, real voices are making themselves heard, unmediated by government control whether in the name of “security” or of an extremist travesty of Islam.

And this is surely the real manifestation of that much abused principle:  freedom of expression.

Share this post:  Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
File under: fundamentalism, Islam, Middle East, sanity | Tagged: Tags: anti-Islam video, Arab spring, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Benghazi, Charlie Hebdo, Egypt, Hassan Nasrallah, Libya, militias, Newsweek, outrage, Pakistan, Sandmonkey, Syria, Tunisia | 14 Comments
  1. anon says:
    September 23, 2012 at 6:39 pm

    when CNN uses Ambassador Stevens diary—“free-speech” goes out the window. Anything embarrassing to the U.S. government or military and there is no free-speech—-anything insulting to Muslims—and “free-speech” suddenly becomes important to Americans!!!!

    By the way—Muslim-minority countries are also allowing protests in their countries—seems “anti-americanism” isn’t confined to Muslim-Majority countries alone……

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      September 23, 2012 at 6:53 pm

      Stealing and using anyone’s private diary sounds Murdoch-sleazy to me. Can’t see that it has anything to do with free speech. And as for “allowing” protests, doesn’t that word “allowing” tell you something?

      • anon says:
        September 29, 2012 at 2:13 am

        “sound Murdoch-sleazy to me”—that is exactly my point—Americans may “claim” free-speech”—but it DOES have boundaries—some things are just not acceptable—because they are “sleezy” or unpatriotic, or….etc……There were U.S. muslim students who were arrested because they protested a speech by Israeli ambassador, there was a Judge who banned hateful protests at funerals of American soldiers……

        people in different parts of the world have sensibilities that may be different from an American criteria—for example, in some countries in Asia—speech defaming the monarchy is against the law…..We have to be able to respect each others differences……….Non-Americans need to understand that America has its own criteria—and Americans need to understand that non-Americans also have their own criteria…..

        “Allowing protests”—yes, for much of the rest of the world “freedoms” are still very much a “work-in-progress”—even in the democracies of Asia.

        (by the way—I do agree that moderate/mainstream muslims MUST counter the narrow, extremist ideology that encourages violence)

        • Lesley Hazleton says:
          September 29, 2012 at 10:44 am

          You get the difference, though, between what’s acceptable and what’s legal in the US. Expressions of antisemitism and racism are legal, but no longer acceptable in the mainstream. I’m convinced that this will happen too with Islamophobia — i.e. it will be marginalized. The hard thing is that it takes time, and as you say, understanding that we all need to speak out against extremist ideologies and hatred on all sides. Freedom of expression is a terrifically tough concept to get one’s mind around — I still have great difficulty with it, and sometimes find myself raging against the American Civil Liberties Union. But I send my check to the ACLU nonetheless, because next time round, it could be me whose freedom of expression is being threatened.

  2. naveed says:
    September 23, 2012 at 8:23 pm

    You have correctly pointed out people who have cashed in on ‘muslim rage’ but these are not the real reasons for the rage. From one who is enraged: May I give the real reason for my rage? The American support to its stooges in Muslim countries, the mechanisms of regime change in Muslim countries and the American occupation of Muslim countries are the reasons for ‘Muslim Rage’

  3. Emad Yawer says:
    September 25, 2012 at 11:48 pm

    If the US and Europe so keen on free speech, whay I can not USE the Swastica, WHY I can not critisize ANY jew, jewish thing or deny the Holocost took place, WHY there is so many restrictions on what they call “HATE” , but it is all different against Islam?????????

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      September 27, 2012 at 10:28 am

      I don’t know where you live, but the fact is that in most of the world, you can. And in many parts of the Middle East, antisemitic cartoons, images etc are common in school textbooks and newspapers. As I’ve written here before, antisemitism and Islamophobia are mirror images — actually, twinned images — which makes it all the more miserably absurd when there are Muslims who are antisemitic, and Jews who are Islamophobic.

  4. Sohail Kizilbash says:
    September 26, 2012 at 4:52 pm

    Look Guys, lets us not be naive and banal. USA is THE superpower and she has to do a lot of things to maintain that status. If you don’t like it, you can lump it. Having said that, I don’t know of any other country where people are more free and freedom comes at a price. I totally agree with a Muslim who appeared on the TV a few day ago who said that the best country to practice Islam, is the USA.

    • Naveed says:
      September 30, 2012 at 10:51 am

      You are right USA is THE superpower. Dont forget that not too long ago Britain and then USSR were superpowers. Dont lose sight of the fact that in less than five years China will be a Superpower. Scientific and technological development can neither be halted nor contained sooner or later small countries and even stateless groups will accquire yet to be invented weapons of mass destruction. The survival of mankind depends on realizing that there can be no prosperity without peace and there can be no peace without justice.

      • Sohail Kizilbash says:
        September 30, 2012 at 2:48 pm

        Absolutely no argument there, Naveed. The seeds of destruction are embedded in the fabric of an empire. All empires, until now, have degenerated into dictatorships, arrogance, conceit, intolerance, superiority complex and gone into a comfort zone, bringing about their demise. Hopefully this will not happen to the USA as it adapts to changing times. See the change from a slave owning society, to a country where a half black is President. Now people proudly declare that they have native blood. One has to live in the USA and read history to see the change. The self critical nature of the Americans is one of their biggest strength.That is just my humble opinion.

        • naveed says:
          October 1, 2012 at 4:35 am

          Very well written Sohail. I had the privilege of living and working in USA as an alien resident for several years. I whole heartedly agree that America is a great country; the vast majority of Americans are forthright, honest and fair-minded people. We in the third world owe America and Europe a huge debt of gratitude for the benefits of science and technology. Unfortunately Americans are themselves the victims of a foreign policy influenced by lobbies whose allegiance lies outside its shores. For the sake of people of America and the people of the world. For the sake of peace on earth, we can only hope and pray that the future leaders of America will be great people like Abraham Lincoln and Benjamin Franklin, people who would base their decisions on principles of right and wrong rather than on opinion polls, oil money and directives of foreign lobbies. Kissinger said “ Real politick not a moralistic approach to foreign policy would best serve American interests” ( perhaps he really meant Israeli interests ) Americans are being led by neo-cons and evangelists who base their foreign policy on biblical prophesies.

          • Sohail Kizilbash says:
            October 1, 2012 at 7:36 am

            Alas. Sometimes the tail wags the dog.

  5. Sohail Kizilbash says:
    September 26, 2012 at 4:54 pm

    By the way Lesley, if you are on the FB you might enjoy the comments on my recent posts on this issue.

  6. irfan says:
    October 1, 2012 at 7:33 pm

    .hope the peaceful message will get more support

    http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/opinion/edit-page/Blasphemy-in-Islam-The-Quran-does-not-prescribe-punishment-for-abusing-the-Prophet/articleshow/16631496.cms

Could That Video Be Self-Defeating?

Posted September 15th, 2012 by Lesley Hazleton

Could that pernicious video have ended up working against itself?  Could this be the tipping point for both Islamophobia and its mirror image, militant “Islamist” extremism?  Is this where both are revealed for the ugly con game they really are?

Perhaps the one good thing about the video is that it is so upfront in its ugliness.  It’s no longer just you and I saying it;  it’s also the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, whose anger was palpable:  “To us, to me personally, this video is disgusting and reprehensible. It appears to have a deeply cynical purpose: to denigrate a great religion and to provoke rage.”

Now we know who made the video:  a convicted con man, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, indicted on multiple charges of bank fraud and check-kiting.  And he may indeed end up back in jail, since by posting his work to the Internet he violated the terms of his probation.  That’s little consolation, of course, for the multiple deaths he’s caused — at least a dozen so far.  And none at all for those who don’t understand that the principle of freedom of speech, no matter how hard it is to accept, applies to all. Under a different administration, the same principle by which they demand that he be jailed could then be turned around and applied to them.

But we know more.  We know that the protests against the video have been used and manipulated by Al Qaeda and Salafi types, who manipulated the sincere outrage and insult of protestors to further their own political agenda and try to destabilize newly elected governments.  In the process, they also furthered the agenda of their Islamophobic blood brothers, providing graphic images of Muslims doing everything Islamophobes expect — rioting, burning, killing.  But for the first time, all countries involved seem to have clearly recognized this and given voice to it, perhaps none more perfectly than Hillary Clinton: “”The people of Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Tunisia did not trade the tyranny of a dictator for the tyranny of a mob.”

We know that Twitter is alive with condemnations of the violence from Libyans, Tunisians, Egyptians, and more.  Mainstream Muslims, both religious and secular, will no longer tolerate being intimidated into silence by those who claim to speak in their name for a violent, extremist travesty of Islam.  They are speaking out in unprecedented volume and numbers.

And we know this:  the new governments of Libya and Yemen instantly condemned the violence and apologized for the death of Ambassador Stevens.  In the words of the president of the Libyan National Congress, it was “an apology to the United States and the Arab people, if not the whole world, for what happened.  We together with the United States government are on the same side, standing in a united front in the face of these murderous outlaws.”  Residents of Tripoli and Benghazi staged demonstrations to condemn the attack on the Benghazi consulate and to express their sorrow at the death of Stevens, who was widely admired for his support of the revolution that ousted Qaddafi.

Even the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt finally realized that this was not a matter of defending Islam against outside enemies, but of defending it against its own worst enemies on the inside.

All this, it seems to me, is new.  As is the reaction of the US administration, led by Obama and Clinton — calm, measured, determined, and in the spirit of Ambassador Stevens himself,  the opposite of the heavy-handed American imperialism of the past.  Imagine if this had happened under Bush, or under Romney, and shudder at how they would have reacted.

Could it be, finally, that more and more people are getting it?  That both the Islamists and the Islamophobes are losing?  That sanity, however high the cost in lives, might actually prevail?

Share this post:  Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
File under: fundamentalism, Islam, Middle East, ugliness | Tagged: Tags: Al Qaeda, Egypt, Hillary Clinton, Islamophobia, Libya, Muslim Brotherhood, Nakoula, Obama, Salafis, Tunisia, Twitter, Yemen, YouTube video | 9 Comments
  1. Yafiah Katherine says:
    September 15, 2012 at 12:15 pm

    It’s so refreshing to read such a clear-headed account of the situation. I’ve been feeling so down-hearted throughout this awful mess and I hope too that it will become clearer to everyone how Islamophobes and extreme Islamists are mirror-images of each other. But surely there is a line between freedom of speech and hate speech that incites to violence? I’ve been so frustrated at the BBC reporting on ‘a video that Muslims find insensitive’ instead of saying loud and clear that it’s totally unacceptable as much as the manipulation of the protests is totally unacceptable. I’m tweeting your post and sharing it on FB. Thank you.

  2. Sandra Peters says:
    September 15, 2012 at 1:00 pm

    Lesley,

    Thank You for such an excellent perspective of how the world is reacting to the video. Violence and destruction are not the answer. “Calm, measured, determined, and in the spirit of Ambassador Stevens himself” as you so wrote will prevail.

  3. burhan says:
    September 15, 2012 at 2:03 pm

    Lesley hazleton, Im your biggest fan and I wish I could ever come to the same intelligence level as you one day! Burhan Adhami

  4. Herman says:
    September 15, 2012 at 5:29 pm

    Amazing,
    In Egypt they televise a series based on the fictitious Protocols of the elders of Zion, in Iran a conference is held regarding the non happening of the Holocaust, Christians are murdered all over Muslim Africa and Egypt and you are blaming everything on Al Quaeda.
    You are kidding right?

  5. Qaisar Latif says:
    September 16, 2012 at 1:32 am

    Well said.

  6. Meera Vijayann says:
    September 16, 2012 at 1:34 am

    Thank you for this great read Lesley. Honestly, when I watched the video, I first thought it was absolute nonsense, and was surprised that such rubbish could be taken seriously. In fact, if the movie was indeed to be taken seriously, it was perhaps a good opportunity for the Muslim world to ignore it and refuse to stoop so low by giving it the attention it intended to garner.

    As you rightly said, I am glad too that the Bush government isn’t in power. I shudder to think of what would’ve happened if it were.

  7. Meezan says:
    September 16, 2012 at 8:56 am

    Silver lining to a very very dark cloud.

  8. Tea-mahm says:
    September 17, 2012 at 1:49 pm

    You go girl! Good piece. Sending love from Istanbul where the call to prayer wakes me in the morning…..

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      September 17, 2012 at 2:56 pm

      Sooooo envious! One day I will make it to Istanbul!

Portrait of a Saudi Criminal

Posted May 24th, 2011 by Lesley Hazleton

You might think it absurd that a woman driving a car is news.  But then this is the absurdity known as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, now frantically trying to censor video clips of Manal al-Sharif driving.  An apparently government-supported online drive is under way to beat women caught driving, and al-Sharif  (this is her, to the right) is being held in detention for “inciting public opinion” and “disturbing public order.”

That is, for driving while female.  DWF.  A crime.

Watch the Al Jazeera report here.  Check out the newly replicated Facebook page here.  Read al-Sharif’s instructions for the June 17 ‘drive-in’ protest here on Saudiwoman’s Weblog.

And then consider the far greater absurdity of the continued existence of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which refuses to extend the most basic civil rights (even the vote) to half its population, and whose wealth and power is entirely fueled by the Western thirst for oil.  An intensely repressive Middle East regime, that is, funded directly by Western money.

But that’s only the surface.  This Western oil money is still funding the worldwide Saudi export of the most conservative and repressive form of Islam.  If there is one single country that has enabled violent Islamism, it’s not the perceived enemies of the United States like Libya, Afghanistan, or Iran, but our “good friends” the Saudis — our oil dealers.

The Saudis thought they had escaped “the Arab spring.”  They sent their military into Bahrain to help squelch protests there.  They encouraged the violent suppression of protests in Yemen.  They thought they had things under control.

But another kind of Arab spring may now be in the making.  An Arab summer, perhaps.  Six months ago, a single Tunisian street vendor couldn’t take it any more and sparked a revolution by setting himself on fire.  Now a tech-savvy Saudi woman refuses to take it any more and threatens to spark another revolution by simply taking the wheel.

This is how it starts — with individual acts of defiance, with a refusal to knuckle under, with an insistence on basic dignity.  And with the support of a vast and unsquelchable online community.

The links are above.  Go to it, everyone.

Share this post:  Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
File under: feminism, Islam, Middle East | Tagged: Tags: Afghanistan, Arab spring, arrest, Bahrain, censorship, driving, Iran, Libya, Manal al-Sharif, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, video, women, Yemen | 12 Comments
  1. Derakht says:
    May 25, 2011 at 9:21 am

    Its good Saudi Arabia doing that which help people in the world to understand and find true Islam.
    In fact nothing wrong with woman driving, just Saudi Arabia want to destroy Islam by this way! but its very helpful for the people think. in a lot of Islamic country woman driving car even van and airplane. but in wahhabism thought NO. they not Muslim, they are anti-Islam, and anti human.

  2. aboalhasan says:
    May 27, 2011 at 3:19 pm

    Really, this is intrior issue for saudi people..
    U R not saudi, so why you are talking about ?
    Every social has thier own traditions, may you know how they save thier family.
    so just keep away from us 🙂

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      May 27, 2011 at 3:41 pm

      Does that ‘us’ include Manal al-Sharif? Does it include all Saudi women? Does it even include all Saudi men?
      And why, precisely, should I not comment?

      • Abdulrahman says:
        May 27, 2011 at 8:30 pm

        Lesley, I am a Saudi man and I am a supporter of the women right to drive (and so many other rights), actually i think it is stupid law to ban women from driving. However, I do not encourage my female family members to disobey it, simply because it is the law no matter how stupid it is. so in this context I think what manal did is wrong; she broke the LAW. what she should have done is: ask for changing the law through the legal channels. and now if you ask me should we change the law and allow women to drive I would say no, at least not this year. because that would encourage anybody: just go to the street, break any law that you do not like, get the support from all over the world, and there you are: you made it. there are some people who are looking to make weed legal in the US, are they out there smoking weed in public to make it legal? is this the right way to do it? absolutely no. On the other hand, It is purely internal issue, it is up to the society to decide. I was against banning women from driving (and i will be again in the future) but i did respect the opinion of the majority (even women majority). this bring us to how we make the law anywhere in the world. what is right and what is wrong? believe me, people from different parts of the world have different views, what you think is right is not necessary right in the eyes of a group of people in Nigeria for instant. you have to respect that. Did you ask your self how did the goverment in Saudi made this law? it is a long story and i am happy to tell it if you wish.
        to answer your question: why should you not comment, 1. because it is purely internal issue (no saudi has the right to comment on an internal issue in the US)
        2. you do not know the circumstances related to enforce this law in the first place and the issue of 1991 and the issue of conflicting parties in Saudi regarding this issue and so many others.
        3. and believe me when i say that: you are making it harder to us (supporter of the women right to drive) to change the law any time near in the future, and the more you interfere the harder you make it.
        PEACE

        • Lesley Hazleton says:
          May 27, 2011 at 9:48 pm

          Abdulrahman, it sounds like you’re between the proverbial rock and a hard place.
          If I understand you right, you’re essentially saying “of course the law is nuts, but now’s not the time to change it.” But to quote an ancient saying: “If not now, when?”
          You’re saying that open discussion will only make things worse. But isn’t that another way to suppress speech and thought?
          You’re saying that we must respect the law. But law is not carved in stone. When it’s manifestly wrong — segregation laws in the American south in the 50s, for instance — it needs to be broken, and those with the courage to do so both need and deserve our support, wherever we are.

      • aboalhasan says:
        June 12, 2011 at 12:25 am

        1- Yes
        2 – also YES
        3 – also YESSS
        4 – I just told that ” U R not saudi ” citizen !!

  3. Abdulrahman says:
    May 27, 2011 at 9:07 pm

    it is me again, aha, after posting my last comment i checked you on wikipedia. and i would like to say that my last comment was based on the assumption that your article was just a pure support for the human rights. now after reading about you I think that you are going to criticize this country no matter what. so my comment was a huge waste of my valuable time.
    anyway: PEACE

  4. Abu Abdulrahman says:
    June 2, 2011 at 1:59 pm

    To the best of my judgement, allowing Saudi women to drive will be a negative change in Saudi society because of the high potential for them being grossly mistreated and harrassed, in more ways than you can imagine, by the general male public. That is why the “Saudi Society” is fearful of allowing it. This fact is acknowledged by most opposers as the real reason for continuous ban on women driving and it is why the majority of Saudis do not want it so as to protect their women.

  5. Abu Abdulrahman says:
    June 2, 2011 at 2:09 pm

    Correction: This scenario is acknowledged by most opposers as the real reason for continuous ban on women driving and it is why the majority of Saudis do not want it so as to protect their women.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      June 2, 2011 at 5:15 pm

      “Their” women? See my latest post “The Virginity Test.”

      • Abu Abdulrahman says:
        June 3, 2011 at 3:43 am

        Please do not perceive my thoughts as contradictory (on one hand, I say the people want to ‘protect’ their women while on the other hand I warn of the potential ill treatment of these same women by the same ‘general public’). Unfortunately, ME societies suffer from high levels of ignorance, hypocricy, lack of education, misconception and non-implementation of the true values of Islam, and the list goes on . . .

  6. Abu Abdulrahman says:
    June 3, 2011 at 2:52 am

    Yes, “their” men. Likewise, us men are “their” men. Considering who you are and where/how you were brought up, you may never understand the nature of social relations in an Eastern, not necessarily Islamic or Arab, society. And considering you have much insight into the Arabic language, explore the word Haram (حرم)

The 50-Minute Video

Posted March 12th, 2011 by Lesley Hazleton

I know you probably don’t have time for this long a video, but for the record, here’s my February 19 keynote speech at the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, MI — on fundamentalism, stereotyping, and (with suitably Jewish agnostic chutzpah) religion, as well as on the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia and the effect they may have on American attitudes toward Islam.

The occasion, at the largest Shia mosque in America, was the celebration of the birthday of Muhammad.   The still shot has a somewhat disturbingly preacher look to it, so please tell me I’m not preaching, just talking…

(The sound comes in fully after about 45 seconds.)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-hTxDvRVlo]

Share this post:  Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
File under: Christianity, fundamentalism, Islam, Judaism | Tagged: Tags: After the Prophet, Bahrain, Deuteronomy, Egypt, gospels, highlighter version, Islamophobia, Kaddish, Karbala, Libya, Nick Kristof, nutshell syndrome, Peter King, Quran, Roger Cohen, St Paul, stereotypes, Tariq Ramadan, terrorism, Tunisia, Yemen, zealotry | 49 Comments
  1. Meezan says:
    March 12, 2011 at 2:01 pm

    Being a Muslim, I have read my share of prophet Mohammad’s (s.a.w.w)biographies and siras but I have to say one of my favorite parts of his life was revealed to me recently by Karen Armstrong’s “Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time”. When the prophet was 19-20 years old (can’t remember exactly) he liked a girl and wanted to marry her but his uncle suggested that he was not in a good financial position to support a wife. This is not much, I know but that revealed a very human side of the prophet to me. I saw him as a flesh and blood person rather than an ever illuminating, floating in the air, long haired, blue eyed guy, and hence putting everything in a new perspective. His teachings now seemed like really good advice rather than an order. His religion a very flexible and tolerant way of life rather than something you have to have to follow.

    Your words are as always, enlightening.

  2. yusong says:
    March 12, 2011 at 5:11 pm

    fantastic, you are a noble female, i admire you very much.

    • Shishir says:
      March 14, 2011 at 6:43 am

      “a noble female” now what is that supposed to mean?

  3. Jonathan Omer-Man says:
    March 12, 2011 at 5:53 pm

    Congratulations! This is wonderful. And aren’t our similar interests dramatically divergent…

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      March 13, 2011 at 10:58 am

      Or maybe they go round in a huge circle and turn out to be convergent…

  4. Aijaz says:
    March 13, 2011 at 10:58 am

    Bravery is going against the the tide.
    and Lesley has it

  5. Chad Tabba says:
    March 13, 2011 at 6:56 pm

    Wonderful talk Lesley, it brought to mind a couple of ideas I’m thinking of:
    First: Truly, religion’s goal, and the reason religions were formed, was to support the innate striving to be human, to be closer to the ideals of humanity. Thats how and why Sufism seems to be (at least in my mind) in many aspects more similar to buddhism than literal Islam. While Sufism in itself has imperfections as well, I have felt closer to much of what it says (and gnostic christianity) than literal religious belief. The idea that religion and faith comes from the heart, that religion is not about dogma, but about treating others as you would be treated, about forgiveness, and about love (general love not necessarily romantic love). Funny that I would be agnostic and gnostic simultaneously.

    Second: a question/note. I am saddened by the literalist/extremist interpretation of the holy books in general. The holy books have enough subtleness to allow some people to highlight specific words and twist them to support their ideas and take sentences out of context. Why did they have to be so subtle that the average person may be sucked into that literalism? That is my biggest problem with religion; more than trying to believe in a supreme creator, it’s the idea that it takes a higher level of understanding and “brain power” to understand what religion wants us to do. Whats the use if a bigger percentage of people are going to take it wrong and use it to kill each other? Why couldn’t the creator be more clear to lessen the sadness and suffering in the world. Why allow millions to be killed in his/her name? Would love to hear what u think about these 2 points.

    • Aijaz says:
      March 14, 2011 at 6:04 am

      Quran was revealed in single shot on Lailatul Qadr…then it was re-revealed in 23 years with cause and effects and circumstances to make sure people can not misinterperet its verses. The idea that Quran was re-revealed further strengthened that Prophet was warned not to haste but to wait for revelations [….]

      But still we have history and collections of traditions to help us understand the background of revelations in their true spirit. The key to understand Quran is 3:7, which Lesley has pointed out. She is not only eloquent but on the right track. It’s possible she already know more Quran than many of us, she understand the difference between Reader’s Digest and Holy Quran. Sometimes I feel not sure to guide her to some Quranic lead. Chances are she is already there.

      Metaphors are not there to mislead but we can not conceive them in their true interpretations. Tahir ul-Qadri has given a beautiful interpretation on “Judgment Day is near” He says no one knows when is Judgment day but for every individual his judgment day is his death day and tha’ts very near. [….] Metaphor does not mean that we doubt the reality of that day…reality of that Day is literal, nature of that day is allegorical. [….]

      Imam Ali said “You will never know truth and follow the right way unless you know the person who has abandoned it.”

      • Shishir says:
        March 14, 2011 at 7:00 am

        @Aijaz

        If I am not wrong you are Muslim, so I apologize beforehand for possible offense that my remarks may cause you.
        a) It is wrong to believe that Quran was revealed at one go and Mohammed was refrained from making it known at once. There is no real evidence of the fact, an equally plausible explanation is that it was “revealed” as Mohammed was in a position to understand it.
        b) It is also wrong to assume divinity of Quran, it is work of a man for it shows all that is concern of man nothing more nothing less.
        c) The reason why people interpret Quran differently is because Quran is not like a mathematical treatise and hence is ambiguous. The writer of Quran was limited in his/her knowledge because it was limited by what was known at the time. If a religion originates today it will suffer the same limitations perhaps 1600 yrs later.
        d) There can not be just one true religion, if it is can it be demonstrated it is so, unfortunately every holy book claims it and Quran claims it more than others perhaps.

        Now it is possible that I am wrong about some things, and if I am okay. I’ll learn something.

      • Lesley Hazleton says:
        March 14, 2011 at 10:46 am

        Aijaz — It really is time to cool it, and to find some way to acknowledge that you are human, that you do not have a stranglehold on “the truth.” There are many ways to approach this whole matter, and the ways others choose may be as valid and as well-intentioned as yours, no matter how different. As the Quran says, “you have your way, and I have mine.” Mine, as should be clear on this blog, is that there is no such thing as absolute truth, and that it’s precisely this absolutist idea that causes so much conflict. I think it would be far more productive and respectful if you reflected a lot more and judged a lot less.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      March 14, 2011 at 10:35 am

      Chad — Simultaneously gnostic and agnostic makes sense to me. In fact I sometimes call myself a gnostic agnostic — and some day, will have to figure out more precisely what I mean by that. You may be ahead of me there.

      But doesn’t your second point kind of undermine the first? It seems to assume the existence of an omnipotent creator with a will — that is, a conventional idea of God. Me, I’m really not into the whole idea of religion or of God ‘wanting’ us to do anything. The idea of a “purpose-driven life” is horribly mechanistic to me, leaving no room for what we were talking about earlier: for mystery, for poetry, for music.

      Sacred texts are really only sacred because human beings have made them so — either because they see them as prescriptions for how to behave, or because they find in them inspiration or an invitation to transcend their own limitations. (Well, and a vast range of possibilities between those two, but you get my point).

      • Chad Tabba says:
        March 14, 2011 at 2:26 pm

        Oh, I agree Lesley. There is a contradiction. My second note was simply me just showing that even if I played devil’s advocate (pun intended) on behalf of literalists, I still couldnt excuse how some extremists act and “misquote” scriptures.

  6. Aijaz says:
    March 14, 2011 at 11:51 am

    Lesley

    I do not have stranglehold on truth but I am entitled to hold my views as other humans have it here like shishir, and I am not offended by his/her dissent.

    I see nothing wrong with sticking to my views with a belief they are true.
    Humane side is to share my views without offending others.

    • Aijaz says:
      March 14, 2011 at 12:25 pm

      @Shshir — You are not wrong I am Muslim. Beauty of any discussion forum is disagreement on issues otherwise its nothing more than exchanging the pleasantries, that may feel good but it serves no purpose. Purpose is served when we understand each other through civilized arguments with logic and common sense.

      I am glad you disagree with my position but unfortunately you did not present your argument instead you posted your opinion and what you believe. [….]

      Isa [Jesus] himself never claimed to have come in the fulfilment of the prophecy about the advent of the promised prophet, nor any other prophet, after him did so, except the Holy Prophet Muhammad al Mustafa.[….] The Christian Church had no alternative but to give currency to the belief in the second advent of Isa. Musa [Moses] and Muhammad were the law-givers, whereas Isa was the follower of the laws preached by Musa.

      Similarities between Muhammad and Musa are many. No two prophets, in historical background, resembled each other more than these two. [….]

      • Shishir says:
        March 14, 2011 at 2:54 pm

        @Aijaz — I am glad that you are not offended by my comments. Your argument is that I’ve only stated my opinion. I beg to differ. I have stated my exact position with regards to revealed religions.Be they Islam, Christianity or Judaism.

        Again I apologize if the following offends you. I do not accept the holy books of these religions as the word of God. These religions were created by men, for fulfilling needs of men living in a certain geographical region, living under certain social-economical conditions. The people all had a shared history, hence the similarity and often concurrence in what they say. It is redundant if Bible, Torah or Quran concur with each other or even that they describe same events.

        I live in India, a country with more diversity than the whole of Europe, and it gives me a unique perspective, which is not to say that you may not possess that perspective, leading me to conclude that certain stories will get adopted, absorbed over a long period of time by people so much so that they may even claim ownership of it. I believe that the history of Islam, Christianity and Judaism are so entwined with the history of middle east that to figure what one has borrowed from other would be a difficult exercise. [….]

        I’d say that Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed were closer to being social reformers than they were “prophets” [….] I can assure you, that if Gandhi, Dr.King, Mandela etc had been born in 500 A.D. they’d have founded major religions too. [….]

  7. Nuno Dias says:
    March 14, 2011 at 7:02 pm

    just dropping again by to say: Wonderful 😉

  8. sa says:
    March 14, 2011 at 9:51 pm

    Lesley, are you a Muslim?…..lets start off with a nice easy one 😉

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      March 14, 2011 at 10:04 pm

      Maybe read the blog. I’m an agnostic Jew. Firmly agnostic. Firmly Jewish.

      • sa says:
        March 15, 2011 at 4:53 pm

        Sure, But since you submit to a higher Being would mean that you are in a sense a Muslim i.e. one who submits to God. You may not follow the rituals and traditions ascribed to Islam but your principles, I assume, are the one and same and noticeble in your exegesis of the Quran and you can only do that if you have a clean and conscientious heart which the Quran lays as one of its first principles for understanding the Quran.

        • Lesley Hazleton says:
          March 15, 2011 at 5:26 pm

          I’m Jewish by birth, identity, and interest, not by belief, which means I really, honestly, do not ‘believe in’ or submit to any higher being, whether upper or lower case. As close as possible to “a clean and conscientious heart” (and mind) sounds good enough. And a glimpse, here and there, of the mystery of existence.
          So please, just let me be me.
          Maybe see here for more: http://accidentaltheologist.com/2011/01/18/an-agnostic-manifesto-part-one/
          And here: http://accidentaltheologist.com/2011/01/10/the-100th-post-a-non-mission-statement/

      • Chad Tabba says:
        March 15, 2011 at 5:52 pm

        Why won’t people just let agnostic be agnostic. I just hate it when someone wants you to “pick a side”. I hate when people view agnosticism as weak. Or when someone says “I would respect you more if you were atheist or religious than agnostic”. Why is someone’s personal belief such an issue for everyone to interfere with? I think people miss the idea of what a “jewish agnostic” or “muslim agnostic” means. It means that the person is agnostic from a belief standpoint, but from a birth and family event standpoint, they may follow what their culture has them do. Just like americans celebrate Thanksgiving, I would (as a muslim agnostic) celebrate Ramadan and eid, even though I am agnostic from a god belief standpoint. If someone can’t grasp that concept, how will they grasp the concept of gnostic agnostic?

      • sa says:
        March 15, 2011 at 8:04 pm

        Lesley Hazleton, you are you although Agnostic is someone who is doubtful, non comittal to God or not sure whether you are a theist or a non theist, so I was asking. Point made, looking forward to see what you have to say about faith of people who believe in a God.

        Chad Tabba relax , take a deep breath. No one is out to change you or Leslie. Just trying to understand and now I even understand what a gnostic agnostic theist atheist. Who Knew!

  9. sa says:
    March 14, 2011 at 10:03 pm

    Lesley, whats your take on the following verses:

    Surah 4:34

    Surah 4:157 – 158

    Sorry to put you on the spot but nows your chance to really shine 😉

  10. Lesley Hazleton says:
    March 14, 2011 at 10:08 pm

    Re 4:34, its another of those better-if-you-don’t things. I think what most Muslims think: it may have been acceptable for a man to beat his wife in the seventh century; it sure as hell isn’t today.
    Re 4:157-8: I don’t need to be exonerated of killing Jesus by the Quran any more than I need it from Ratzinger. Though the Quran did beat him to it by 14 centuries.

    • sa says:
      March 15, 2011 at 5:11 pm

      LOL, oh come’on Lesley. You know when you read the ayah/verse 4:,34 it makes no sense. I mean first you tell your wife off, and if she still does not listen you leave her bed chamber and then if she still does not listen you beat her? How about BEATING a retreat and not BEAT about the bush and say cya! The Reformist Quran by Edip Yuksel explains some of the questionable interpretations.

      and now to 4:157. You know this is where you make friends or enemies. So you are wise not to answer it. There is only one interpretation of this verse and that is that Jesus was not raised into the Heavens nor was he killed on the cross but made to appear so (no doubt by some gall and vinegar) and ultimatley survived. I can and have been called a heretic for making such remarks nay whole schools that profess have. At least in Judaism, I can still be a Jew and not believe in the Prophets. Oh well I will leave this one for someone who wants to challenge it.

      • Chad Tabba says:
        March 15, 2011 at 6:03 pm

        I think the idea is not trying to interpret specific surahs without knowing the specific context. I don’t understand what “sa” is trying to prove with these questions. Are you trying to give us proof that there are (for lack of a better word) “unsavory” verses in the Koran that may be used out of context (or in context) to be harmful? Lesley is obviously not saying that the Koran is a book from god, but she is just saying that it gets a bad reputation due to a minority of people who take verses out of context and that it is no more violent than other scriptures. I think that for someone who knows the Koran, that point is undisputable. What the Koran says or doesnt say about Jesus (if he existed to start with) is insignificant.

      • sa says:
        March 15, 2011 at 9:31 pm

        On the contrary @Chad Tabba, that is precisely the point. You have to explore the specific context in order to understand the verse. The problem is that certain verses are intepreted by both Christian and Muslim fundamentalists to advance their own violent agenda as Lesley has pointed out. But I would also argue that traditional Muslim thinking supporting the creation theory is also unfounded in the Quran [….] People then believe that AntiChrist is a one eyed monster running around the Earth and that Jesus will come back and battle it. Some Muslim scholars and clergy believe that a great final battle will take place between good and evil. This type of thinking goes against the ethos of the Quran.

        Also I don’t believe that Lesley is saying that the Quran is violent but rather that God in the Quran discourages violence. I therefore disagree with you that the Quran is violent or promotes violence. As a Muslim, I try not to allow the dynamics of a culture dictate my faith only to then have doubts about a God – but each to their own.

        Finally, all major traditional faiths have prophecized about a future Kalki, Soashoyant, maitreya, Messiah, Jesus, Isa. [….] Over 50% of the worlds population follow a faith tradition that is expecting a savior. If all are waiting then this can only be fulfilled in one person who would unite all peoples and he/she does not have to make a grand entrance by dropping in from the sky. It’s quite possible that this savior comes from the people.

      • Chad Tabba says:
        March 16, 2011 at 8:39 am

        Seems you misunderstood me sa. In my comments about “what are you trying to prove” I was referring to you not Lesley. I didn’t see the point in bringing up that first surah. I understand Lesley and what she thinks very well, and she expresses many things I think about too, but expresses them in a very interesting way.
        As for the other surah about Jesus, reading many sources has showed my that the whole idea of death and rebirth of a savior born of a Virgin mother etc. (in any form, and regardless of each religion’s details about how it happened) is an idea that was also there in ancient Egypt even before Judaism. Its more about rebirth of the human soul after the person finds and understands his/her deep self. Whether there was an actual Jesus and the details of when and how he may have died and if he will return are irrelevant. We need to understand the idea behind the story.

      • sa says:
        March 17, 2011 at 4:14 pm

        I was interested to know what her understanding of sura 4:34 was. Just as she explained Sura 2:191 in her speech, which BTW, is also how Islamic scholars have understood these verses to mean.

        Agreed Sura 4:157 is irrelevent to Lesley.

      • hossam says:
        March 27, 2011 at 4:36 am

        @sa
        i am not posting to discuss this but just to make a correction
        4:157-8 says that jesus was not killed and was not crucified and WAS raised by God

      • sa says:
        March 27, 2011 at 8:15 pm

        @hossam, you just did and here is my response.

        No mistake, verse 4:157 does not mean that Jesus was raised in body or soul. It also does not mean that he was slain or crucified but was made to appear as if he was but actually survived.

        5:117 plainly states that Jesus died a natural death.

        3:144 says that all Messengers before Mohammed (SAW) passed away. That would also include the prophet Isa (AS). Abu Bakr, used this verse to convince the companions on the death of the Holy Prophet that he indeed had died just like messengers before him meaning that no one was immortal.

  11. MZ says:
    March 15, 2011 at 12:06 pm

    Hello Lesley,

    It’s your annoying camera-man here. Yes, we finally got it up and working on YouTube. I want to thank you once again for the talk, I heard a lot of good feedback from our community and we really enjoyed it.

    Peace

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      March 15, 2011 at 12:36 pm

      Hey MZ — thanks for the work! Am amazed and delighted people are watching it. — L.

  12. Nabi says:
    March 16, 2011 at 8:30 am

    Well said Lesley. I enjoyed every minute, even though it did take me two sessions since last night to watch this. I had started taking notes last night on my wife’s laptop but after finished watching it now i decided no to look at those notes but rather comment on just one thing i picked out today and that is when you said not aiming for a perfect future. I personally in my life would rather think of it as not aiming for a Utopia in life where everyone is a perfect muslim but rather aim more for the perfection of truth and justice in human relations. I personally could care less if a person chooses to pray or have an ‘Islamic’ appearance and all the other bells and whistles that go w/ religion. My main concern is that we don’t do the bad/and wrong against each other rather than enforcing the obligatory practices which indeed are only between an individual and God. The prophet was told he was sent to send glad tidings (for the followers) and warning (for the astray) and not to run peoples lives. and not to yearn when they do not accept the correct path because even then only God guides those who wish to be guided.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      March 16, 2011 at 8:44 am

      A big ‘Amen’ from the unguided!

      • Nabi says:
        March 16, 2011 at 9:20 am

        I take that ‘unguided’ as sarcasm, because no one is misguided so long as they follow the good that is programed in them. After all isn’t that the object of religion to hone us into following our good instincts?

        • Lesley Hazleton says:
          March 16, 2011 at 9:41 am

          Not sarcasm. Irony.

  13. Ammar says:
    March 16, 2011 at 9:00 am

    We love you Lesley, offcource we have time to see your 50 min video.

  14. Ammar says:
    March 16, 2011 at 9:06 am

    Dont forgot people of Bahrain, they in a new Karbala,
    they need help ….. please

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      March 16, 2011 at 4:08 pm

      I wish we could help. It’s a nightmare there right now.

  15. Cosima says:
    March 17, 2011 at 2:59 am

    Lesley I applaud your efforts. I will always have time to listen to your talks. Your wit and intelligence, thoughtfulness and perceptiveness are a breath of fresh air. Also, I just love your hat 🙂

  16. AJ says:
    March 17, 2011 at 5:53 am

    Thanks Lesley

  17. BF says:
    March 21, 2011 at 3:20 am

    As a muslim – thank you for this vdo. In addition to your excellent insight on Quranic expression and meaning – thank you for your political perspectives.

    Looking at conservatives on both sides of the divide as followers of a similar religion is something I have thought about, but never been able to express as eloquently as you have.

  18. Jesus says:
    March 22, 2011 at 11:21 pm

    [This came in to my spam file, but for the sake of light relief, I couldn’t resist running it. After all, how often do you get email from ‘Jesus@heaven.com’? — Lesley.]

    Jesus was song of God and a Jew, all prophets and even Jesus were Jew, God did not send anybody after Christ…its in word of God!

  19. Sarah Conover says:
    March 28, 2011 at 10:33 am

    Really appreciated the considered talk, Lesley. I like that you opened discourse, rather than shut it down. It wasn’t as if I was left with more questions or answers than before, but I was left with more curiosity. Thank you!

  20. Shahrin says:
    March 29, 2011 at 11:27 pm

    Hello Ms. Hazleton,

    I just wanted to extend my heartfelt gratitude for this resonating, and insightful speech. I hope you have tailored similar versions to non-Muslim audiences as well; that being said, I also enjoyed your talk on TED.

    Along a similar vein, as a Muslim college student, I have cast some light in interfaith circles with the intent of enlightening and sharing with others about the dynamics of Islam, as well as its very basic tenets that create its backbone.

    With your positive influence, coupled with inspirational scholars such as the late Edward Said and Karen Armstrong, I have lived gained, in light of Ben Zoma’s teachings, wisdom by learning from all people. This is the kind of plurality that I believe Islam embraces, especially for the imagination (as you referred to in this video). The more I have found myself feeding my soul with discourse, and newly processed information coming from a diverse spectrum, the more Muslim I feel, the closer I feel to the beautiful messages of the Qur’an.

    I’ve recently dedicated myself to writing small pieces, essays to properly establish my thoughts in formal, comprehensive order over concepts and tiers of the Qur’an that I happen to intrigue myself with at a particular moment. I hope that as I continue, I may reach a deeper understanding of my faith. Thank you for being an inspiration, and a contributing catalyst on my religious journey.

    Shahrin,

  21. Lana says:
    April 4, 2011 at 5:51 am

    You inspire me … a beautiful talk

  22. Talia says:
    May 9, 2012 at 9:14 pm

    50 mins! and I thoroughly enjoyed it all. Thank you Lesley! I’m a muslim (the degree of submission or islam, I feel is a very subjective matter but if one has to put a label on it, I think of myself as being quite religious) and that’s why it’s so refreshing to hear someone speak as you do – with the objectivity of the outsider.

    But what I found delightful, in additional to your graceful and inimical style with its wonderful touches of wry humor,was both the empathy and open-mindedness especially as they seem to be rooted in quite a deep well of knowledge which you do not hesitate to divest of its traditional interpretations, and so allow it the flexibility which is its due.

    Dare I say that it reaffirms my own beliefs – which I know is not your intent – but there it is, none the less! Again, thanks!

    Talia

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      June 2, 2012 at 9:49 am

      Thanks Talia. True, not my intent, but there’s a gentle irony to it that makes us both smile.

Believing in Peace

Posted February 24th, 2011 by Lesley Hazleton

“I can’t believe you don’t believe in anything!” someone wrote on this blog a while back, commenting on my agnosticism (actually, she used capital letters and lots of exclamation marks, but I’ll refrain).   And I was a bit shocked by that.  What kind of human being can I claim to be if I don’t believe in anything?  A nihilist?  A god-forsaken creature left to the whims and mercies of fate?    A craven whimpering coward afraid to commit herself?

So in between keeping up with what’s happening in Egypt and Tunisia and Bahrain and Yemen and Jordan and Iraq and Iran and oh-my-god Libya, I’ve been haunted by what she said — and have realized that she placed the stress on the wrong word.  It doesn’t belong on the word ‘anything,’ but on the word before it:  ‘in.’

Of course there are things I believe.  I just don’t generally feel the need to believe in them.  I may well believe that such-and-such a thing is true, though in fact this is much the same thing as saying “I think that…” or the more amorphous “I feel that…”  and I’m trying not to be amorphous here.  And in fact there are some things I do believe in, prime among them the possibility of some seemingly impossible form of peace between Israel and Palestine.

If I look at Israel/Palestine rationally right now, I see no way to a peaceful resolution.   So in the lack of empirical evidence, I have no choice but to fall back on belief – that is, on the conviction that peace is possible, despite all evidence to the contrary.

I’m not being over-idealistic here.   The first step in any thinking about peace is to get rid of all those images of doves fluttering around all over the place and everyone falling on each others’ shoulders in universal brother/sisterhood.  Peace is far more mundane than that.  It’s the absence of war.  It’s people not being killed.  It’s the willingness to live and let live.  And that will do just fine.

There’s no love lost between England and Germany, for instance, but they’re at peace after two utterly devastating wars in the first half of the 20th century.  There’s less than no love lost between Egypt and Israel – in fact it’s safe to say that for the most part, they detest each other —  but that peace treaty, signed by an Egyptian dictator and an Israeli former terrorist, has lasted three decades.  It’s nobody’s ideal of peace, but however uneasily, it’s held, and will likely hold whatever the changes in Egypt – a frigid kind of peace, but peace nonetheless.

But even thinking in terms of pragmatic, undramatic, boring peace, which once seemed as impossible for England and Germany, and for Egypt and Israel, as for Israel and Palestine, I still can’t see it.  Of course this may simply mean that I have a very limited imagination, and so can’t see the forest for the trees.   But to think that something is impossible because I can’t see it is not only an absurd assumption, but also a dangerous one.

What we believe affects how we act.   If we stop believing that Israel/Palestine peace is possible, or even desirable, as the Israeli government seems to have done, then that affects how we act:  we really do make it impossible.  That is, we create a self-fulfilling prophecy of unending conflict.   We act in our own worst interests.

I’d rather be naïve than nihilistic.  So in face of the despair that often overtakes me at the latest news from Gaza or from the West Bank, I have to fall back on belief in the possibility of peace, no matter how seemingly irrational.  After all, if it was rational, it wouldn’t require belief.

One definition of despair is in the inability to imagine oneself into the future.  It is, in a very real sense, a failure of the imagination.  So perhaps this is what belief really is:  an act of imagination.   The astonishing human ability to imagine something into existence, and to act in accordance with that imagination.

That’s what we’ve seen these past few weeks in Tunisia and Egypt and Bahrain (and maybe even in Libya), and that’s what’s been so inspiring about it:  belief transformed into possibility.   Belief not as faith in the divine, but as faith in the human ability to act and to change the future.   Belief, that is, in ourselves.

Share this post:  Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
File under: agnosticism, existence, Middle East | Tagged: Tags: Bahrain, belief, conflict, Egypt, faith, Gaza, Germany, imagination, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Libya, nihilism, Palestine, peace, Tunisia, West Bank, Yemen | 15 Comments
  1. Sue says:
    February 24, 2011 at 2:44 pm

    Thank you for your distinction between ‘believing’ and ‘believing in’ – I think that’s fabulous.
    Regarding ‘Peace’ – I believe it to be more than just the absence of war – it is a whole other force in itself. It’s people’s determination to live differently and better and to care for each other and their communities, and so much more.
    And perhaps something to think about – it occurs to me that you use the word ‘believe’ (ie. you choose to believe in peace in the Middle East despite all evidence to the contrary) is used in the same sense as others would use the word ‘faith’, eg. I have ‘faith’ that there will be peace in the middle east. I do love words and how we use them, and I do love it when people can string a fabulous sentence together – you do that so well – thank you.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      February 25, 2011 at 2:34 pm

      So glad you pointed put my conflation of ‘belief’ and ‘faith’, Sue — it’s one of those things I was vaguely aware of doing, but hadn’t really paid attention to. Yes, I think there is a difference, but will have to work on figuring it out (it has to do, I think, with intention — a kind of willed decision — but am not sure, so will muse, and write about it at a later date). Thanks for the sharp eye. — L.

  2. Kate McLeod says:
    February 24, 2011 at 3:10 pm

    What these countries who want to go to war with each other need are football teams. They can take out their aggression in the viewing stands, wear war paint, wave flags–all that.
    Also my new rules about war in the world must be followed: no one under the age of 50 goes to war. I think it’s probably the fastest route to peace.

  3. Sana says:
    February 24, 2011 at 7:37 pm

    My husband always tells me that what I lack is belief. I give up too easily, hence abandoning any fight in me. My husband is the opposite, if he believes he achieves – and he makes it happen no matter what the odds are. Your article has made me realize how dangerous it is not believe….. its a bit daunting actually. Now comes the hard part – what do i believe? …….

  4. Lynn Rosen says:
    February 24, 2011 at 10:37 pm

    There is no point in believing IN war as an inevitable solution. Peace is the default. That is in what I believe.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      February 25, 2011 at 2:35 pm

      Perfectly in-put!

  5. Lana says:
    February 24, 2011 at 11:26 pm

    Thank you 🙂
    i hope u add a “like” button under your posts … sometimes i realy like an article but has nothing else to add 🙂

    best wishes

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      February 25, 2011 at 2:36 pm

      Thanks Lana — will poke around and see if I can find out how to do it. — L.

      (Best way to ‘Like’ — click the Facebook button!)

  6. Moes says:
    February 25, 2011 at 9:05 am

    I enjoyed very much your TED talk about Kuran.
    We have a woman a bit like you in France, Annick de Souzenelle (except she’s not an agnostic). She has read the Bible in the languages it was written (she studied years and years to learn Aramean and Hebrew, symbology and theology). If you go back to the source, it’s the best way not to be misguided by translations and interpretations. And her books about the bible explain how deep and beautiful this book is. Far away from the interpretation men have made of it through the centuries, trying to control people out of it. Much more universal than we think it is (not to mention the stupid and childish “creationist” interpretation of it.)
    I guess Kuran is the same. It’s the fragility of beauty, when taken over by gridy and bad intentional people.
    Please continue your struggle for beauty and peace (and excuse my poor english.)
    all the best.

  7. Elisa Sparks says:
    February 26, 2011 at 9:29 am

    Have you seen the bumper sticker: “Militant agnostic: I don’t know, and neither do you”? Virginia Woolf’s father, Leslie Stephens, was famous for his statement of rational agnosticism.

  8. Anneza Akbar says:
    March 1, 2011 at 10:39 am

    Very interesting piece,
    I am curious as to what your view is on the idea of:

    “Peace is not the absence of war but the presence of justice”
    in comparison to:
    “peace is the absence of war”

    Could it be that perhaps “no war” and therefore “peace” could come about after a sense of justice is established?

    of course then the question would arise what would be justice in any specific case?

    Thank you for sharing your thoughts 🙂
    Anneza

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      March 1, 2011 at 1:12 pm

      Good question, and a tough one. “Peace and justice” is a much-used phrase, yet how exactly they go hand-in-hand is not clear, at least to me. The core problem being, of course, what we mean by justice. Are we talking justice as harmony, as moral rightness (and if so, whose morality?), as retribution, as equitability, as divine justice (in which case, whose concept of the divine?).

      I do think that any kind of peace, however minimal in concept, does have to involve a sense on both or all sides that nobody is being advantaged to the disadvantage of others. In practice, I think that might well mean that both/all sides will have to feel not that they’ve gotten what they think is right or what they deserve, but that they’ve had to give up a certain amount of what they think is right or what they deserve. In other words, that far from being perfect, peace is an imperfect compromise on all sides. And possible only when everyone is willing, finally, to make those compromises. I know it seems like there should be a “win-win” option, but in fact “lose-lose” may be the only realistic one — and thus, paradoxically, in fact a win-win.

      Have you heard of the Prisoner’s Dilemma? It’s a central paradigm in conflict resolution, in which the only rational solution is the one in which both sides lose an equal amount. Hard-headed, and worth thinking about. Here’s the Wikipedia entry on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma

  9. Sunny says:
    March 1, 2011 at 5:12 pm

    War and peace are two sides of the same coin, just as light and darkness are. Just as light cannot exist without darkness, peace cannot exist without war – just as God and Satan cannot exist, atleast in two Abrahamic religions, by themselves. The principle of duality seems to be all-encompassing.

  10. Kathleen says:
    March 4, 2011 at 12:50 pm

    Very though provoking and written – as usual – Leslie. 🙂 I came across a book’s paragraph about an underlying social dynamic (‘bargains with God) that are suppose to guarantee peace (except the world keeps cheating on the bargain by going to war) : During WWI. The protagonist is looking at a stained glass window in a cathedral of Abraham’s sacrifice of his son. ‘Behind Abraham was the ram caught in a thicket by his horns and struggling to escape…You could see the fear. Whereas Abraham, if he regretted having to sacrifice his son at all, was certainly hiding it well, and Isaac, bound on a makeshift altar, positively smirked’. …[This represents] ‘the bargain on which all patriarchal societies are founded. If you, who are young and strong, will obey me, who am old and weak, even to the extent of being prepared to sacrifice your life, then in the course of time you will peacefully inherit, and be able to exact the same obedience from your sons. [and this one sacrifice to the gods is enough to appease them, instead of thousands] Only …. [being at war is ] ‘breaking the bargain… all over the inheritors were dying…. while old men, and women of all ages, gathered together and sang hymns. *”Regeneration” by Pat Barker, pg 149 (book 2 of a trilogy based on a Psychologist trying to heal shell shocked solders in England during WWI.) Just an interesting twist on the concept that older men (and women) sit in hallowed-halls and declare war and it’s planning, while the young die to execute the plan. Don’t know that it adds anything to your dialogue on peace but just thought to add it. No comment back needed 🙂

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      March 4, 2011 at 4:44 pm

      I totally agree: the Pat Barker trilogy (‘Regeneration,’ ‘Eye in the Door’ and ‘Ghost Road’) is stunning, and perhaps the most sustained and subtle anti-war fiction ever written. — 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.

Share this post:  Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
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 […]

Thank You, Egypt!

Posted February 11th, 2011 by Lesley Hazleton

Oh my God…

It’s hard to type through the tears.

Egypt, you did it! Egypt, I love you!

You are celebrating right now.  And so are all of us all over the world who’ve been glued to Al Jazeera‘s livestream and to protesters’ Twitter feeds for the past three weeks in stunned admiration, in anxiety and exhilaration, our hearts in our mouths, humbled by the sheer courage and determination of every single Egyptian who risked imprisonment, torture, and (for over 300 people) death.

Thank you, Egypt.  We needed to be reminded of this.  We needed to see that the desire for freedom and justice cannot be squelched.  That it can prevail against the most horrendous odds.  That it can stand up to guns and tanks, to thugs and torturers.  That the power of ideas is stronger than the power of weapons.  That democracy really is the will of the people.

I have no more idea than anyone else what happens from here on.  No idea if the ‘Supreme Military Council’ really does intend to hand over power to an interim civilian government.

But I do suspect that the generals may not have a choice.   Faced with such huge numbers of protesters —  even if accounts of 20 million Egyptians demonstrating in the streets today were exaggerated, even if it was “only” 10 million —  those numbers are doubling, even tripling, as people flood outside in jubilation.   In the face of such numbers, and such widespread support for genuine, total reform, I very much doubt that the military would even dare try to pull a double-cross.

All that is for the usual pundits, however.  For today, Egyptians celebrate.  And most of the world celebrates with them and for them.   Bravo Tunisia!  Bravo Egypt!  You have given notice to all dictatorial regimes — in the Middle East, and indeed worldwide.   You’ve renewed our faith in our own principles.  You have, literally, encouraged us — filled us with the courage so often lacking in our wavering liberal convictions.

Egyptians, there is only one word for what you have done:  magnificent!

Share this post:  Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
File under: Middle East | Tagged: Tags: celebration, Egypt, January 25, Mubarak, Omar Suleiman, revolution, Supreme Military Council, Tunisia | 22 Comments
  1. Elisa Sparks says:
    February 11, 2011 at 9:21 am

    One of my friends posted her facebook status today as “walking like an Egyptian.” I want to start a trend of posting status of the Egyptian equivalent of “I too am an Egyptian” Do you have the words?

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      February 11, 2011 at 9:41 am

      ‘Walking like an Egyptian’ does it for me, Elisa. Beautiful.

  2. Labrys says:
    February 11, 2011 at 9:24 am

    Yes, I kept getting up thru the night (as Egyptian morning began) to check news on the computer. I was too worried to sleep, and this morning here…the jubilation in Cairo’s streets is intoxicating.
    Oh, that it stays so uplifting!

  3. Lana says:
    February 11, 2011 at 12:19 pm

    You put it elequantly … I LOVE EGYPT 🙂

  4. Anita says:
    February 11, 2011 at 2:26 pm

    God Bless Egypt

  5. Sana says:
    February 11, 2011 at 7:49 pm

    Unity is a rarity in this day in age. Im so proud of them… They showed them, they showed the world. Thank you for giving us hope egypt! Definitely walk like an Egyptian! in more than one way…..

  6. Lynn Rosen says:
    February 12, 2011 at 12:18 am

    Today, we are all Egyptians.

  7. Meg says:
    February 12, 2011 at 10:29 am

    Shows the power of the internet, of the people, and of the ripple effects of the U.S. and other world superpowers taking a stand against malevolent heads of organizations, countries, etc. (aka, Iraq was poorly done, but it removed Saddam and was huge in leading to this, and in leading to this done so quickly and without huge outlays of armed intervention).

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      February 12, 2011 at 10:48 am

      Meg — The power of the Internet as an organizing tool, yes. The power of people finding their courage and their voice, most definitely. But the power of the US? I think not. If the US took a stand against dictatorship, this is news to me. Iraq is still a disaster thanks to the US, and the current Egyptian revolution took place entirely without US awareness. In other words, the US is not relevant here. This is about Egypt, not us.

      • Meg says:
        February 12, 2011 at 11:03 am

        Yes, it is about Egypt. But Egypt did not do this alone. As someone deeply involved in Islam, I can attest to the power that the people of the Middle East (and Iraq) now feel, due to the removal of Saddam and having the right to vote. Poorly handled events teach the world how to better handle things the next round. Egypt is the result of the ripple effects of such events (insha’allah, Egypt will be able to ‘right’ its government more quickly than other regions, as it does not have huge damage accompanying an overthrow). Right time, right place, power of the people and the internet … THIS is what “armed forces” and global leaders are, at their best, supposed to do – stand publicly in harm’s way to protect peaceful requests for freedom.

  8. Robert Corbett says:
    February 12, 2011 at 11:17 am

    Hallejuhah! Now for the hard part.

  9. Egyptian and proud says:
    February 12, 2011 at 9:38 pm

    @Elisa
    I too am an Egyptian=”Ana Kaman Masry” for guys
    “Ana Kaman Masrya” for ladies

    and again I’m deeply thankful to u all, wanna c u soon in Egypt 😉
    Today we were celebrating/cleaning & redecorating the square,it’s now spotless 😀

    http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1706788482899&set=a.1706779082664.88377.1633656741&pid=1526405&id=1633656741

  10. Sunny says:
    February 12, 2011 at 11:39 pm

    Lesley Hazleton,

    Would you have also been equally joyful and supportive of anti-government demonstrators in Iran?

    And why is that Islamic countries – whether a dictatorship or a democracy, cannot have a non-muslim as a head of state? For instance, what will it take for a country like Pakistan to have a situation where a Pakistani Hindu can openly compete for the post of the country’s President? Or is it that an “Islamic democracy” does not allow this situation?

    • dh says:
      February 13, 2011 at 3:02 am

      Dear Sunny,

      There’s never been a Muslim president of India. For starters.

      Please… um… read newspapers and “suchlike”.

  11. Sunny says:
    February 13, 2011 at 3:48 pm

    dh,

    Unless both of us live in different Universes, your statement “for starters” is plain wrong.

    India has had more than one Muslim president. However, for a Pakistani Hindu to even run for the country’s Presidency, we all have to move to a different Universe. Please read my previous comment for reference.

  12. Lavrans says:
    February 16, 2011 at 10:25 am

    Why can’t the US have a Muslim President? Heck, the idea of allowing a Catholic was pretty radical not that long ago.

    Which points to my hope- that the US doesn’t do what it did when Iran had their revolution (that, from my understanding, was hijacked by the fundamentalists; it wasn’t created or supported by them until after it was in swing).

    I hope the current administration supports the demonstrators and their wishes and doesn’t cow to our generals and politicians who will call for the support of some oligarch or “strong man” who only supports US interests.

    Let Egypt be Egypt, and let the Egyptians have what they want and need- not what we desire.

  13. Sunny says:
    February 16, 2011 at 8:57 pm

    Lavrans,

    “Why cant the US have a muslim president?”. The answer is that there is no constitutional obstacle if an American muslim citizen choose to run for the presidency. However, in most “muslim countries”, a non-muslim cannot run for the president’s office. Pakistan is one example, Iran is another. Malaysia is yet another. A Pakistani Sikh or a Pakistani Christian or a Pakistani Hindu cannot certainly run for the top job, as per the constitution. I wonder if this is a characteristic of an “Islamic democracy” or is it a misinterpretation of Islam?

    There was another word used in the South African context – “Apartheid”. Isnt this the apt term to be used when a country’s constitution uses religion as a basis to disqualify certain people from certain jobs?

  14. Fatima says:
    February 17, 2011 at 8:59 am

    A Muslim country is, by definition, governed under Islam. Having a requirement that the leader be Muslim not only makes perfect sense but is necessary for governing the country according to Islamic practices (you cannot know and value Islam on the level necessary if you are not a practicing Muslim).

    In order to be President of the United States, you have to be born in the U.S. This is for similar reason. People are tied to where they are from, it forms a base for who they are.

    Democracy and Islam are not at odds with one another. While I am not sure of this, it does seem unlikely that there would be a good practicing Muslim as President of the U.S., because he or she would probably have to violate Islam in order to hold the position (given how many laws protect the rights of people to drink, consume non-halal food, etc.).

    If someone does not want to live in a Muslim country, or in a non-Muslim country, then they should move to where they are comfortable. There is no perfect government, only imperfect people trying to establish systems by which to best govern and help other imperfect people.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      February 17, 2011 at 10:50 am

      Fatima — or maybe it would be better if we simply abandoned the very idea of “a Christian country” or “a Jewish country” or “a Muslim country,” none of which really make sense since “a country” is a national entity, not a religious one. When the US identifies as “a Christian country”, as it did under George W. with his Crusader flag-waving, it loses its founding principles. So too with Israel as “a Jewish country.” And so too with any “Muslim country” where religious law takes precedence over civil rights. It seems to me that the whole issue of whether Islam and democracy are “compatible” is an Islamophobic red herring, since Islam is no more or less “compatible” with democracy than Christianity or Judaism.

      • Fatima says:
        February 17, 2011 at 1:52 pm

        Big Brother need not determine the governmental structure of every country on the planet, need he?! Surely America, the Melting Pot, can value that other governmental systems bring strengths that democracy alone does not.

        America is very new country. When the U.S. system has been tried and true for a few thousand years, then perhaps there will be some well earned confidence in the superiority of this system over all others.

        Democracy (as in the right of people to vote; civil rights; free will; etc.) and Islam do not conflict (nor do Judaism or Christianity conflict with democracy).

        Muhammad gave women the right to vote thousands of years ago. The U.S. only gave that right in 1920.

        I value that there are Muslim countries. I would love to live in one that actually practices my religion, Islam, well. None at this time do. I also value voting, which, as you know, is very in keeping with Islam. The malevolent ruling powers of Islamic countries got there usually with the aid of other countries, for varying reasons of financial gain. These men call themselves Muslim but are not practicing the religion as Allah instructs.

  15. Adel says:
    February 26, 2011 at 8:24 am

    I am, for the first time in my life, happy to be Egyptian, proud, jubilant and hopeful. The road is long and hard, climbing always is. I thank you so much for supporting our cause, and for writing such a wonderful article, through your tears.

    Adel

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      February 26, 2011 at 9:10 am

      Adel — your comments make my heart feel huge. Thank you.

Mubarak, Your Flight is Boarding

Posted January 31st, 2011 by Lesley Hazleton

It’s a photoshop job, of course, but a perfect one.

Mr Mubarak, your Ben Ali Airlines flight to Saudi Arabia is now boarding.   The ousted Tunisian dictator will meet you on arrival.   We regret that the first-class compartment is fully booked by members of your former regime, and wish you a pleasant and uneventful flight.

[Credit:  anonymous.]

Share this post:  Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
File under: Middle East | Tagged: Tags: Ben Ali, Egypt, Mubarak, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia | 4 Comments
  1. Christine says:
    January 31, 2011 at 11:56 am

    Great! All good wishes for the egyptean people.

  2. CJ says:
    January 31, 2011 at 11:57 am

    I wish it could be done so gently.

  3. Rasha says:
    January 31, 2011 at 12:07 pm

    I am proud to be Egyptian!

  4. Dr. Anwar Shah says:
    January 31, 2011 at 1:05 pm

    There is a time for every thing.

A Celestial Wobble

Posted January 15th, 2011 by Lesley Hazleton

Beauty salons were abuzz with the dismaying news.  Tattoo artists laid in new stocks of ink, ready for the deluge of flesh inscribed with astral signs needing to be re-signed.  Astrologists tried to assure their clients that they were still who they thought they were even if they weren’t.

For two days, the revelation that astrological signs and the actual position of the stars don’t really match up – a shocker, I know – commanded the attention of many of those who had no idea where to find Tunisia on a map, let alone the political dimensions of what was happening there.  I mean, this was cosmic.  Our planet, it turns out, has a slight celestial wobble known as a precession, and the resulting realignment vis-à-vis other planets and stars, while old news to astronomers, was devastating to devotees of the zodiac.   It meant that the dates of astrological signs would have to be recalculated so that “a Gemini” might in fact be “a Taurus,” and so on.  Talk about an existential crisis…

Three millennia ago, astrology was a grand explanatory system of the universe;  now it’s good for little more than a New Yorker cartoon or a lame pickup line.  The Pew Forum reports that only 25% of Americans believe in astrology, though that’s an oddly lowball figure given that some 75% believe in angels and demons, heaven and hell.   Perhaps Dan Brown has made angels and demons kosher, while astrology still reeks of Nancy Reagan.

My one close encounter with an astrologist came years ago as a birthday gift.  She was “the best in New York,” I was told.  In the spirit of inquiry, I turned up at the appointed hour to be confronted with a perfect cliché:  heavy eye makeup, mother-earth dimensions swathed in a purple velvet muumuu, long black hair that looked like it hadn’t been washed in weeks, and the overwhelming odor of too many cats in too small a space.

“Virgo, cusp of Libra” she intoned, nodding sagely.  “You must be in the helping professions…?”   When I tired of her amateurish probing and told her what I did for a living, she closed her eyes in ecstasy.  “Ah yes, a writer — I can just see the words flowing out of you onto the page…”

“Powerful image,” I said, gritting my teeth against the Hollywood stereotype.

“Oh but this is all incredibly powerful,” she said, “which is why so many very powerful people practice it.”  And then added, in a tone of hushed reverence:  “You know, Hitler was really into astrology…”

At which I did what I should have done at the outset, and walked out.

Yet this past couple of days, I read the reports about the possible reassignment of the zodiac with a kind of bemused interest.  I would still be “a Virgo,” it seemed (rats – the most boring of all the signs), but no longer on the cusp of Libra.  I’d go the other direction and now be on the cusp of Leo, leaving me to imagine the wow-factor significance the purple muumuu would find if she saw the book by my bedside right now:  John Vaillant’s wonderful The Tiger.

Then ABC News and others focused the full weight of their investigatory reporting on the issue, and decided that astrology already had the wobble covered (or was already wobbly enough – it wasn’t clear, as is clear from this report on abc.com, filed under Entertainment).   Cosmic crisis averted.

But I liked that realignment idea.  Isn’t that exactly what we’d all like to see?  If the whole planet can realign itself in relation to other stars and planets, maybe there’s still hope for those of us spinning on its surface to realign ourselves in relation to each other.  I just hope it happens a bit more quickly.  It seems that our particular celestial wobble takes about 26,000 years, which means that in 23,000 years the night sky will be back to where it was when the Babylonians first invented the zodiac.  It’d somehow be reassuring to think that there’d still be humans around to see it.

Share this post:  Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
File under: absurd, science | Tagged: Tags: astrology, astronomy, celestial wobble, Dan Brown, John Vaillant, precession, Tunisia, zodiac | 3 Comments
  1. Lynn Rosen says:
    January 15, 2011 at 10:08 pm

    I’m still wobbling over the purple velvet muu-muu.

  2. Phil Wilson says:
    January 16, 2011 at 1:03 pm

    In 23 millenia the wobble may be back where it was, but the stars themselves will have been wandering around the galaxy, as they are wont to do, and our own star, the Sun, will also have been wending its merry away through other stellar neighbourhoods. For these reasons, the constellations will be mostly unrecognisable.

    So perhaps that suggests other symbolic ideas. You can’t turn the clock back. Ideas, like patterns in the stars, shouldn’t be fixed in stone, otherwise efforts to shoehorn the present into the pattern of the past become increasingly problematic. And people, like distant stars, are free and independent, their courses ultimately uncontrolled by any one of us. Yet, I suppose, their light, and the shared space we all brighten, is beautiful.

  3. Robert Corbett says:
    January 18, 2011 at 4:03 pm

    I’d guess you were closer to Leo than Libra as well. Virgos aren’t boring, but they do like to keep things to themselves. As for remain, I remain a Leo, a double one just like Clinton. We’re trouble.

Order the Book

Available online from:
  • Amazon.com
  • Barnes & Noble
  • IndieBound
  • Powell's
Or from your favorite bookseller.

Tag Cloud

absurd agnosticism art atheism Christianity ecology existence feminism fundamentalism Islam Judaism light Middle East sanity science technology ugliness US politics war women

Recent Posts

  • Flash! September 1, 2019
  • “What’s Wrong With Dying?” February 9, 2017
  • The Poem That Stopped Me Crying December 30, 2016
  • Talking About Soul at TED December 5, 2016
  • ‘Healing’? No Way. November 10, 2016
  • Psychopath, Defined August 2, 2016
  • Lovely NYT Review of ‘Agnostic’! July 14, 2016
  • Playing With Stillness June 22, 2016
  • Inside Palestine June 20, 2016
  • Virtual Unreality June 6, 2016
  • The Free-Speech Challenge May 23, 2016
  • Category-Free April 20, 2016
  • Staring At The Void April 13, 2016
  • Sherlock And Me April 3, 2016
  • Hard-Wired? Really? March 22, 2016
  • A Quantum Novel March 9, 2016
  • This Pre-Order Thing March 4, 2016
  • The Agnostic Celebration February 29, 2016
  • The First Two Pages February 23, 2016
  • Two Thumbs-Up For “Agnostic” February 10, 2016
Skip to toolbar
  • About WordPress
    • WordPress.org
    • Documentation
    • Support Forums
    • Feedback