Obama's Nobel Prize

Writing for another new blog, See my entry on Obama's Nobel prize here: iicblog.wordpress.com
Find out more about IIC here: islamicinformationcenter.org

Peak of Eloquence

In general, I am a happy person, but of course I have my ups and downs. I don't usually despair though. I don't often feel helpless or distraught.

However, the past couple of weeks have been different. The situation in Gaza has been distressing me a lot and even though we're heading toward an end to the violence, I hate the feeling of not being able to actually influence the situation there. It's left my conscience and my soul a little raw.

A few days ago, an acquaintance of mine posted on his blog about Walid Shoebat "the PLO terrorist who converted to Christianity and embraced Zionism" and professed admiration for his intellect. This acquaintance generally has political views in complete opposition to my own, and I usually am able to discuss things in an even-tempered debate. But this time, I was furious and I didn't know what to do with myself. I considered cutting all ties with this person, and never reading his blog again. I calmed down enough yesterday that I was able to make small talk, but it was very brief. Today, I heard a quote from Ali ibn Abi Talib (4th caliph of the Islamic Empire and 1st Imam of the Shi'as) from a letter he wrote to Mu'awiya (his greatest adversary):

"You are being tested through me and I am being tested through you. Each one of us is to be an evidence of the demonstration of the intentions and deeds of the other..." (Letter 55)

And suddenly, I felt a calmness settle over me. All of this negative energy that was seething within me suddenly fizzled out, and I remembered why I even started to talking to this acquaintance of mine in the first place. He is a test for me and I am a test for him. I wanted to challenge myself, to see if I could interact with and influence a person who, by almost all accounts, hates me (or at least vehemently disagrees with me). And my reactions to him, the way I conduct myself with him has always been a test of my character.

Still, there was the matter of my feelings of helplessness over the situation in Palestine. In my searching for a source of the above quote, I came across some others:

"The vicious character of a tyrant always betrays itself to those who carefully look into his actions. You must know that you can never get what has not been destined for you.
There are people who want to grab a thing without having any right or claim over it. To get the object which they crave for, they try to interpret the commands of God to suit their purpose. But God always makes liars of such people..." (Letter 48)

"There is no disgrace for a Muslim if he is subjected to tyranny and suppression so long as he is firm in his faith and belief in God and religion..." (Letter 28)

And now that rawness, that pain in my soul is eased. Of course I still have the desire to affect change, but that burning ache has been replaced with the certainty that God has control over all things, that the oppressed are always favored by Him and that oppressors can never be victorious, no matter how much land the gain, no matter how much power they wield.

The true blessings on this Earth not delivered through wealth or health or power or fame. They are delivered like this, like my day today, through the alleviation of despair, through contentment of the heart, through the security gained by certainty, and through recognition of these effects.

And with that recognition and that certainty, I can say that I am blessed, the oppressed of the world are blessed and no tyrant, no political lackey, and no ignorant dogmatist can take that away from us.

"God ordained this only as a message of hope for you, and that thereby your hearts might be at ease - Victory comes only from God, the Mighty, the Wise" (Quran Ch. 3 verse 126)

New Movie By Iranian Filmmaker Tells Story of Jesus

First things first, I think it's a pretty cool idea... the film won an interfaith award at a religious film festival in Rome, which makes me think, hey, a good place to start dialogue. And maybe that's true in Europe. Not so much in the US. Check out this excerpt from the interview done by ABC News with the director, Nader Talebzadeh.

NT: ...I thought, the Christians, when they see it, it'll be important for them.
[In the Koran] God says, emphatically, he was not crucified. Somebody was
crucified in his stead. In the Gospel of Barnabas, there are explications of
this. The majority of [Muslims] say the one who betrayed Jesus [was crucified].

LS: There's plenty of news today about Christians being persecuted, or even killed, today, in Muslim countries. So, where does the Muslim reverence for Christians go off-track?

NT: It doesn't go off-track. The Muslim reverence is very high for Jesus and Mary. This is the misunderstanding in the West — especially in America.

LS: So, then, why in your mind do Muslims, in some places, kill Christians?

Read the whole interview here.

I like how she's extra vague here with 'some places' where Muslims kill Christians. And this statement really only bothers me so much because it's further evidence that the US news media has bought into the 'Clash of Civilizations' theory. Open your eyes, you dense wannabe journalist. Do you really think in whatever vague instance you seem to be referring to that those so-called Muslim people are killing those so-called Christian people because of their religious identities?? Like they're saying, "you believe in Jesus?? how dare you?? Die!!" or something. Like there's no obvious socio-political causes to these conflicts.

Where does this naivety come from? Like George Bush didn't and still isn't using religion to drive his political agenda. Like people using God as a shield for their stupidity and stubborn-ness is something TOTALLY NEW AND SURPRISING. And yet, take somebody like this director (or Debbie Almontaser for that matter) who reach out across faiths to create dialogue BECAUSE of their beliefs, who actually practice their religion with pure intentions and regard the words of tolerance and brotherhood literally, and they get shoved into the same hole as people like Bush and Osama (who in my mind are the same people, just on opposite sides).

Edward Said always countered that the Clash of Civilizations was nothing more than a Clash of Ignorance. The only thing that causes conflict is the lack of understanding and the lack of the desire to understand. I think Pope John Paul II said that “A clash ensues only when Islam or Christianity is misconstrued or manipulated for political or ideological ends.” And that's the answer to your question, Lara Satrakian. That's when the Muslim reverence for the Christian faith goes "off-track".

So can we just watch a movie for once without thinking about what it means for world politics or an ideological agenda? Without hearing all the crazy commentary before we actually see it and judge for ourselves what we will take back from it...?

Islamofascism? How about good ol' American Fascism?

This past Tuesday, November 14th, at around 11:30 p.m., Community Service Officers at UCLA asked a male student using a computer in the back of the room at Powell Library to leave when he was unable to produce a BruinCard during a random check. The student did not exit the building immediately.


The CSOs left, returning minutes later, and police officers arrived to escort the student out. By this time the student had begun to walk toward the door with his backpack when an officer approached him and grabbed his arm, at which point the student told the officer to let him go. A second officer then approached the student as well.


The student began to yell “get off me,” repeating himself several times.
It was at this point that the officers shot the student with a Taser for the first time, causing him to fall to the floor and cry out in pain.


The video below tells the rest of this story.


Warning: This video contains some disturbing images




The university is still investigating the matter, and the truth is, none of us really know what happened before the video started. What I do know is that there is no reason to use a taser in a non-threatening situation. As far as we've heard the student committed no crime to warrant arrest. Being unable to produce an ID is not a criminal act, and neither is asking an officer not to touch you. The nationality of the student seems almost too coincidental to be ignored; Iranian American, with a somewhat "Middle Eastern look".

These are all circumstantial details though. No matter what the reasons (unless the student himself had moved to physically strike the officers or produced a weapon) the use of a taser in this case is completely unjustified and, frankly, brutal.

The only explanation I can come up with for this behavior is that Homeland Security and Terror Alerts have given law enforcement a free reign over this country to do as they please, and it has gone to their heads. The cops in this situation seem like caricatures from old Nazi films. "Where are your papers?!" It is such an atrocious situation that it seems unreal. Because really, in what civilized, First World, technologically developed nation could this ever be ok? Where's Amnesty International when you need them?

This isn't even a political situation really. It's about basic human rights. There is nothing wrong with subduing a man when he resists an officer's command. Pin him to the ground; if there are two officers or more (as there seemed to be in this case) there should be no problem in doing so. Once you have handcuffed a person there is no reaon to continue using force on him. And there is nothing that warrants more than two or three shots by a taser.

And there is nothing else that needs to be said, except for a comment made by a notoriously Conservative Republican acquaintance of mine after he saw the video:

"It's a completely awful situation that should not have happened."

Peace.

A Shift in Gears (Or: A Change in Scenery)

When I asked for input in my last post, a friend suggested that I focus more on my day-to-day thoughts. And since I've been pretty lax about posting in general, I thought it might be an idea worth considering. Before I can start talking about that though, I think some background information is in order. After all, why should you care about my daily goings-on if there's no context? (Not that I expect anyone to care about my personal ideas at all, for that matter) At least they'll make a little more sense this way. And I've been meaning to write some of this out for ages now.

I am a British-born Muslim who has been living in America since the age of 2. I am what they call a resident alien, with my little-green-alien-card to prove it. My family, like most 'educated' Muslim families living in the West, considers themselves moderate muslims. I'd say we're probably on the more conservative side when it comes to actual religious practice, but on the liberal side when it comes to politics or relations with the real world. (Yes, the liberal fundo comes from a liberal fundo family.)

We are a family of 6, two parents with three daughters and one son. I suppose that has tinted our lives with a certain feminist point-of-view, but I think that phenomena occuring within a South Asian background that can only be a good thing. In that sense, I suppose my father is probably quite liberal in comparison to other Muslim men. He's been known to sermonize about the chauvinistic men that exist in various Muslim communities, and especially within our own local one.

Both my parents completed their Master's degrees (actually my father has 2, and my mother almost completed her second one before I interrupted her by being born), before they immigrated to America with their four children in tow. They had been married and lived in Europe for a little over ten years before coming here. My elder brother and sister had gone to primary school in Germany, Holland and England, and it wasn't until I started school that we finally settled down in one school district. I don't know how that may have shaped their views on the world.

I know that my brother is completely against any sort of nationalism. To tie yourself to a piece of land, in his opinion, is completely irrational. I do agree with him, in the sense that I am a British citizen and I have lived in America for almost my entire life, but I have no loyalty to either country for the sake of its boundaries or landmarks. Instead, I choose to appreciate my association with each of these nations' ideals or culture, and allow myself the freedom to criticize any aspects of either. In a sense, I do feel like I am 'without a country', as most Americans insist that I have no right to criticize 'their' country since I don't even have the comittment to actually obtain citizenship. (Actually, it's more like I don't have the $300+ to spend on a formality.) Or maybe it's just this wanderlust I've inherited from my Bedouin Arab ancestors that keeps me from tying myself down to one place. Maybe somewhere, written in my genes, is a future in a foreign land.

Somehow this bit of background has gone beyond what I was intending. I think I'll have to save my daily thoughts for another day. And preferably on a day sooner than 6 months from now.

Probably wishful thinking on my part, but God-Willing.

An Update for the Sake of Updating

I don't even know if anyone reads this blog. Please let me know if you do, and what you'd like to hear about.

Plug

I was recruited by Otowi to write for this movie review blog. Check out my latest entry there on the film, Paradise Now.