Liberal Fundamentalist

Where to start?

2011-03-15T05:12:00.002-05:00

There is a lot going on in the world today and I seem to be caught up in all of it. There really isn't one place for me to comment from, so I'll just share the most recent. Last night I was invited to attend a Town Council meeting to support a Muslim community who has been working to establish a mosque in their town. This council meeting was important because it would be a public hearing about a new ordinance that would prevent this mosque from being built despite the project having already passed through the Township's application process. This ordinance would affect only the mosque and no other existing houses of worship. The justification given was simply "preserving quality of life", i.e. reducing traffic.

Here's an excerpt from the email I got from the Muslim community members there:

-Our application for an Islamic Center was reviewed by the Township’s own Engineer, Traffic Consultant, and Fire Chief and we gladly implemented every recommended change to our application, to make it conforming in every way.

-Most other houses of worship in Bridgewater are also in residential areas, many also on narrow two-lane roads with no shoulder, yet those streets were specifically exempted – by name - in the new ordinance, so that it will not affect their ability to build and expand. *Our mosque is the only house of worship that would be affected.*

-The Department of Justice states – “the ability to gather for worship.... is a crucial element of true religious liberty.” The proposed laws will unfairly affect Muslims, as the only major religious group in Bridgewater without its own house of worship.

-Our application met every existing law and zoning code – rushing to change those laws now, in a way that will block our house of worship, is unjust and unconstitutional.

-We are looking to work with the Township and with our neighbors to find win-win solutions that also protect our freedom of worship.
Purely as a gesture of goodwill and accommodation towards our neighbors, we have amended our application - completely withdrawing our plans for a full-time Kindergarten/Elementary School.

-The Bridgewater government has a responsibility to ALL its citizens; we look to them to help bring the community together, not divide it with discriminatory zoning changes.

About 75 people spoke at the public hearing preceding the council's vote. By my own rough estimate, 2/3 of them supported the ordinance against the building of the mosque. There were only 5 speakers who were not Muslim that spoke in favor of the mosque, and two of them were not residents of the town. When the Muslim speakers went up to the podium, most of them were subjected to jeers from the crowd. The speakers who spoke in support of the new ordinance were given the utmost respect and pin-drop silence.

The objections to the mosque were based mostly on a perceived increase in traffic that would be caused by Muslims attending prayer services 5 times a day. "That's 100 cars passing in front of my house 10 times a day!" said one resident, obviously ignorant of the fact that we don't actually run to the mosque for every prayer and often do them in the most convenient place for us (at work, at home, in the car). Other people were sure that Friday prayer services would have at least 300 cars coming out of the parking lot on to their narrow residential street all at the same time, causing gridlock and havoc. The community states they don't have more than 250 individual worshipers. The exaggeration on these claims of traffic issues was ridiculous.

I will say that none of their language was explicitly bigoted or discriminatory. What their statements did reflect was a twisted sense of entitlement and outright selfishness. While Muslims quoted the Constitution of the US and their right to religious freedom, opponents cited the "horrible traffic" and "what a nightmare" that road already is. "I have to drive on that road everyday with my kids in the car".

Forget that this community raised enough money to buy this property, to hire engineers and contractors, to pay application fees and inspection fees. Forget that this process had been going on for months, that they'd all ready been worshiping in the building that already existed on that land without any complaints from the neighbors. The idea that traffic could possibly get worse on the roads they drive on became a morally repugnant issue.

It all boiled down to the fact their slightest inconvenience outweighed their neighbors' constitutional rights. That their right to be free from traffic trumped the right of this community's freedom to worship.

I have a feeling if someone on that narrow street was having a Christmas party and the guests cars were parked all along it, no one would complain. Even if that party happened every year, and the cars ended up in front of other people's homes. Their neighbors would shrug it off and say, "looks like they're having their annual Christmas party." Maybe this person likes having parties for every major holiday: New Years' Eve and birthdays and July 4th barbecues. There would be no town ordinances put forth to stop those parties. If someone ever knocked on the door to ask that the cars be moved, they'd be called jerks.

Last night's town council meeting was a room full of jerks.

Oh yeah, and the ordinance was passed.

Is Islam a religion of peace?

2010-10-11T20:53:00.002-05:00

Is Islam a religion of peace? This was the proposition up for argument in last week’s Intelligence Squared Debate at NYU. The debate didn’t go very well for the pro-Islam team, and more people ended up believing that Islam wasn’t a religion of peace than before the discussion started. Some people blamed the candidates chosen to defend Islam. Khalid Latif says the problem is that moderate Muslims “are vehemently told that we either do not represent Islam or even more absurdly that we are not truly practicing Islam's teachings”.

To me, the problem is quite simple: the question itself is flawed.

Why should Islam be a religion of peace, and peace alone? Maybe my religion is more than that. Islam is a religion of Justice, of Truth, of Love, of Courage, of Patience, of any Platonic Virtue you can name, plus many more. Why do I have to spend my time convincing people who are pigeon-holing my faith into something terrible to use a new pigeon-hole, which might not be as terrible, but is still very far from the whole picture?

Maybe I don’t want to brand and market my religion like some sort of soft drink, using simplistic slogans to attract the consumer public.

What I learned in Sunday School was that Islam was a religion for society. It was meant to teach people how to recognize the better and worse parts of their own nature and how to temper those in order to relate with one another. My mother says the purpose of Islam is to attain nearness to God through your deeds. I personally think Islam is meant to teach me how to understand myself as a creation among many creations, and learn to separate what is real from what is contingent.

To me, peace is a contingent abstraction. It’s existence or non-existence depends purely on how you define it and whether others agree with that definition. The point is, I am not going to define my religion, my world-view, my existence, with a term that contains no necessary truth value to it. Especially if the current culture has attached only political meanings to the word.

I think the absurdity of forcing such an attribute on an entire religion is best illustrated by directing it to someone else. Is the United States a nation of peace? Is democracy a system of peace? Try to answer this question in light of current events, using the same definition imposed by those who ask this question about Islam. Let’s see what kind of answer you come up with.

Can I be Proud to be an American?

2010-06-12T16:46:00.001-05:00

I became an American last week; officially, that is. I've probably always been an American, culturally, having been here since the age of 2. The naturalization process was meant to be just something of a formality and I really didn't expect it to change much, other than the fact that now I can apply for that job at NASA. I didn't even take my family with me to the oath ceremony, since I really didn't think it was a big deal. Like I said, it was just a formality.

But 24 hours after I became an American citizen, I realized something had changed. I can vote now. I can run for office. I finally have the self-determination to have a say in how and what America does as a nation. But I'm not the first person like me to gain American citizenship. There are thousands like me, permanent residents from all over the world, from every religion and race and culture who make that decision, pay that fee and go through the application process to become American. And then, my self-determination turned into indignation, because a naturalized citizen will never be looked at the same way as a native-born one. Because really, nothing has changed.

The day before yesterdat, I found out that Fahad Hashmi was sentenced to 15 years in prison for letting a guest bring a suitcase full of raincoats to his apartment. As I followed this case, I became more and more convinced that we are re-livng the days of McCarthyism and the 'Red Scare'. I remember, even from my early childhood in the '80s when school-kids on the playground tried to tell the difference between Russian last names and Polish ones, so they would know who was safe to play with. This time around it's Arab and Muslim names that will be scrutinized for exclusion.

Becoming American hasn't changed the fact that I'm Muslim, hasn't changed the fact that I have a funny last name, and hasn't changed the fact that I wasn't born here. My being here will always be a 'privilege' that was granted to me, and not the 'right' that the native-born possess. We moved to a small town in the suburbs of New Jersey back in 2004. It was a newly developed neighborhood, full of young families with small children. Our neighbors weren't very pleased to see us move in, though both of the families in the homes adjacent from ours were from minority backgrounds; one Jewish and the other Hispanic. They reported us to the Neighborhood Association for not cutting our grass often enough, and ducked their heads, avoiding eye contact when we happened to be out front at the same time. It wasn't exactly the welcome we expected after having lived in New Jersey for the past 20 years without having experienced even a fraction of this kind of hostility. We haven't moved since we got there, and the neighbors seemed to soften up over time (they say 'hello' now instead of ignoring us), though they don't exactly knock on our door to ask for a cup of sugar.

My parents became American citizens just a few months before 9/11. This was a lot more significant to them, and we went as a family to their oath ceremony and took pictures and everything. They voted in the 2004 election (for Ralph Nader) and also voted in the local elections around here in 2006 for state reps and assemblymen. I think their happiest moment was in voting for President Obama in 2008. My parents aren't especially idealistic. They've lived in Berlin when the Wall was still up, in London when the Skinheads still roamed the streets, and in Iran during the Revolution, but they've also experienced the open-mindedness of Amsterdam and the cosmopolitan life of New York. I think their greatest pride in being able to vote for Obama was that they saw themselves in him. A highly educated world traveler of mixed race who came from humble beginnings and worked his way up to become the President of the United States.

They thought, maybe our grandsons, too, will reach this point.

But I don't know. I can't see that future anymore. For me, that light at the end of the tunnel lasted from November 2008 until May 2009, when it became clear that Guantanamo Bay's Detention Facility would remain open and functioning indefinitely. I don't know whether it's because I'm Muslim that Justice is so important to me (since after the Oneness of God, the next most important attribute is that He is The Just), but it's physically painful to me to know that this injustice continues. That a child reached manhood in that prison without any hesitation from the people who put him away there. And now Fahad Hashmi will join the ranks of those who remain unjustly imprisoned. How do we (and finally I, as an American, can use that pronoun 'we') have the right to criticize foreign governments of human rights violations when we ourselves commit those same violations every day that Guantanamo stays open? and now every day that Fahad remains in prison.

I wanted to be proud to be an American, but right now, I'm finding it really hard to do.

School Reform: Teacher Incentives vs Student Incentives

2010-04-12T06:35:00.002-05:00

There's a debate roaring in Florida about the future of K-12 education in Florida. State Senator Jon Thrasher has introduced a bill into the State Assembly that will get rid of tenure for teachers and base their employment on student performance on exams. Representatives from the Florida House have joined in to support the bill. Unfortunately, the Florida's teachers' unions and a large contingent of parents whose children attend public school aren't on board. See here for a summary article on the topic: http://staugustine.com/news/local-news/2010-04-10/teachers-dont-let-merit-pay

What's interesting about this story is that just last week in Washington DC, the school chancellor reached a deal with the DC Teachers' Union to sign contracts which include bonuses for well-performing students and requires teachers to give up tenure protection in order to receive those bonuses. (see here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/06/AR2010040604392.html) So what's the difference? Why is DC's reform considered a success while Florida's parents seem to be up in arms against something similar happening in their own state? The answer could be something as simple as the fact the DC is largely urban while most parts of Florida aren't; i.e. the parents have more time and opportunity to get involved in the debate. But it could also be the way this reform has been framed by the media, its proponents and opponents.

From what I understand, the DC reform doesn't require teachers to give up their tenure, but instead gives them incentive to do so by allowing them the potential to earn a six-figure salary if they do. Florida's reform seems to be more of a demerit system, punishing teachers for poor performance instead of rewarding them for excellence. I personally have always been an advocate for positive-reinforcement vs. negative. Better results always come from trying to work towards something good and earning it rather than trying to avoid something out of fear of censure. The latter seems to motivate people to cut corners and hide mistakes in order not to get caught instead of giving them the drive to do better.

But if we're providing the teachers with this kind of positive reinforcement, why can't we extend it to the students? The students who, in the end, should be held the most accountable for their education and performance. While it is important to maintain the quality of teachers within the education system, the fact is that enabling a child to succeed is a hundred times more difficult than allowing them to coast by in mediocrity, no matter how good of a teacher you are. Unless a child is self-motivated and genuinely curious or interested in learning, it is nigh impossible to teach them. The best way to motivate students is to reward them for doing well, and the best reward would be to allow them to take exams to skip courses that they already excel in to move onto more challenging subjects, while allowing them time to remain in lower level courses for subjects that may take longer for them to grasp. Separating children into levels by age instead of performance only allows them to grow lazy and complacent by simply maintaining status quo mediocrity. The times I felt truly motivated in school can be counted on one hand:

Friendly competition – the idea that there is someone who is just slightly better than you at something, and that if you work a little harder, you could beat them
Recognition for excellence – the teacher writes the names of those who have perfect scores on the test/quiz on the chalkboard, motivates students to "finally get my name up there too!"
Challenging teachers – those instructors who don't give an easy A, leaving you with that B+ until finally you stop cutting corners and put in the real effort to get that A
Supportive teachers – teachers that enable you to reach that next level when you've exhausted the subject matter in class, providing extra reading and materials to keep learning

Now three out of the four above are definitely teacher-centered, but so much of it has to do with the student herself. If a student is happy with a B+, they won't care if they never get that A or if they never get their name on the board. They won't take the extra materials from the teacher, even if offered. If the student feels that excelling might get them out of class completely by being able to place out, then really why wouldn't they? Now that we're finally talking about motivating teachers, I think it's time to start talking about motivating the students as well. If the school board can decide to approve this kind of incentive for students, it could go a long way in not only improving performance but teaching children responsibility for their own education. Probably the most valuable lesson they'll ever learn.

Obama's Nobel Prize

2009-10-10T12:39:00.004-05:00

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

2009-01-18T22:48:00.002-05:00

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

2008-05-09T16:24:00.005-05:00

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?

2006-11-16T23:19:00.000-05:00

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)

2006-09-19T02:24:00.000-05:00

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

2006-09-06T00:32:00.000-05:00

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

2006-06-01T00:18:00.000-05:00

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

Black Gold and the Almighty Dollar

2006-04-27T03:09:00.000-05:00

In the simplest terms, money is based on a general agreement made to accept something as a medium of exchange. We could easily be using tin or plastic, instead of paper notes to purchase goods. Nowadays, we often don't even use any physical form of money at all. Transactions are made electronically, numbers changing on a computer screen to denote a debit or a credit to your already exisiting 'wealth'.

The value of a currency nowadays is determined by its fluidity. How often is it changing hands? How many people are using it and to what capacity? i.e. the more a currency is used, the higher it's value becomes.

Now consider the oil market. Worldwide oil sales are denominated in U.S. dollars, which means that no matter which nation you are or which nation you are buying from, all petroleum is purchased with that currency. That means that any country that wants oil has to have stockpiles of dollars to buy it with first. Hooray for the U.S. economy! Or not.

What happens when people lose confidence in the dollar? What happens when nations look at America's policies (and President) and think, "This country doesn't look like it's going in a very good direction." The same thing that happens when people lose confidence in any stock on the market. Its value drops.

So now, we have a drastically falling dollar, and oil companies who count their profits in only that denomination. Is it any surprise that gas prices have been going up? OPEC is made up of nations that each have their own form of currency; the dinar, the riyal, etc. With the dollar at such a deep low, these nations are finding that their profits, when converted to their own money, are not quite as high as they expected. And so they readjust the price in dollars to compensate.

The question then arises, why not open up the market to a stronger or more stable currency like the euro or the British pound? Wouldn't that, in turn, stabilize the price of oil? Of course it would, but it would destroy the dollar and the entire U.S. economy at the same time. At this point, the only reason nations are holding on to their dollar reserves is for oil. If they let those go, we'll have a surplus of dollars just hanging around doing nothing leading to a financial crisis similar to the one in Asia almost 10 years ago.

This Catch-22 dynamic has led some people to believe that the war in Iraq was actually motivated by the fact that Saddam had started trading oil in euros the year previous to the US invasion.

And we all thought the oil prices would drop once America got its hands on one of the biggest oil producing nations in the world. Instead, we're spending about as much as we make in car payments each month just filling the tank.

No, Really... Pull the Other One...

2006-04-21T04:22:00.000-05:00

After a long hiatus, I've realized that in my effort to sound somewhat like I know what I'm talking about, I'm over-thinking all potential issues I might post about, instead of actually writing about them. So, from this point forward, I will write as I think and therefore (hopefully) post more often.

The thought to hit me today was triggered by this image (courtesy of BBC News):

The president of China comes to the US to talk about deepening an alliance, perhaps using its influence in places where the US has none, and cooperating on global economics plane. And the president of the United States is pulling on his sleeve as if he were a runaway toddler. The irony is just too much. Or maybe it's just a telling symbol of Bush's attitude toward other nations and their leaders. They are all errant children and he must be the one to guide them onto the 'right path'; "Bush is our shepherd...we shall not want".

Indeed, a touch on the forearm or a tap on the back would have achieved the same objective without condescending nature that this tug seemed to imply. Not that anyone could ever consider George W. tactful, but I doubt he would ever repeat such a gesture on his father, or even Fmr. Pres. Clinton, especially at an event with this much press coverage.

Even the heckler didn't seem quite as bad as this little faux pas. America is known for being a country where everyone has a right to free speech (though these days some of us are wondering) and if one of its citizens wants to be heard who has the right to stop her? I am slightly bothered by the fact that she is being charged with 'intimidating a foreign official'.

(I'm sure President Hu was very frightened of the little old lady standing all the way by the cameras. Who knows? She might have thrown a zoom lens at him. Those things are pretty heavy. /end sarcasm)

The BBC certainly seemed to stress the she was a naturalized citizen, and somehow that explains everything. Is there any truly unbiased news out there anymore?

Oh, but that's a topic for another time.

2005-08-07T23:40:00.000-05:00

Peter Jennings has just died.

I have no words at this time to express my feelings over the loss of such a great journalist.

He will be missed.

The Wrong Day for O'Connor

2005-07-02T04:29:00.000-05:00

The recent announcement of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's intention to retire is somewhat baffling. Since last year, there has been speculation that our current president may have the rare chance to appoint a Supreme Court Justice. In fact, the president himself seemed eager for that opportunity. Only, we had all been assuming that it would be to replace Chief Justice Rehnquist's spot. And though the liberals were concerned, none of us thought it would make a difference if Bush hand-picked one of his own lapdogs to fill the position of a notoriously conservative, right-wing (and some say) racist judge. The only fear at that point was that things would remain within the staus quo for as many years as it would take for the next Justice to retire.

We would rather take the status quo over this, any day.

Instead, the worst case scenario has happened. The most crucial member of the Supreme Court has decided to retire, a judge who has cast the swing vote in 135 cases brought before the court is giving up her seat to anyone that the president deems suitable. The one moderate voice of reason has decided to leave justice behind in order to take care of her aging husband.

Does anybody else find this a little too convenient?

Rehnquist's thyroid cancer got the Bush think-tank pondering the potential long-term influence this president might have on the judicial system and it tugged at George W.'s already apparent desire to leave a legacy. But it wouldn't be much of a legacy to replace the old guy for a new version of the same. No ground-breaking going on there.

Would it be beyond the administration to drop a little hint in Justice O'Connor's lap to make a sacrifice for the cause of conservatism? How could an old ranching gal refuse a request from one of her own, especially since she had so obviously shown her loyalty to him in 2000 by stopping the recount in Florida? For all her fairness and objectivity, there is much evidence to suggest that she is not without party affiliations. However, it does reek of some indifference and apathy on her part. Does she really not care that for the next 20 years, the man (and it will be a man, no doubt) who takes her place will seek to undo most of the work she has done?

There is some comfort in the fact that she will not officialy step down until her successor is chosen. Perhaps that will influence the choice of candidates... or at least give her second thoughts.

Arafat's legacy...

2004-11-11T00:02:00.000-05:00

Arafat is finally dead. Whether or not they'll retract that statement later, there's a question of who's going to take over the reins. And with those reins, some purse strings as well it seems.

Arafat supposedly has somewhere along the lines of 3 billion dollars to his name, scattered in various bank accounts and investments, and so far no one know exactly where all of it is. What does it mean when a nation on the verge of destruction, entrenched in poverty, is sitting on a golden egg that might never hatch? Even if they did have access to this money what could they do with it?

With all the news that is reported on Palestine, there is very little information given about any sort of infrastructure that may be able to use this money to provide food, shelter, or education to the Palestinian people. Arafat spent most of the money on buying political allies and providing arms to whatever organizations were willing to support the resistance.

Here is what I can't understand: Wouldn't Palestine become a stronger, more solid nation if the children were being educated? If they could be smarter than the Israelis? Better fed and more confident and secure in the little land they do have? So they could learn how to become beneficial to their nation? So they could become doctors and engineers and diplomats and strategists, instead of suicide bombers, dying before they could even reach an age old enough to go to university.

I ache with this longing sometimes, to go over there and rescue those children who can't even get running water, because the Israelis have stopped considering them human beings and the PLO is too unorganized and weak to do anything about it, to get those children into proper schools with proper meals and proper clothing and to teach them about their responsibility to their homeland and send them back as an army of leaders.

I dream so vividly sometimes, I forget how messy the world really is.

Would these children even be admitted entry into any 1st world country? America sure as hell wouldn't allow the son of a suicide bomber to enter their school systems, to attend their universities. And if by the Grace of God, these Palestinians graduate from McGill, or the Sorbonne or Oxford, would they be allowed back into Palestine? Would they be hunted down by the Israelis as terrorists for trying to organize a new intellectual, idealistic intifada?

I am sad, not for Arafat's death but for the birth of even more uncertainty, for the dissolution of the little organization that existed within Palestine, and for the loss of the possibility for that little potential we had seen in 1993 to finally come to fruition.

Peace.

Who are you and why should we care?

2004-11-08T02:11:00.000-05:00

Or: Just what is a liberal fundamentalist anyway?

Let's just be formulaic and start with some basic definitions...

Liberal - adj
a. Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry.
b. Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded.
c. Of, designating, or characteristic of a political party founded on or associated with principles of social and political liberalism, especially in Great Britain, Canada, and the United States.

Fundamentalism - n
a. A usually religious movement or point of view characterized by a return to fundamental principles, by rigid adherence to those principles, and often by intolerance of other views and opposition to secularism.
b. a movement or attitude stressing strict and literal adherence to a set of basic principles

OK, so your first reaction is probably, isn't that an oxymoron? Well sure, if you want to stay in your limited worldview, in which religion and fundamentals are always at odds with liberty and broadminded-ness.

But wait, what if one of the basic fundamentals of your religion was justice in your dealings with people? What if you could not be a true believer until you sought all avenues of knowledge? What if your religion was meant to be universal, and every person was equal in the eyes of the Creator? Then this oxymoron would turn out to be redundant.

Well, doesn't this sound all nice and pretty and idealistic...

The truth is, those two words are just the simplest way I can describe my point of view. I'm a Muslim, and a pretty religious one at that. I like the ideas Islam teaches. They make sense to me. I don't think I could live any other way. A friend asked me once, if I could choose any religion to have been 'born into', which would it be? And I honestly would say this one. Because not only has it helped me to lead what I consider a good life, it has encouraged me to learn about other religions, science, history, philosophy, and motivated me to become more aware of current events and politics.

Which is what brings us here...

Whether we like it or not, power is continuously shifting throughout the world community and world leaders are doing anything and everything to keep a hold of the power they've got and get more while they're at it. Unfortunately, we poor, unsuspecting populous of the world are often caught in the crossfire, either as pawns or targets. Our best defense is to realize what exactly is going on, and what we can do to better the situation for all the people on this earth.

So here's my teaspoon's worth of effort.

My intention is to spread some knowledge, express some indignation and commiserate/gather support for important issues. What I consider 'important issues' will become more evident as we go along, but the 'liberal' qualifier should give you somewhat of an idea. I had meant to discuss my thoughts on the election in this post but I feel like the subject has already been examined ad nauseum both in the media and online.

So until next time...

Peace.

coming soon...

2004-11-02T14:26:00.000-05:00

an introduction and some post-election thoughts...