Mosques

in protest of the protest of the building of a mosque near ground zero (two blocks away, to be exact), i wanted to show some photos of some beautiful mosques. freedom of religion is one of the most important laws in the United States law code and why anyone would want to compromise that is beyond me. to the protesters, most of which are xenophobic racists, i say "suck it". if you want to protest something, protest the fact that the government still hasn't told us all there is to know about 9/11 or the fact that many people still suffering medical issues caused by 9/11 are having to pay their own medical bills.

that is all.

reverence for Christianity?

i'm reading Nomad by Ayaan Hirsi Ali...and it's beginning to go downhill at this point. in the chapter 'Seeking God but Finding Allah', she says this in a conversation she had with a priest. this is a proposition she presented to him:

"'The churches could go into Muslim communities, provide services just as the radical Muslims do: build new Catholic schools, hospitals, and community centers, just like the ones that were such a civilizing force under colonialism in Africa.'....

Father Bodar positively beamed with happiness. he said he had been trying to achieve just this for years and that he has often been mocked for even suggesting it. the Roman Catholic has a long history of resisting religious challenges from inside and outside what used to be called Christendom. all kinds of heresies have been combated successfully from the earliest times....and of course, the church fought against Islam not only in the time of the crusades but also when, as recently as 1683, Muslim troops of the Ottoman sultan menaced the Holy Roman Emperor's capital, Vienna."

there are two parts that are important.

1) "...a civilizing force under colonialism...."

i cringe just typing that. as i have read, Somalia, where Ayaan is from, was never formally colonized. Somalis successfully fought off the British four times. and i wonder if she ever realizes what an amazing act they, known as The Dervish State, did for Somalis by resisting colonization...

of course this priest has been trying to get into Muslim communities for years and convert them. he's a typical priest-he prays on those that do not ascribe to his religion in order to make himself feel morally superior; he capitalizes off their emotional distress by regurgitating some theological bullshit that probably came from the priests that were murdering, lynching, and torturing Muslims during the Crusades all while making them feel as though their religion, their culture, their beliefs are inferior to his.

religion disgusts me on many levels, particularly Christianity, but what disgusts me even more are missionaries and priests that go into remote parts of the globe and convert the people. they force them to convert in exchange for food, they brainwash the inhabitants to hate and devalue their own culture, and sometimes do so via violence. they reek havoc on some of the oldest societies in the world without thinking twice about it, and get praised in the process by their Christian brethren!

for one, to believe that colonialism was a "civilizing force" and not the degradation, enslavement, disregard and disrespect for indigenous cultures that summoned centuries of genocide for Africans on the continent and in the diaspora....is just ignorance, if not blatant euro-centrism. more and likely, her understanding of colonialism has come from the European perspective. not to mention her bias against nearly anything Islamic or Middle Eastern. that statement also gives the impression that African cultures prior to colonialism were uncivilized. if that isn't typical racist, ignorant, anthropologically foolish bullshit straight from David Duke's mouth, i don't know what is. i really can't believe this is coming from an African. as intelligent as Ayaan is in so many other areas, how is it that she does not understand racism in anthropology, history, and sociology? maybe, on some level, it is too difficult to revere a culture (as she does) while simultaneously understanding the atrocities committed in its past.

and second it is absurdity to suggest that churches in colonized countries were of any aid to.....anything. this really sounds like something i'd expect a tea partier to say. churches and Abrahamic religions in general have, for the most part (with the other part too overshadowed to even acknowledge...), been a detriment to society; to mankind, and have aided in the imped of almost all progressions we now consider successes. the Enlightenment period in Western history that Ayaan speaks so favorably of, was battled in nearly every aspect by the church. individual freedom, reproductive rights (which are very much so still in progress), religious freedom, separation of church and state,and scientific freedom have all been fought tooth and nail by the church. it's still fighting these things. and in colonialism, it aided in the brainwashing of the indigenous peoples, damaged, burned, and destroyed ancient religious artifacts, shrines, traditions and belief systems. any ancient knowledge these societies possessed prior to colonialism is now lost due in part to the church. i could make and entire blog devoted to showing the ills and problems the church and religion in general has done and aided in.... i have no idea how an atheist could give credence in this way to the church.

2) "...the church fought against Islam...in the Crusades...".

fought against or persecuted to the extent that modern day standards would consider it an attempted genocide against Muslims? they weren't fighting them because Muslims had hundreds of suicide bombers at that time, they were doing it because they were religious fanatics (like the same extreme Muslims she's very much opposed to) who wanted control of the minds of any and everyone they could and didn't like another religion infringing on their proselytism. how can she justify the religious extremism of one religion and abhor it in another? religious extremism is religious extremism. whether it is coming from Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, Shintos, or Baha'is. it should be opposed in any and all regards because it is the threat to the very freedom she venerates.

i think, like many critics of Ayaan's, is that she has let all her concepts about nearly everything be shaded by this good/bad; western/non-western dichotomy.

Islam and the Middle East is backwards; wrong; inferior; less than-Western society is good; better; superior.

the fact that the west, at one point and time (and still today) has done more harm to this planet than good (which is not to say that others have not) is something i don't think she will let herself realize any time soon. the west, to her, will always be the shining beacon of hope and goodness and freedom, and the middle east will always be anything but.

comment. criticize. think. pray....ha...just kidding.

western critics of the middle east

i'm nearly done with Ayaan Hirsi Ali's book, Nomad and so far she's raised many of the same arguments she's raised in Infidel and The Caged Virgin, but now, i look at them differently.

like in my first post about this book, one of the main issues she takes with the Muslim women's liberation is not the response of Muslim men or Muslims period, but of social critics from western nations. she had this to say about the American Muslims that heckled her when she went to prominent American universities to lecture:

"There are activist groups of every stripe on campus, yet nothing for girls fleeing Islam, no group fighting for the rights of Muslim women. when violence is committed in the name of Islam these student activists are silent. even when muslims blow up other Muslims who differ in their interpretation of this supposedly peaceful religion; even when children are used as suicide bombers; even when a devout Muslim woman is raped, goes to the authorities, and is sentenced to be stoned on the grounds that she has had sex outside of marriage-even then, these students are silent.

there is a problem with Islam, i would tell the students who hectored me. by ignoring it, you, student or adult, do a disservice to your community. "

not too long after i read Infidel, i became obsessed with Islam and Saudi Arabia, in particular. i was reading books about the Prophet Muhammad, autobiographies from current and former Muslims, and Saudi culture. i feel as though i know a lot about the culture and the religion, but i have never submitted to Islam, nor have i ever lived in or visited a Muslim populated country, so how legit is my opinion?

and therein lies the problem. this is why many western feminists, social critics, etc. may turn a blind eye to cultures of the middle east because, while they may know a good deal about Islam and middle eastern cultures, it is still a foreign society and we/they are still outsiders.

looking into history, we can see the damaging effects that judgement of cultures from outsiders can take. colonialism is the best example that has had the most damaging effects.

whites went to Africa, saw naked women with facial features they'd never seen, bodies shaped completely different from theirs, living in simple communes in tuned with nature and assumed that they must be sex-crazed animals, since the women are all naked or topless. they assumed wet were less intelligent, considering we weren't stripping the land of its resources and capitalizing off it. African societies were so different from theirs, they assumed that one had to be superior, while the other inferior. and this is the type of thinking that founded slavery, the taking of Native American land, and the centuries long genocide that has taken place against people of color in America.

this, i think, is why so many westerners take caution, or simply say nothing when it comes to matters of foreign societies. even now, many of the individuals that do criticize middle eastern cultures or Muslim populated societies are right-wingers whose views are usually nothing more than racism and xenophobia and nowhere near constructive criticism.

also, i think criticizing another society, in a way, implies that the society you/i dwell in is not in need of criticism. it's like giving someone relationship advice when you've had three divorces. how can any American criticize any society when ours has an endless array of issues.

take the burqa, for instance. after you've read a little about it (if you're a westerner), it seems to be oppressive and a tool to keep women subservient to men; it aids in making women feel as though their bodies and their sexuality are abominable; it helps to sustain the status quo. this, more and likely, is the typical western stance on this type of fashion (whether they voice it or not).

however if you're a female, and have lived in a well populated city, you know that women get heckled, taunted, whistled at, barked at, cat-called, blown-kisses at, been stalked for blocks, and even been groped while simply walking down the street, many a times in just jeans and a t-shirt.
and i know this from experience. "hey ma. like that dress", "i like that ass...", "you lookin good shawty..." are just some of the phrases that have come my way while on the subway or walking down the street. and this happens whether i'm in jeans and a tee, a dress, a short skirt, in my work clothes, or covered in a cable-knit sweater. right now, it's hot as hell in Brooklyn. so, do i wear something that keeps me cool, which in turn usually shows a lot of skin, or do i don something heavy and shapeless that will ward off comments like these-something like a....... burqa? at times, it has seemed like these women may have it right. wearing this would not only ward off comments, but it would force men to evaluate women by alternative means than our physical appearance. what could women who focus on their physical appearance more than anything else achieve if they are forced to value themselves on deeper levels?

if you research reasons women claim they wear burqas, hijabs, and the like, it is usually, they say, because men cannot control themselves when they see the female body, thus, as opposed to making men take control of themselves, they take the matter into their own hands and cover their bodies, head to toe, in something that only shows ankles and hands. and, walking down the street here and seeing how i'm talked to, and see how many other females are talked to, it's almost understandable. maybe they do have it right. wearing a dark, heavy, shapeless cloak guarantees that your body will not be disrespected in this way, and that you will be looked at as a woman, and not just an object of sex.
or...at least thats how it should work in theory. the fact of the matter is, however, that women are still defiled, groped, raped, molested, and disrespected in various ways by men in Saudi culture and cultures with the majority of women wearing burqas and hijabs just as women are in the American culture. based on the vast difference in how western women dress from burqas and hijabs, one would expect a difference in the way the women are treated, but thats not the case at all. so what's the point?

how hypocritical is it to criticize one culture's misogyny while the one i live in is eerily similar? but then again, at what point does one criticize no matter the cost? where is the line drawn? at misogyny? modern-day slavery? child sex slavery? genocide?

comment. think. CRITICIZE. criticize criticizers. read Nomad.

the photos at the top are by an artist named Ananias Leki Dago who i learned about via Afro Sapien. it's a piece entitled Identity.

Nomad

thursday i walked into the Barnes & Nobles near Time's Square and i was happily surprised to see that Ayaan Hirsi Ali has a new book out entitled Nomad. i nearly screamed when i saw it at the check out counter. how did i not know of this?

i read two pages and bought it. usually, i would just check it out from the library, but since it was just released this month, they probably won't get a copy in until late summer. plus, i own and have read her other books (Infidel and The Caged Virgin), and i think she's such an amazing woman. her perspective is so extraordinary and remarkable that i cannot pass up one of her books. i would say she's one of my idols, but i don't idolize anyone. i idolize characteristics in people, but never the person.

i'm about 100 pages in so far and she's talking about specific family members of hers and detailing what she's been doing since she was stripped of her Dutch citizenship and the long-distance reunion with her family.

but in between talking of her family, she goes into the issues with Islam, the issues of underdeveloped countries (and/or with overly religious societies), and the reverence she has for the west. at some points, though, it is almost as if she has an infatuation with western countries. in a letter to her dead grandmother, she contrasts western and non-western countries ("non-western countries" meaning, in this context, countries that have a national religion or an overwhelmingly religious citizenry like Somalia, where she is from). she says this:

Grandmother, i have compared the infidels' morals to those that you taught us, and i must report that they have, in practice, a better outcome for humans that the morals of your forefathers.

the infidel insists on honesty and trust. everywhere you turn here, you must trust someone: to fly the airplane you travel in, to teach your child, to take care of you when you are sick and feed you food that is edible. and everywhere your trust is borne out.

the infidel does not see life as a test, a passage to the hereafter, but as an end and a joy in itself. all his resources of money, mind, and organization go into making life here, in Earth, comfortable and healthy. he is obsessed with cleanliness, a good diet, and the right amount of rest. ....

because the infidel trusts and studies new ideas, there is abundance in the infidel lands. in these circumstances of peace, knowledge, and predictability, the birth of a girl is just fine. ......

salvation lies in the ways of the infidel, grandmother. he has printed and bound books full of memory. he peeks through lenses that allow him to see an invisible world of creatures that live in us and with us, and he has sought and found remedies that attack them and defend our bodies. grandma, fevers and diseases are not caused by jinn and forefathers rising from the dead to torment us, or by an angry god, but by invisible creatures with names like parasites and bacteria and viruses. the infidels medicine works better than ours, because it is based on facts, inquiry, and real knowledge.

the sooner we adopt the infidel attitude towards work, money, procreation and leisure, the easier and better life will be.

it's interesting to see what my/our society looks like through someone else's scope. she praises a number of things i wouldn't consider positives. for example, she says we have an abundance in western countries. i'm assuming she's referring to our resources. but theres so many things that are ignored in that abundance. like the cheap (or often times free) labor i spoke of in the last post, the stealing of resources we do to nations like Somalia, and the countries we unlawfully dispose of this abundance.

she also speaks about western countries as if we don't have religious zealots simply because we have secular governments. anyone who has lived in a western country and paid attention could tell you the extremes religion takes in the United States, especially.

one thing that always makes me think from her books is the criticism she makes of western liberals and feminists. she says when it comes to their own countries, liberals and feminists are relentless in their criticisms, but when it comes to other countries and cultures, theres the go-to response of relativism. which is very true. conservatives are mainly the ones openly condemning some of their practices (although their criticisms are usually saturated in a superiority complex and racism).

but Ayaan sees this as egotism. to her, it is almost like someone saying "this is right, good, better, beneficial and progressive for MY society, but for yours.....its whatever. MY society is the society that can handle this concept and reap its benefits. yours probably cannot. your people aren't intelligent enough to grasp this concept, thus i suspend my opinion on YOUR country and YOUR people....".

i think religion has some benefits (very very few, that can probably be accessed through alternative mediums), but that overall it's destructive, divisive, counter-productive and idolizes mental docility, dogmatism, and ignorance in its followers. and by "religion", i mainly mean Christianity and Islam. other ideologies and practices that may fit under the umbrella of "religion" don't, to me, share or continue to exhibit these features. "religion" is too broad a term to make one single true statement about it. and while i may side with liberal on 99% of the political issues, the topic of Islam is one i would disagree with them on. that being said though, there are many aspects of any religion that is difficult to tell apart from the tradition of a land. the Qu'ran says nothing about female genital mutilation, yet it is most practiced in Muslim populated countries, and many Muslims in western countries continue to practice it. so is it a part of Islam or their culture?

this post isn't all that coherent. maybe when i finish the book i can get some cohesive thought(s) and my post won't sound like a ramble.

anyway, theres so many questions that arise while reading her books. you should definitely pick this one up.

comment. read her book. but her book. think. criticize.

also, she did an interview on the Tavis Smiley show you can view.

Malcolm X quotes

i read the book By Any Means Necessary by Malcolm X a month or so ago and its one of the most insightful books i've ever read. it is a compilation book of his speeches, interviews, radio broadcasts, NOI meetings and rallies.
i think its necessary for everyone to read reread and take heed at Malcolm's words because he seems to be misunderstood by many people who haven't read his actual words. in a political forum i was on a while, there was a discussion about him, and there were accusations of him being pro-violence, angry, and anti-white. even now, i think many people find it easier to identify with Martin Luther King Jr's path and not Malcolm's mainly because of these accusations.
he wasn't ant-white, he was pro-black. he was not violent, he simply understood the need for self-defense and did not sugarcoat the need for it. and yes, actually, he may have been angry. anyone who knew/knows the reality of the situation for being black in America should have also been angry. i think that anger is quintessential for change. and specifically for the black struggle in America, i think anger was/is fundamental; a prerequisite. bell hooks talks about having a rage that is more than justified against the white supremacist capitalist patriarchal country we live in in Killing Rage...a book i highly recommend. although, i must say that the Buddha raises a good polemic against violence, in favor or pacifism....
anywho...here's excerpts i found most insightful and relevant to the cause:

Spellman: what is your attitude toward Christian Ghandian groups?
malcolm: Christian? Ghandian? i don't go for anything thats nonviolent and turn-the-other-cheekish. i don't see how any revolution-i've never heard of a nonviolent revolution or a revolution that was brought about by turning the other cheek, and so i believe that it is a crime for anyone to teach a person who is being brutalized to continue to accept that brutality without doing something to defend himself. if this is what the christian-ghandian philosophy teached, then it is criminal-a criminal philosophy.
spellman: what is the program for acheiving your goals of separation?
malcolm: a better word to use that separation is independence. this word "separation" is misused. the thirteen colonies separated from England but they called it Declaration of Independence; they don't call it the Declaration of Separation, they call it the Declaration of Independence. when you're independent of someone you can separate from them. if you can't separate from them it means you're not independent of them. so what was your question?
spellman: what is your program for achieving your goals in independence?
malcolm: when the black man in this country awakens, becomes intellectually mature and able to think for himself, you will then see that the only way he will becomes independent and recongnized as a human being, he has to have what they have and he has to be doing for himself what others are doing for themselves. so the first step is to awaken him to this, and that is where the religion of Islam makes him morally more able to rise above the evils and the vices of an immoral society. and the political, economic, and social philosophy of black nationalism instills within him the racial dignity and the incentive and the confidence that he needs to stand on his own feet and take a stand for himself.


"Revolution is like a forest fire, it burns everything in its path. the people who are involved in a revolution don't become a part of the system-they destroy the system, they change the system. the genuine word for revolution is Umwaelzung which means a complete overturning and a complete change, and the negro revolution is no revolution. because it condemns the system and then asks the system that it has condemned to accept them into their system. that is not a revolution- a revolution changes the system, it destroys the system and replaces it with a better one."

"there can be no white-black solidarity until theres first some black solidarity. we have got to get our problems solved first..."



"it is we who have fought your battles for you, and have picked your cotton for you. we built this house that you're living in. it was our labor that built this house. you sat beneath the old cotton tree telling us how long to work or how hard to work, but it was our labor, our sweat and our blood that made this country what it is, and we're the only ones who haven't benefited from it. all we're saying today is, its payday-retroactive."


"no white person would go about fighting for freedom in the same manner that he has helped me and you to fight for our freedom.no, none of them would. when it comes to black freedom, then the white man freedom-rides and sits in, he's nonviolent, he sings "we shall overcome" and all that stuff. but when the property of the white man himself is threatened, he's not nonviolent. he's only nonviolent when he's on your side. but when he's on his side he loses all that patience and nonviolence...Our people aren't going to wait ten years. if this house is a house of freedom and justice and equality for all, if thats what it is, then lets have it. and if we can't all have it, then none of us will have it."

"i'm not bloodthirsty. i'm one of 22 million black people in this country who's tired of being the victim of hypocrisy by a country that supposedly practices democracy."

"prior to one hundred years ago, they didn't need tricks. they had chains. and they needed the chains because you and i hadn't yet been brainwashed thoroughly enough to submit to their brutal acts of violence submissively. prior to a hundred years ago, you has men like Nat Turner, that Brother Benjamin was talking about, and others, Toussaint L'Overture. none of them would submit to slavery. they'd fight back by any means necessary. and it was only after the spirit of the black man was completely broken and his desire to be a man was completely destroyed, then they has to use different tricks. they just took the physical chains from his ankles and put them on his mind."

"we don't organize any black man to be a democrat or a republican because both of them have sold us out."

"...the oppressed never uses the same yardstick as the oppressor."

"question 22: the first guy that was shot at the moment of the Independence War was a negro.
malcolm: he wasn't shot for negroes. he was shot for america. i don't want to take away from Crispus Attucks, but he was shot. he was a slave. his people were slaves.
question 23: he was a slave perhaps, but not on his knees-on his feet.
malcolm: sir, you can take a dog...and sic him on somebody else and he's fearless. i'd like to give you an example. no matter how fearless a dog is, you catch him out on the street, stamp your foot; he'll run because you're only threatening him. his master has never trained him how to defend himself; but that same dog, if you walk through the master's gate, will growl and bite. why will he growl and bite over there and not growl and bite over here? over here he's growling and biting for the defense of his master and the benefit of his master, but when his only interests are threatened, he has no growl. nto only Crispus Attucks, but many of us in America have died defending America. we defend our master. we're the most violent soldiers America has when she sends us to Korea or to the South Pacific or to Saigon, but when our mothers and our own property are being attacked we're nonviolent. Crispus Attucks laid down his life for America, but would he have laid down his life to stop the white man in America from enslaving black people?"