Category: Islam

One that got away


Islam is a moderate voice on the American stage, despite the screeching of some who use it to scare and intimidate Americans into self-serving goals that have more to do with politics than the preservation of the American fabric. Mohammad Qatanani was a target used by such people who wanted him to be a poster boy for their hate, claiming he was a member of Hamas who hid his affiliation with that organization in order to infiltrate America and spread his Islamic deception far and wide throughout this country. But by their works you shall know them or something like comes from the good book as Qatanani who cooperated with US authorities encouraged everyone else to do the same despite all the hate filled rhetoric directed towards him. In so doing he gained the admiration and respect of FBI agents, Jewish Rabbis, and local, state and federal members of the legislative branches of government, even though there were others in government, notably the Department of Homeland Security who wanted Qatanani deported. Well, the news is he won’t be, or at least not for now, although DHS still has 30 days to appeal a judge’s decision that their case was weak and without merit and Qatanani can stay put in the US.

A prominent Muslim cleric, celebrated for his moderation by supporters but accused of ties to a terrorist group by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, today won his bid to call the United States his permanent home.

In his 69-page decision, Immigration Judge Alberto Riefkohl said Homeland Security officials had presented a case weak on evidence and credibility in their effort to cast Imam Mohammad Qatanani as someone who had had ties to Hamas, a Palestinian terrorist organization, and who had lied about it to obtain a so-called green card here.

Riefkohl, often using blunt language in his written decision, said that records obtained by Homeland Security officials from Israeli authorities were “too unreliable to prove that Mr. Qatanani has engaged in terrorist activities.”

He added: “The court also finds DHS’s other evidence is insufficient.”

Outside court on the 11th floor the Peter F. Rodino Federal Building in Newark, the imam’s supporters praised the decision, and said it would bolster their community’s faith in the U.S. justice system. Many Muslims and Arabs saw the government’s deportation effort as evidence that Muslims and Arabs, regardless of their views, are stereotyped as terrorist, or terrorist sympathizers.

Aref Assaf, head of the American Arab Forum in Paterson, said earlier that the case had been watched closely by Muslims and Arabs across the United States as well as overseas.

“We have been working well with the FBI, the U.S. Attorney’s office, and immigration, mostly because of the imam and his encouragement to us to cooperate and work with the government,” Assaf explained.

This of course is not the image the government wants you to have, a cooperating, civic minded Islam that identifies itself with the environment in which it voluntarily places itself. Instead Islam has to be defiant, menacing, uncooperative, in order to propel the propaganda that it’s a threat to the survival of the nation. In that sense, Qatanani is one that escaped the snare of the government’s trap and most likely will live to tell about it. Congratulations to him, his family, friends and supporters. Ramadan will have just a little more meaning for them and America will be a better place because of that.

There’s more than one way to compete


The women’s movement of the sixties and seventies guaranteed women the right to choose for themselves the lifestyle they wanted to lead.  It also asserted that women were able to speak for themselves, and that when they spoke their words had meaning which we were to take at face value.  So it is that in the 21st century women are expressing themselves when it comes to athletic competition. This news story gives more detail about who is talking and what it is they’re saying.  I note with a certain amount of tongue in cheek that one of the women wearing a scarf is from the American liberated country of Afghanistan, where we were told a sign of the subjugation of women was the headscarf.

Muslim patriotism in the US military


I’ve heard a lot from people especially on the right about problems associated with having Muslims involved in anything American, as if the presence of Muslims is a threat to the process or would somehow leave it tainted. I remember vividly during the first Gulf war when America was concerned about its image, a lot was said about Muslims in the US military and especially those who converted to Islam because of their exposure to the Gulf. Now, however, those same people some of whom are still in the military and those who joined later are “tainted” goods, worthy of suspicion and distrust. America is cannabalistic in that sense when it comes to anyone other than blond hair and blue eyed soldiers fighting its wars. From the Civil War upto the Vietnam war people of color have always been looked down upon as unworthy of service in the US military. Today is no different, except now we have bloggers who point out to those who care to know stories of patriotism in the US military that work for the country. Check out this story of a young man who volunteered to join the military in response to Bush’s war on terror.

Getting it wrong on all accounts


The blogosphere is abuzz about the abandoned book on the Last Messenger’s love life with his younger wife Aisha and how publishers are giving in to Muslim pressure to censure things some may consider derogatory about Islam. What “Islamophobes”like to point out are cases in modern society where they think people have caved in to pressure to forget about the bad things in Islam in order to appease Muslims.  It doesn’t matter that the bad things they try to bring to light are “fallacious representation(s)”  or “anti-Islamic polemic(s) that uses sex and violence to attack the Prophet and his faith”, much like the book in question.

In some cases, however, the publisher got it right. The excuse given for not publishing because of fear of violence is unfortunate but there is a precedent for that concern.  We’ve talked about media manipulation of Muslims’ reactions before at Miscellany; how things are printed or said to get a rise out of Muslims which is then used to show the uncivilized nature of the Muslims, and that’s unfortunate. However, methinks they chose not to print a book that is factually inaccurate, and perhaps their  vetting process pointed that out to them. Perhaps the author can find an irresponsible publisher who will print ANYTHING no matter how wrong it may be, but Random House chose not to!  Here’s why:

In the time before Islam, Abu Bakr married Fatila bint Abdul Uzza,
from whom Abdullah and Asma were born.  Then he married Umm Ruman,
from whom Abdur Rahman and Aisha were born.  These four were born
before Islam.  ‘Abdullah, Asma, ‘Abdur-Rahman, and ‘A’isha were born
before the beginning of the Revelation (i.e, at least 13 years before
the Hijrah).  This is uncontested and well-known to the muslims.

‘A’isha was betrothed to Jubayr ibn Mut’im ibn Adi, before Abu
Bakr accepted Islam in the first year of the Call (12-13 years before
the Hijrah).  This is uncontested.

When Abu Bakr planned to go to Abyssinia during the fifth year of
the Call (8-9 years before the Hijrah), Mut’im broke off the
engagement because Abu Bakr had accepted Islam.  This is uncontested.

‘A’isha remembered the Revelation of a verse known to have been
revealed in the fifth year of the Call or before (i.e., 8-13 years
before the Hijrah).  This is uncontested.

‘A’isha was betrothed to the prophet two years after the death of
Khadijah, or a year before the Hijrah.  This is uncontested.

‘A’isha did not accompany her father and the prophet during the
Hijrah, but arrived in Madinah later, and became sick so that all of
her hair fell out.  This is uncontested.

‘A’isha moved in with the prophet a year or two after the Hijrah,
or two to four years after her betrothal.  This is unclear from the
various reports, which give different time periods, but all are agreed
as to the general time frame.

‘A’isha was widowed in 11h (the 11th year of the Hijrah).  This is
uncontested.

She was a widow for about forty years and died in 50h.  This is
uncontested.

Among the people who report these facts is one Hisham bin Urwa,
the grandson of Asma and ‘A’isha’s grand-nephew, who lived in Madina
for 71 years and then moved to Iraq, who reported that ‘A’isha died in
50h.  This is uncontested.

‘A’isha’s older sister Asma was ten years older than ‘A’isha.
Asma was 27 at the time of the Hijrah, making ‘A’isha 17.  This is
uncontested.  Asma died at the age of 100 in 73h.  23 years earlier,
when ‘A’isha died, Asma was 77.  This is uncontested.  Thus ‘A’isha
was 67 when she died in 50h, seventeen at the time of the Hijrah,
sixteen at the time of her betrothal to the prophet, and nineteen when
she moved in with him.

All of the reports saying that ‘A’isha was six at the time of her
betrothal to the prophet come from Iraq, as do all of the reports that
she was nine when she moved in with the prophet.  There are no reports
of this from Makkah or Madinah.  This is uncontested.  Most of these
reports from Iraq came through Hisham bin Urwa, Asma’s grandson,
mostly from his father.  This is indisputable.

Hisham bin Urwa is said to have reported (1) that ‘A’isha was nine
in the second year of the Hijrah, (2) was widowed in the eleventh year
of the Hijrah, and (3) died in the fiftieth year of the Hijrah ~ when
his grandmother, ten years older than his great aunt ‘A’isha, was 77.

The same person who said ‘A’isha was nine in 2h also said she was
67 in 50h.

So the only reports that ‘A’isha was six, or nine, come from
someone who also reports that she had to be sixteen when betrothed,
and nineteen when she moved in with the prophet.

And every other report showing her to be much older than six is
uncontested and considered reliable, while Hisham’s reports from Iraq
are considered unreliable for obvious reasons.

Of course not many people know about this and those that do choose to ignore or debate it, but what do you do with people who argue against facts?

Islamophobia and politics


One can expect the right wing of American politics to engage in distortion and race baiting.  It goes as far back as I can remember and that includes the administration of Richard Nixon.  So it is today, and the modern day target is the clean cut Arab/muslim guy or gal.  Mazen Asbahi is “it” today and I’m baffled in one sense but not totally surprised in another.  Baffled because monsieur Asbahi is as clean as they come, except for a really rather tangential connection to someone who had an equally tangentially inconsequential relationship with someone who…..well you know the rest.  This all boils down to party politics; Asbahi worked for Obama, and I guess it’s a little too much for the American palate to digest, so many strange sounding names working together.  But Asbahi has bonafides that not too many people who might even call themselves red blooded Americans possess, so I find his selection as a target unfortunate.  No matter how squeaky clean you try to get you can never get clean enough if you have one of those strange names or a swarthy complexion, but it’s just those characteristics that make him such an easy target. What inevitably the racists in American politics are trying to do is dilute the potency of Islamic charities by calling into question their raison d’etre and the full might of the US government to shut them down and take their assets.  For that reason I wish Asbahi had not resigned his position with the Obama campaign; there are bigger stakes here than helping someone who will gladly kick you to the curb in order to get elected. (That he decided to step down probably speaks more for his integrity than that of the Obama campain. )  Islamic charities have an important role to play in helping Muslims in developing countries maintain a subsistence level lifestyle; just as the cash strapped economies of central and south America depend on money from the American job force, so do those societies in the Middle East.  (Just ask Israel) Mazen was a political football kicked around to hurt a candidate who is running scared from the Muslim label and to damage the work of some honest hard working Muslims who wanted to establish a viable organization to help people at home and abroad.  I suspect there’ll be a lot more of this kind of election year posturing as the political season continues.

Obama’s woes continue


I hadn’t given one iota’s thought to Obama’s race problem, or rather the problem his race is to the election process in a race conscious society like America which always tries to hide the depts of the problem by ignoring it.  But sure enough, race has reared it’s ugly head, and it’s from of all places, the corporate media. Check out the question being asked by some in mainstream media:

Can Black Journalists be trusted to cover Obama?

For me the question begs, do we even have black journalists, they are so rarely seen. In any event the writer tries to set the record straight.  I guess because of that question the sole black journalist covering the McCain campaign’s stop in Florida was singled out and told to leave the press pool, so perhaps we should turn the question on its face and ask if black journalists can be trusted to cover McCain?  Of course this brings back all the ugly racial stereotypes of African-Americans…..can blacks be trusted with your women, can they be trusted in your schools, etc., etc that have been a part of America for many years

So I guess you could call this piling on, when I reiterate my complaint about Obama’s handling of the Muslim constituency.  I found a rather excellent editorial by a secularist white guy that I think speaks to the heart of how Obama should handle this.  I keep finding pieces that I think tell Obama succinctly what he should do to combat this part of his image problem, and it seems he is listening to everybody BUT, which makes me wonder whether an Obama administration will be equally poorly advised.

Will anyone notice? Barack Obama’s team just threw its key Muslim advisor under the bus.

Barack Obama needs to make a statement loudly, clearly, and with passion that he embraces Muslims as much as any other Americans of Christian, Buddhist, Jewish or other religious persuasions. It wouldn’t hurt for him to embrace devout secularists like me for that matter.

But I’m irritated and saddened by news that Barack Obama’s Muslim-outreach coordinator, Mazen Asbahi, has resigned “amid questions about his ‘involvement’ in an Islamic investment fund and various Islamic groups.”

Let’s tally up Obama’s Muslim outreach record:

~ Obama campaign apparatchiks ask young Muslim women not to stand in photo with Obama because of head scarves (Obama campaign later apologizes).~ Barack Obama gives AIPAC speech that manages to run to the right of President Bush and Israel Prime Minister Ohlmert in demanding that “Jerusalem must not be divided.” (Obama later recants after the fact)

~ Barack Obama not only terminates Middle East advisor Robert Malley from his team because of Malley’s views that Hamas should be engaged — but his spokesman, Bill Burton, states that not only is Rob Malley no longer advising Obama “but will never advise Obama”. That’s running the bus over someone and then backing it up to make sure that Malley doesn’t survive and has no chance in an Obama administration. I like to remind folks that Paul Volcker and Ted Sorensen signed the same letter Malley did but have thus far missed the campaign guillotine.

~ Barack Obama gives an inspirational speech to more than 200,000 Germans in Berlin calling for a “World Without Walls.” But Obama is silent in Israel when it is the wall dividing Israelis and Palestinians that is becoming an increasingly worse and impactful global ulcer.

~ Barack Obama spends 30 plus hours in Israel and 45 minutes in Ramallah during his recent trip and meets many Iraelis who have been pro-settilement expansion, solidly violating international law and US policy. Some on Obama’s advisory team turn a blind eye to Israel’s expanding settlements and continue to be associated with and meet with settlement zealots — but Obama keeps ALL of these people on his team.

~ Barack Obama accepts the resignation of a mainstream Arab-American lawyer from his advisory team because eight years ago, Mazen Asbahi served on a board “for a few weeks” that included a muslim fundamentalist imam from Illinois. Asbahi resigned from the board. . .eight years ago.

What? Wait? Obama has had a many years long relationship with Jeremiah Wright — and sat on a board with William Ayers — NEITHER of which I think are disqualifiers for Obama’s candidacy. . .and yet Obama’s political team and Obama himself did not demand from Asbahi that he stay on the team, stand his ground, and fight back against the vile right-wing hit on him and his credibility?!

I think that this is outrageous — and those on the left who appreciate Obama and what he may mean for this country must become as tenaciously committed to what is right and what is good — and fighting for that — because those on the other side of these debates are trying to compel Obama to dilute himself.

Zalmay Khalilzad is an effective and popular MUSLIM Ambassador of the United States to the United Nations. We need more Muslims in our diplomatic corps. We need Muslims on the Supreme Court. We need more Muslims like Keith Ellison in the US Senate and House of Representatives.

Obama should say it. Convince the American public that he’s not setting up a zero sum game between Muslims on one side and Christians and Jews on the other.

Obama is a Christian. I get that. I’m a secularist hard core — but I won’t stand by to watch more good people be flushed down the political drain because they are Muslims trying to work for a balanced and level playing field in America.

This resignation by Asbahi stinks — and Obama and his team should immediately call him back and help him stand up to anti-Muslimism in America.

Islam, anti-semitism and France


We all remember the caricature of the last Messenger which appeared in European newspapers, some times more than once, as an act of solidarity with the Danish publishers where the cartoon originated. The worldwide reaction of Muslims ran the entire gamut of emotions from anger to demands that the offending cartoon be retracted to calls for the resignation of the cartoonist and/or the editor of the newspaper. European publishers insisted on their rights to a free press saying they would not be intimidated by any reaction no matter how violent or incendiary. Other publications printed the offending cartoon as an act of solidarity with the Danish publications. Sometime later, newspapers again published the cartoon, in my opinion, as an act of provocation hoping to get a reaction from Muslims which would be prominently displayed across the front page of newspapers around the world, but the basic premise of freedom of the press to publish a cartoon even if billions of people found it offensive was always the reason given for the cartoon’s publication. Editors, reporters, et.al all cited the right to a free press to publish unfettered any and everything deemed by them relevant to find its way on the printed page, no matter how many people it upset, no matter which religion was attacked.

Advance a short time later to 2008 and we find this headline.

Satirist sparks uproar with Sarkozy son Jewish jibe

and this one.

Cartoonist gets death threats over Sarkozy ‘Jew” quip

From the former headline:

A French newspaper satirist has sparked a feverish tug-of-war over free speech and anti-Semitism with a biting column on the engagement of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s son to a Jewish heiress.

Published on July 2 in the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, the piece cost the 79-year-old Sine, a veteran cartoonist and anarchist writer whose real name is Maurice Sinet, his job after he refused to apologise.

Since then it has unleashed a torrent of op-ed articles, blog entries, petitions and counter-petitions as French writers, politicians and armchair commentators line up to vilify or defend him.

A lifelong provocateur whose previous targets have included Muslim fundamentalists and gays, Sine finally went to the police after a website published a call for him to be murdered, his lawyer said on Sunday.

Explaining what the uproar is all about, the second link writes.

L’affaire Siné, as it is known, began a month ago when the cartoonist wrote a column in Charlie Hebdo, a satirical weekly, about the engagement of Mr Sarkozy, 21, to Jessica Sebaoun-Darty, the Jewish heiress of an electronic goods chain.

Sinet repeated an unfounded rumour that the son of the President planned to become Jewish and added: “He’ll go a long way in life, that little lad.”

The remark caused fury amid claims that it alluded to age-old prejudices about Jews and money.

With the press speculating that Mr Sarkozy could sue Charlie Hebdo, Philippe Val, its editor, asked Sinet to apologise.

“I’d rather cut my balls off,” he replied.

He was fired and Mr Val said that his comments “could be interpreted as making a link between the conversion to Judaism and social success and that was neither acceptable nor defendable in court”.

What I find amazing is the swiftness with which some people found the material offensive and retribution for the offense demanded, and the call by people who said the press had the right to publish material offensive to Muslims supporting the firing of someone who made at best a passing remark about Jewishness. With regards to French Jews, or Judaism, the press does not have the right to offend and should be concerned with French-Jewish reaction, it’s just that someone forgot to tell Monsieur Sinet that. It’s interesting how the reaction to Sinet’s cartoon follows closely the reaction Muslims had to offending material in the past, including the call by some in the Jewish community for Monsieur Sinet’s death! Shades of Salman Rushdie perhaps?

Could this be?


First we hear of the hostility Iranians have towards the American way of life.  You’ve heard the chorus, ‘they hate us because of our freedom’ that always punctuates any discussion of east and west.  Hyperbole always seems to characterize such discussions and during times of international tensions, such exaggerations can have deadly consequences.  Here is a story which portrays a different picture than the one we’ve been seeing about Iran, and I doubt you will see it in many venues besides this one. It addresses two stereotypes that are common place about the Muslim world.

Two Christian pastors have returned to Martinsville after a year and a half of study in Iran, where they set out to learn and build trust and love between the people of both nations.

Husband and wife David Wolfe and Linda Kusse-Wolfe, both Quaker ministers, studied Islam and Iranian culture at the Imam Khomeini Education and Research Institute in Qom, Iran, from January 2007 to May 2008. There, they found a “very hospitable, very gracious people” and made lasting friendships, Kusse-Wolfe said. “It was a really privileged look at a society many Americans don’t get to see,” she said.

*snip*

Before the trip, “we had people ask us, ‘Aren’t you scared to go over there?’” Kusse-Wolfe said. “I’m convinced the (Iranian) people would’ve laid down their lives for us.”

“We never heard an unkind word,” Wolfe said. The city of Qom has a “significant number” of English-speaking people, Kusse-Wolfe said, especially among university students. “They would almost immediately invite us home to meet their parents and share a meal,” she said. “There’s a saying in Iran that guests are friends of God. They really understand that.” Iran is “very diverse,” with communities of Christians, Jewish people and Zoroastrians, Wolfe said.

Some people were surprised to find out that the couple — and other Americans — believe in God, Kusse-Wolfe said. But by living their faith, they proved the stereotypes wrong.

“As we practiced our faith and shared with them, that opened a lot of doors. It meant we had integrity,” she said. Muslims consider Jesus an important prophet, and the people they encountered showed a great respect for the couple’s faith, she added. Muslims consider Christians and Jews to be “people of the book,” Wolfe said. “They believe that we all worship the God of Abraham, and they are all protected and have a place in Iran.” “Islam is a great monotheistic faith, very moral and ethical, with a deep sense of community and respect,” Kusse-Wolfe said. “What impressed me was their deep practice of their faith in God.” Explaining Christian beliefs to their Muslim hosts was educational for the couple, as well. “We’ve learned from having to explain what we believe,” Wolfe said. Kusse-Wolfe added, “My personal faith is certainly deeper, more joyful, more trusting now.” Before the trip, Wolfe was the chaplain at Memorial Hospital in Martinsville, and Kusse-Wolfe ministered at First United Methodist Church. “We’re significantly different people from having done this,” Wolfe said. “So what does this mean for our ministry? We don’t know yet.” They do know, however, that encouraging peace and understanding begins at home. “We could start by loving our Muslim brothers and sisters in our own towns. That would be a huge step forward for peace and friendship,” Kusse-Wolfe said. “Even if we disagree, we simply have to advocate for each other to live in peace.”

It’s too bad that most Americans don’t have the moral courage of the Wolfes.

A tale of two cultures


This or that?

Differences in east vs west were highlighted by two different stories about the actions and beliefs of people different from the indigenous people of the society where they lived. First off there is the story of Faiza M. a Moroccan woman who is married to a French citizen and has three children, all of them born in France with him, but who is herself not a French citizen yet. She wears the abaya and niqaab and claims to be a salafi which means, according to French press, she

showed up with the robes of a woman from the Arabian peninsula, with a veil covering her face and leaving only a slit for her eyes.

The couple had admitted that they are Salafi, a movement of Islam which advocates a literal and rigorous reading of the Koran, following the lifestyle of Mohammed’s original followers.

Faiza M. had confirmed that she was not veiled when she lived in Morocco and that she had adopted the dress after arriving in France at the request of her husband, and that she does so more out of habit than conviction.

The government commissioner says that her statement show that she leads leads a secluded life, cut off from French society. She does not know about laïcité or the right to vote and she lives in total submission to the men in her family. Faiza M. appears to think that this [is] normal and doesn’t think of contesting this submission. Prada-Bordenave says this is indicative of the lack of adherence to the basic values of French society.

At the same time, Faiza M. speaks French, which is a criteria for citizenship, and during her pregnancy was checked by a male gynecologist.

On the basis of that she was denied her request for appeal to the original court order which denied her immigration status. The denial was based on the principle of gender equality which it’s claimed she had not internalized nor practiced. It was the first time in France the Council of State took into account the level of religious practice to determine a foreigner’s ability to integrate.

I don’t understand why the signs of this weren’t seen years earlier when France banned the hijab in public schools for young Muslim women. If the alternative of private schools is available to Muslims then the public school ban is not insurmountable, but there is no alternative to belief. You either have one and practice it or you don’t. I think the logical extension of what’s going on in France is people will not be allowed to pray in houses of worship not sanctioned by the Government of France, nor will people be allowed to give their children names they feel are indicative of their culture. Most likely I’m being alarmist but the Islamophobia that reigns in western Europe and the US has unlimited potential, and this recent decision shows that. Until now the Muslim response to this has been muted.

Contrast that with what took place in Dubai, UAE recently.  Michelle Palmer is facing six years in prison and expulsion from the UAE for being found having sex on a public beach, public intoxication and assaulting a police officer.  Ms. Palmer had been living in the UAE for three years before her run in with the law, working and living large like most other British expats in that country.  One of the manifestations of that is they get together for brunches which include alcohol, socializing with one another according to their customs in the UK.  However, not all of those customs fly in the UAE so when Ms. Palmer,  who had been drinking all day long,and her suitor were caught once in a rather intimate position by a member of the local constabulary and warned and caught a second time she was taken to police headquarters where she became belligerent and found to be under the influence of alcohol.  Dubai is pretty lenient when it comes to excesses of the flesh….as long as they don’t become an embarrassment to the establishment, and most expats there know that.

As well as attracting lurid headlines, Miss Palmer’s case has focused attention on the fast-paced lifestyles of Dubai’s young British expats who are arriving in ever-increasing numbers seeking tax-free wealth and good times.

‘It is the new land of opportunity,’ said commercial property lawyer Nick Armitage, who has been based in Dubai for two years. ‘We live in a bubble, a kind of fantasy world of luxury living and, if you want it, endless partying.’

*snip*

In Dubai, Friday brunch has grown into an institution and offers an ideal opportunity to witness the British expats at play. The parties are held at hotels and range from the sedate to the raucous – and none is more raucous than brunch at the Meridien.

For about £70 a head the guests – lawyers, property developers, airline crew, building workers, architects, but few, if any, tourists – are given unlimited Bollinger champagne and a buffet meal.

‘It all starts off quite sophisticated,’ said property consultant John Burdon, 31, originally from Weston-super-Mare. ‘But when it gets going that wears off and the spirit of Magaluf takes hold. People just want to have fun and get absolutely smashed.’

‘I was thinking of going back to England because I do miss it,’ said Mr Burdon. ‘But we are all earning much more than we did back home and life here is good. You can fill up your car with petrol for six quid. So with the fuel crisis and the credit crunch I’m staying here.

‘I’d miss these brunches if I left – there is nothing like them in Britain. I love them.’

Life is good in the UAE for expats, and especially those who are prudent.  If Ms. Palmer wanted a tryst with her lover I would suggest either a hotel room or the residence where either of them lived, but if that’s not available and you happen to find yourself on the beach, heed the first warning given to you by the police and cease and desist from lascivious behavior.

So here are two stories where cultures collide.  In one a person is denied participation in a society because of religious beliefs that are interpreted as being against the values of a country and in the other a person is found to have broken the law because of actions that are clearly stated as illegal, recognized as such by most governments of the world and well known  by the offender.

Onward Christian soldiers


While browsing the news a couple of items caught my attention. Fellow blogger Xymphora has talked consistently about the war for the Jews being carried out in Iraq and which ultimately will take place in other areas of the Middle East. I see the connection in bits and spurts of news coming from that part of the world, and this latest news really underscores what Xymphora says. Many American soldiers are beginning to see the senselessness of the war in Iraq, the unholiness of murder, and since WMDs were not found in Iraq many understand fighting there is not self defense, as they were led to believe when they signed up and went there. Many have turned to suicide, others to drugs, others to religion and some as the story linked to above away from religion. What I found interesting about young Jeremy Hall’s conversion was his statement that the United States military has become a Christian organization and therefore he has found himself at the brunt end of it’s anger just as the Iraqi Muslims he was fighting. He’s been discharged and is now suing the Defense Department.

It was the Defense Department’s policy wonks, notably Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Dov Zakheim, Doug Feith, et.al who lied the United States into fighting the Iraqis and the American military on the ground saw first hand the reality that Iraq was NOT a threat to America. To some who served there, Iraq became an ‘atrocity producing situation’, something we’ve written about here at Miscellany101 and it stands to reason; people have figured out the lie and it’s frustrating trying to rationalize the irrational. The WOT, or the war for the Jews, however is being fought on many fronts and the other bit of news which caught my attention is Juan Cole’s piece in Salon which talks about the Justice Deptartment’s new policy that will profile Muslims just because of their religious beliefs. Yes, Muslims must take their place as the dispossessed on the American landscape, just like the Indians, women, Africans, Japanese and others before them but it’s still troubling that after so many examples in American history, government has yet to learn that it functions best when it’s an instrument which enhances human potential by removing barriers not by erecting them.

POV on Obama’s Muslim “problem”


A very well written editorial on Obama’s senseless way of dealing with critics who call him a “Muslim” in an attempt to negatively influence the campaign. The writer of this piece does such a good job expressing my own sentiments that I’ll let his words speak for me:

I WISH Barack Obama were a Muslim. Better that than having supercilious staffers whisk women in Islamic head scarves out of photo-ops. Better that than telling Representative Keith Ellison of Minnesota, the nation’s first Muslim congressman, not to come help Obama in Iowa and North Carolina.

Better that than wooing red states by wobbling before the modern equivalent of the Red Scare. In his year-and-a-half-long run for president, Obama has visited churches and synagogues, but no mosque. This has the musty feel of light-skinned African-Americans passing for white, paranoid over daylight visits from dark-skinned relatives.

Obama’s campaign has been far more inclusive than John McCain’s. Yet as of late, Obama’s handlers are so bent on passing their biracial, binationally-raised man as a pure-blooded American – a new commercial plays up his “values straight from the Kansas heartland” – that they are reinforcing the perception that Muslim Americans are impure.

Asked what he would say to Obama if he had the chance, Bilal Kaleem, executive director of the Boston chapter of the Muslim American Society, said, “It’s a tough question, and it’s sad that it’s a tough question. . . . I would suggest that he might have to do the same thing [on Islam] that he did on race. He addressed it head-on in a landmark speech. He gave his speech in a mature way. If he could speak in the same way to that, it could be inspiring for our country and the world.”

It is understandable why Barack Hussein Obama and his handlers suffer from PTSD – post-traumatic smear disorder. Political woodpeckers hammer falsehoods from the right. Fellow Democrat Hillary Clinton, when asked whether Obama is a Muslim, tackily peeped, “there is nothing to base that on, as far as I know.” Despite nearly hitting the third rail over his former Christian pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, only 58 percent of Americans think Obama is a Christian, according to a Newsweek poll in May.

It has been so outrageous that Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York, an independent and a Jewish American, said the “whisper campaign” was “wedge politics at its worst.” Kaleem said of Obama, “We feel sympathy for him because it’s not just him who should be called out; it is also the people in the media and politics who made a cottage industry out of him being a wolf in sheep’s clothing and that all Muslims are subversive.”

But the sympathy may be short-lived as Obama’s “Fight the Smears” part of his website has some Muslims feeling betrayed by an over-the-top effort to denounce every Obama-is-a-Muslim claim as a “lie” and saying, “Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian.” How about something like, “Senator Obama is a Christian who, having lived in the world’s largest Muslim country [Indonesia], having traveled in Pakistan and having many Muslim friends, appreciates American pluralism like no other candidate in US history”?

A more positive approach by Obama of affirming Muslims while affirming his Christianity actually fits the nation’s values. A new Pew Research survey finds Americans more open than ever to a range of religious viewpoints. Muslim Americans themselves, according to a 2007 Pew survey, are “largely assimilated, happy with their lives,” and “decidedly American in their outlook, values, and attitudes.”

This obviously all came together for Ellison’s election, as the Minneapolis Star-Tribune has noted that his district has more Lutherans than Muslims. Ellison this week told The New York Times about Obama, “A lot of us are waiting for him to say that there’s nothing wrong with being a Muslim, by the way.”

A lot of Muslims are waiting because, seven years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, an undercurrent of suspicion remains. In the 2007 Pew survey, a third of Muslim Americans said that within the last year, they had either been treated with suspicion, called offensive names, profiled by police, or even attacked. Kaleem, a graduate of MIT, said he sometimes is asked during grant proposals how radical his group is.

“In a way,” Kaleem said, “it is good that these missteps have come out in public so we can start talking about the undercurrent, which is the real issue.”

Obama himself has said “Christians and people of other faiths lived very comfortably” with each other when he lived in Indonesia. It is time for him to live comfortably with Muslims in his campaign.

In a 2006 trip to Chad, Obama issued the Muslim greeting for peace. A wise Obama would say “assalamu alaikum” at home, too.

The war on terror+humanitarian relief=the war on Islam and chaos of muslim societies


I have always been perplexed by the war, either militarily or psychologically the US is waging in places like Somalia and Sudan. Two of the poorest countries in Africa and the world, I just can’t understand what threat these two pose to the greatest military power in the world. I have heard the rhetoric, ‘America is fighting the terrorists over there so we don’t have to fight them here’, kind of explanation, but what terrorists are they talking about? Shadowy ‘al-Qaeda’ figures seem to be all they can come up with in the assault on Somalia. Take this for instance.

The US has been engaged in a long, low-profile struggle with Islamist forces in Somalia, reported The Christian Science Monitor. A March 3 missile strike against the southern Somali town of Dobley was aimed at preventing violent Islamist militants from taking root in Somalia and spreading through East Africa. Some observers are concerned such efforts could generate greater anti-US sentiment. Islamist groups are regrouping in Somalia, some with more formal ties to al-Qaeda than in the past, says one security observer on the Counterterrorism Blog. The most important group, says Douglas Farah, is Al Shabab. Mr. Farah, citing a US State Department statement. Al-Shabaab is a violent and brutal extremist group with a number of individuals affiliated with Al Qaeda. Many of its senior leaders are believed to have trained and fought with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Somalia has seen intermittent conflict since two separate colonies gained independence from Britain and Italy in 1960, uniting into one country. Historians say tribal and ethnic conflicts fought over access to resources, including water and pastoral country, once fought with bows and spears are now fought with AK-47s.

The US has had a rather undistinguished history with Sudan as well, having attacked Sudan during the Clinton administration for what was later found to be a mistake, when the pharmaceutical plant Al-Shifa was bombed in 1998.

Kroll Associates’ investigation of the U.S. missile attack had apparently demonstrated the sheer vacuum of evidence allegedly linking the facility or its owner to international terrorism, chemical weapons production, and Osama Bin Laden. As the Washington Post reported: “Because of a cupful of soil, the U.S. flattened this Sudanese factory. Now one of the world’s most respected labs, and some of Washington’s most expensive lawyers, say Salah Idris wasn’t making nerve gas for terrorists, just ibuprofen for headaches.”According to the New York Times although “senior national security advisers [had] described Al Shifa as a secret chemical weapons factory financed by bin Laden”, “State Department and CIA officials [now] argue that the government cannot justify its actions.” Rather than manufacturing chemical weapons, the al-Shifa plant “made both medicine and veterinary drugs, according to U.S. and European engineers and consultants who helped build, design and supply the plant.”

At first glance one might think such actions were/are being undertaken by a federal government which seeks to divert public attention from more pressing issues with regard to its policies, foreign or domestic. In the Sudan incident, many critics on the right and the left cried immediately that the bombing in Sudan was undertaken at a time when Clinton was dealing with the Monica Lewinsky scandal and this was his attempt to relieve himself from that spotlight. Today the US is upset with the way the Sudan is handling its domestic policy in Darfur, a western province of that country, and wants to intervene. The way US officials and others are doing that is quite amusing; claiming they have the best interests of the black, African, Muslim people of Darfur, Sudan the US wants humanitarian aid delivered even under force of arms. By raising the specter of “genocide” which means countries can respond militarily without violating treaties, laws or international agreements, to save the lives of those threatened, the US is insisting on a military presence in the Sudan. But what’s the point of it all? In a word, OIL with a twist. Oil, Israel and Logistics= OIL.

Sudanese oil is found in areas not affected by the conflict in Darfur, notably the southern region of Sudan. That part of the country was plagued with a civil war with the central government for over 20 years, but now there is peace in south Sudan, so what happens after that? Fighting breaks out in the western province of Darfur and with it cries by governments and celebrities alike, people on the right and on the left of the political spectrum to “intervene” to stop the fighting, and with force if necessary. Nevermind that the humanitarian crisis in Sudan doesn’t really exist, or that such calls to action in support of Darfur weren’t made during the 20+ years of the southern Sudanese conflict, what’s important is an excuse is needed to justify a military presence which like the one in Iraq is designed to worsen an already bad crisis, and allow for the eventual exploration of OIL under western auspices. Because of it’s strategic location on the “horn of Africa”, USAFRICOM, responsible for U.S. military operations in and military relations with 53 African nations – an area of responsibility covering all of the African continent was formed on the initiative of the African Oil Policy Initiative Group in or about the same time as cries for intervention in Darfur were raised in the corporate media. At the same time, civil war in Somalia and the US backing of Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia took place to the south of Sudan. None of this is coincidental.

The timeline under which these things happened is clear when viewed against the backdrop of what’s happening in Iraq and Afghanistan, two places where large, vast oil reserves have been the target of large oil companies for a very long time. Current US policy in those two places of the world is also driven by oil interests. The reason for “picking” on these two poor, underdeveloped countries is quite simply about the natural resources that lie underneath their territory. That has always been the dilemma between the west and the east since the development of the modern west; how to meet its growing demands for the earth’s natural resources controlling and dominating those resources in faraway lands while appearing to all concerned to be benign about such manipulation. The pretext for war, i.e. fighting terrorism, or providing humanitarian relief, whereby the citizens of the “west” are made to feel the necessity of sacrificing their sons and daughters to go fight and die in these distant lands has been the job of spokespersons (in and out of government), celebrities and the corporate media. Such lies have done a lot to incite fervor and support for this ideal. It is still inexcusable that the largest and mightiest military power in the world sees the need to destroy underdeveloped countries and essentially defenseless people under such transparent guises.