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A different kind of fatwa

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts on Mar 07, 2010

In the world of Islamic reform, the big news this week is that an eminent Pakistani sheikh has issued a 600-page fatwa against Muslim terrorism — with no qualifiers  attached. You’d think I’d be celebrating.

Not really.

The very notion that 21st-century Muslims need a fatwa confirming the immorality of blowing each other up is, well, infantile. Frankly, it’s just another relic of the tribal mentality, in which the higher-ups do all the thinking for the lowly peeps.

The sooner Muslims wean ourselves off the fatwa fetish, the faster we’ll tap our potential to engage our own minds, hearts and consciences. As I’ll explain in my next book, it’s individuality — not deference to yet more external authority — that will spark the long-overdue liberal reformation within Islam.

You know whose fatwa I can endorse? Watch the video below:

Yep, I dig the idea of Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Adams and Paine breaking the news to a violent jihadi that he’ll be spending eternity with them. After all, America’s founding fathers were a motley crew of Christians, skeptics, secularists and agnostics. That a true believer might have to share the afterlife with such infidels makes me smile.

Three cheers for a different kind of fatwa.

“The Stoning of Soraya M.” now out on DVD

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts, Announcements on Feb 27, 2010

Does this man go through with hurling his stone at Soraya?      Watch the movie…

This week, among the most important movies of my generation, “The Stoning of Soraya M.,” comes out in DVD and Blu-Ray. You can order either version here.

“The Stoning,” starring recent Emmy-award winner Shohreh Aghdashloo, dramatizes the true story of an Iranian village wife whose deceitful husband sets her up for execution so that he can marry an unsuspecting girl in the city.

Ultimately, though, this isn’t a tale of female victimhood. Instead, it’s about moral courage. The target of the stoning — Soraya — has an aunt who shows us that even when you can’t stop the crime unfolding before you, there’s always an opportunity to use your mind, conscience and voice for longer-term good. That’s what Aunt Zahra does in this film. I won’t tell you how she does it. You’ll just have to buy the DVD!

Beyond buying it, I hope you’ll screen it in your homes, churches, temples, mosques, classrooms and community centers. The questions unleashed by “The Stoning” will generate amazing conversations.

I should know. My NYU leadership program, the Moral Courage Project, launched a human rights campaign around the film. Thanks to the participation of people worldwide, we won the 2009 Visionary Award from the Women’s International Film and Television Showcase. This couldn’t have happened without student bloggers, Facebookers and Tweeps engaging about what it means to be a global citizen today.

For example, are non-Muslims “allowed” to comment on issues that affect Muslim women — such as the so-called honor killing of Soraya? If you watch a movie like “The Stoning,” are you sticking your nose in “other” people’s business? In an interdependent world, is there such a thing as “other” people?

Aunt Zahra protecting Soraya

To get you into the spirit of hi-octane discussion, here’s what I would say if I were part of the film club that I want you to create once you buy the “The Stoning” DVD:

As a Muslim reformer, I routinely receive heart-wrenching emails from fellow Muslims whose basic human rights are being violated — not by “outsiders” but by members of their own communities. Equally saddening is that self-professed human rights activists in the West often play the purity game, suggesting that you can’t comment if you don’t represent.

Their misguided conviction: Anyone living in the West can’t legitimately expose oppressive practices in cultures elsewhere. Hmmm… Would they say the same to Muslims in the traditional Islamic world who expose America’s human rights abuses at Gitmo or Abu Ghraib? Of course not.

Nor should they. Human rights, being human, are above the politics of identity. As Martin Luther King Jr. pointed out in his Letter from a Birmingham City Jail, “Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, parochial, ‘outside agitator’ idea.”

But it seems that Elise Auerbach, Iran specialist for Amnesty International USA, can more than live with the narrow and parochial. She practices it in her baffling denunciation of “The Stoning of Soraya M.”

Tellingly, Amnesty itself released a January 2008 report that described stonings as “grotesque and unacceptable”. In its press release about the report, Amnesty called on “the Iranian authorities to abolish death by stoning and impose an immediate moratorium on this horrific practice, specifically designed to increase the suffering of victims.”

In her remarkably contradictory review of “The Stoning” — a review in which she acknowledges the report — Auerbach emphasizes that “Iranians don’t need people from outside Iran telling them what is good for them…”

Really? Then why did her own organization dare to tell Iranian authorities what to do in its report against stoning?

And why did Amnesty feature “The Stoning” at its 2009 annual film festival?

Above all, why did Amnesty invite Cyrus Nowrasteh, the Iranian-American director of “The Stoning,” to introduce the film at its festival? Is it because he’s Iranian? If so, then what makes him someone “from outside” according to Auerbach?

Of course, Nowrasteh is American too.  Perhaps that’s the real taboo. In which case, isn’t Auerbach’s employer — UK-based Amnesty — also an outsider? Why does she continue to work for Amnesty and make herself part of the interference that she believes is a problem?

Within its own ranks, Amnesty International needs an intellectually honesty debate about how to realize its motto, “Defending Human Rights Worldwide.” Personally, I can attest that more than a few Amnesty activists worry about the scourge of moral and cultural relativism in their midst. That’s the single biggest concern confided to me when I presented at Amnesty’s 2006 conference in Mexico City.

Delegates disclosed to me that Amnesty International has no clear message about honor-based crimes, including stoning, because nobody wants to be deemed a bigot. As if defending human rights worldwide has ever been a matter of politeness.

It’s 2010 and apparently Amnesty has not resolved its dilemma. Auerbach condemns a movie that spotlights an Iranian heroine — Soraya’s aunt, Zahra — who tries to stop the stoning. Zahra is a Muslim who realizes her faith by speaking truth to power about the non-negotiable need for human dignity.

And yet, according to Auerbach, hapless audience dupes will respond with “disgust and revulsion at Iranians themselves, who are portrayed as primitive and bloodthirsty savages.” Thus, “we” — idiotic Westerners who can’t be trusted to reach independent conclusions — “still have to wait” for a “thoughtful” film about executions in Iran.

I hope we don’t have to wait for thoughtful human rights activists to speak truth to power in their organizations. Dissidents do exist, as I learned at the Amnesty conference that I attended. Will they exercise their own freedom of conscience? Of this, I can’t be sure. Moral courage is always more difficult than self-censorship.

To watch exclusive clips from “The Stoning of Soraya M.,” click here. And to buy the just-released DVD, click here.

The Moral Courage Project screens “The Stoning of Soraya M.” You can too.

Tiger the Buddhist

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts on Feb 20, 2010

When Tiger Woods apologized for having multiple extra-marital affairs, he confessed another sin: straying from his Buddhist upbringing. Seconds later, Twitter seized up with cynicism:

* “Did I just hear him say he’s a Buddhist or a boobist?”

* “The guy calls himself a Buddhist! Try bootyist!”

* “That’s like finding God in prison. Whatever, Tiger.”

Not so fast, folks. There could be some serious spirituality behind his decision to delay professional golf and focus on restoring trust with his family. One of Buddhism’s core teachings is that the journey matters far more than the destination. You can’t control what happens, but you can control your intentions. If you attach yourself to a healthy motive and detach yourself from the desired outcome, then all will unfold as it needs to.

Translation for Tiger: Forget about hitting the links right away, dude. Concentrate on what it will take to return with a clean conscience and authentic joy. That’s a journey worth investing in.

I got this message first-hand in India last year. One afternoon, I hung out to watch Buddhist monks put the finishing touches on an elaborate sand castle at the beach. They’d spent three days working on it. My good fortune: I was passing by as they were wrapping up.

A ceremony of prayer and laughter followed the castle’s completion. Then, all of a sudden, the young men began destroying what they’d taken so much time to craft. They grabbed chunks of sand, tossed it in the ocean air and  razed the rest of the castle with arms swinging. What the saffron was going on?

I turned to the Indian-American standing beside me. He dutifully explained that in much of the West, the result is everything. We squander our lives chasing after this or that result, only to find that upon achieving it, we’re left empty. But in mystical traditions, it’s the process that counts. Our monks drew happiness  from every step of building their sand castle.

The castle itself was intentionally ephemeral, maybe even incidental. It could have been washed away by an unforeseen monsoon or tidal wave, just like an investment portfolio, the promise of a job promotion, a brand name — and fame. Had that happened to our monks, the only loss would have been something temporary anyway. For them, the permanent accomplishment was felt moment-by-moment.

As it will be for a certain golfer who’s trying to redeem his honor. Still, I have to admit a nagging suspicion: I don’t believe it was Tiger who resolved to put off pro golf. Were it entirely up to him, he’d be back in the game, testosterone raging. But precisely because he does need help, I think Tiger’s very Buddhist mother now wields the clout that his late father once did. And her guidance is spiritual, not commercial.

If I’m right, then Tiger’s one lucky son of a Buddhist. Because by learning to attach himself to a new commitment and set aside a familiar outcome, he — like our monks — could end up expanding his creative energies beyond measure.

Oh, and if Tiger needs that much more guidance, the Dalai Lama happens to be in America this week. See, you nasty Twitter negatrons? With purity of intention, there’s no such thing as a coincidence. Now go ruin your own castles.

Iran & nukes: My analysis on MSNBC

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts on Feb 11, 2010

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(Dis)honoring the 1979 Iranian Revolution

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts on Feb 08, 2010

 

February 11 marks the 31st anniversary of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Ten years after the revolution, its leader — the Ayatollah Khomeini — issued a death warrant against the novelist, Salman Rushdie.

I’m keeping both of these facts in mind as I begin to write a new chapter of my next book.

A bit of background: Recently, I announced an experiment called “Notes From My Next Book.” With this experiment, I’m giving you a sneak peak at ideas being explored in my next book and inviting you to comment on them. Click here to learn more.

This week, I’m starting to write a chapter tentatively entitled, “Culture is not sacred.” My point is that Arab tribal culture, emanating from the Middle East but exported far beyond, has corrupted the practice of Islam.

For all its nasty passages, the Qur’an still speaks of personal freedom, spiritual growth and social justice. If that version of Islam is ever to be realized, then Muslims have to tackle what’s holding us back from just doing it.

I’ll argue that we have to challenge — and change — an Arab cultural custom called “honor.” Click here to understand what “honor” means in the Arab-Islamic context.

In my next book, I’ll include little-known insights about “honor,” such as the eery parallels between the oppression of Blacks in the honor-based 19th-century American south and the repression of women in the honor-based Muslim world today.

But the custom of “honor” can produce hilarity, too. Here are some of my research notes, culled from an interview I’ve conducted with Salman Rushdie…

SALMAN: “I remember, in the early days of the Iranian Revolution, a number of bizarre issues were being debated by the Ayatollahs. Seriously, this is not a joke. One of the questions being asked was, if a woman is wearing a head-to-toe veil but she’s wearing Western clothes like a skirt underneath, is it ok? I mean, given that she is completely covered and all you can see is her eyes?

It was decreed that this was not ok. The reason it was not okay was that the friction of her thighs against each other inside the skirt would generate sexual heat and this heat would be transmitted through her eyes to men who might observe her and might inflame. And that was, of course, not acceptable.

The best of these arguments, actually, had to do with the limits of incest. Is it incestuous if you were to have relations with your aunt by marriage? It might be improper and a bit upsetting to your uncle, but is it actually incestuous? In the end, they [Iranian clerics] decided that it was and should not be allowed.

But there was an exception: If you were not able to control the entry into your bed of an aunt by marriage, what then followed was not your fault. And if your aunt by marriage lived upstairs and the floor collapsed and the aunt by marriage landed in your bed from above, no man could be expected to restrain himself.

Honor culture leads to these kinds of appalling aberrations and, at worst, to the phenomenon of honor killings.”

IRSHAD: “How should clear-thinking people address this?”

SALMAN: “Dishonorably. I think that honor culture is a very dangerous thing.”

Are we ready to laugh about terrorism?

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts, Q & A on Feb 01, 2010

After Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab grilled his groin on Christmas Day, amateur satirists wasted no time in assigning him nicknames: the Jockstrap Jihadi, the Undie-Bomber and my personal favorite, Fruit of Ka-Boom.

Does all the giggling, chuckling and outright satirizing mean that we, as a society, are ready to laugh about terrorism? Before you answer, watch this video clip from “Four Lions,” a new British movie about radicalized Muslims plotting an attack:

When BBC Radio asked for my thoughts about the video clip, I replied, “Hilarious. But the brilliance of comedy, like anything, depends on how it’s delivered. This particular scene makes violent jihadists look like fools. More spoofing might — might! — lessen fear among some members of the public, showing that we can challenge Islamists rather than cower before them. My worry would be that such comedy makes more of the public complacent, as if all jihadists are buffoons. We should know by now that they’re not.”

So I return to my question: Are we, as a society, ready to laugh about terrorism? Join the discussion on my Facebook page.

Thumb-suckers or truth-tellers? Racial politics in Obama’s America

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts on Jan 24, 2010

Frederick Douglass (Wikimedia Commons)

Frederick Douglass, the 19th-century African-American visionary, had a warning: “Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation are people who want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without the thunder and lightening; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters.”  In the 21st century, those who seek equality without the honest and painful discussion that goes with it might well fall into this category.

On Martin Luther King’s birthday, MSNBC aired “Obama’s America,”a two-hour debate from Texas Southern University. It revolved around race relations in America.

Chris Matthews, the host, asked me point-blank why students voted overwhelmingly for President Obama. I reported what a number of students at New York University had told me: they supported Obama because he’s Black. As I questioned them further, students explained that they wanted to right a historic wrong by ensuring that the land of opportunity would finally have an African-American president.

My fellow panelists, Jeff Johnson of Black Entertainment Television and Tom Joyner, a renowned radio personality, flipped. I didn’t win any popularity contest by asking them a few questions of my own:

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Later, I pointed out that in the United States, “non-whites” increasingly include Asian and Hispanic immigrants. Therefore, we’d better get serious about treating race relations as multi-layered:

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But I have a feeling that for most Americans, it’s comfortable clinging to Black and White.  It’s what they know — and it’s far from resolved.  Hence the uproar over my remarks about Obama and the student vote.

For the past week, viewers have been weighing in through emails, Facebook posts and Tweets. Here’s a snapshot of U.S. racial politics in 2010:

* “Americans are thumb-suckers when it comes to race. There is nothing wrong with reporting what students said about why they voted for the President… If I had to put my finger on what made everyone feel uncomfortable, it was the moment you asked, ‘Are these students racist because they say they voted for President Obama because he is black?’ Even I was taken aback by the question. But scholars like you are supposed to ask the tough questions to spark candid debate… I would make no apology to the people who live in the angry corner or who act like children on these issues.” - Courtney

* “Why should you be asking people on a historic Inauguration Day who they voted for and why? It was not only a very Special Day for all African-Americans but ALL Americans whether you voted for him or not… African-Americans made extraordinary sacrifices to get American race relations to this point, which has ultimately paved the way for a Muslim girl like you to have these limitless opportunities in America. You should be grateful to all African-Americans [instead of] pushing your agenda of mass migration of Asians to the United States…

I hope and pray that the land of the free will never be swamped by those from the Indian sub-continent, as you have already swamped Great Britain.” - buzzmaster007

* “When [U.S. Attorney General] Eric Holder says that Americans are a ‘nation of cowards’ for how we discuss race, he is pounced on by both sides. The fact of the matter is, you are a professor who challenges students and brings their answers to a larger group. It is the group who fails to see the shades of color. Culture has indoctrinated them to see the world in black and white only.” - YB

* “I was embarrassed by [your] performance of overbearing arrogance as you attempted to defend the indefensible position that you had solved the question of Obama’s youth support on the basis that ‘he’s black.’ As one who has far more understanding of the black experience and white attitudes toward blacks both in the US and Canada than you can ever hope to have, I believe that any assertions you make in that regard should be proffered with far more modesty than you displayed…

[Your] insertion of immigration policy before an audience for whom the history of the US is all about Black/White relations was simply to have missed the point as you accused the audience of doing. To them it was you who missed the point.”  - Howard

* “I was truly embarrassed by the arrogance of your co-panelist, who intolerantly attempted to dismiss your point, suggesting instead that Obama won the election because he ‘had swagger.’ I wonder what he thought of Bush’s swagger. It was saddening to see that you were the only panelist willing to ask the right questions.” - Steve

* “Race has been a deciding factor in every election. I know it was the reason that I voted for Obama. I promised myself, for this election only, I’ll be a bigot and vote for the black guy. And if Barack won the election, I’d never do that again. So that’s what I did… You said what I would have probably been too afraid to say in front of all those people! The Raw Truth. For you to voice the truth like that shows that YOU have SWAGGER.” - Antar

* “Your argument about why the youth voted for Obama was ridiculous. Unless you are a pollster, why would you present some unfounded data at such a public event?… Your biased statement may cost you something in the future.” - Asamnew

* “Truth be told, I was ecstatic that the Democratic candidate was going to be either a woman or a Black man. I couldn’t take one more old white guy. I look forward to a time when I can look ONLY at the content of the character, but we are not there yet. I would cast my vote for the same simple-minded (?) reason again.” - Lauren

* “I have two degrees from NYU and many years of teaching at both the undergraduate and graduate level and I have never known students who were unaware of political issues or voted based on zero knowledge of a candidate except some external quality. And I teach in business schools. You teach in a graduate school of public service? What in the world are you teaching?” - Virginia, Ph.D., M.B.A

* “Your statement is correct. Some students, citing the body here at the University of Texas at San Antonio, did vote for Obama because he is Black.” - Thomas (student)

* “If some excruciatingly small minority of people do something for some silly reason, that doesn’t mean it needs to be pointed out by public figures such as yourself. If you think it’s that important, then fine – but you have to be self-aware enough to understand the impact of shining a light on those comments.” - Nathan

* “So what? Lots of people voted for McCain because he was white. Welcome to America.” - Yusuf

* “A good number of people on my own campus cannot give one solid reason why they voted for Obama. They just did. They had no idea how Obama felt on a number of issues. For example, some in my college’s LGBT group believed that Obama was for gay marriage, which was simply not true…

Obama’s presidency will not heal race relations but rather begin the process of dealing with the bigger issues. Unfortunately, far too many from the previous generations do not really want to deal with these issues because it requires us to speak frankly and tear down 40+ years of politically correct speech and ‘acceptable’ behaviors, which honestly hurt everyone more than they help.” - Richard

* “I think it was stupid for you to say ‘Obama cause he’s Black’. It was the wrong thing for you to do. You should have left it out. Never should’ve come out of your mouth.” - Rumar

* “You were great in Houston. We Blacks can be hyper-sensitive. The Blk racism polizi went from identifying overt racism to hidden racism to imaginary racism. What’s next?” - BH007

* “There is a difference between truth and discretion.” - Nakia

* “You did the right thing to report what was told to you. However, often people want confirmation of what they already think and you going on there, talking the truth, made them feel really uncomfortable. Irshad, you’re not here to encourage people’s racial fantasies. I’m proud of you.” - Kosta

* “Why are you bent on creating a bad name for Muslims?… In this program, you managed to create ill feelings towards yourself (a Muslim) in all of BLACK America. Please note: only Blacks identify themselves with Muslims in their struggle to live in America. But in this program you have managed to alienate them also from Muslims. Please have mercy on us (Muslims of America).” - Haroon

* “Should you have said it? I think your whole message is that you should, whether it’s non-Muslims telling Muslims that some of their actions and culture don’t fly, or non-African Americans telling African Americans that racial preference is a form of prejudice even when they benefit from it…

Like Muslims, African Americans have a history of not brooking criticism of their community, believing their victimhood makes them immune. This is not intended to deny any of the African American community’s current and past suffering, but wrong is still wrong. Just think of the audience member who stood up after you and pointed out that African Americans were all survivors of slavery. On some level, true, but that doesn’t make them infallible.” - Mehdi

* “I am an African-American. You said one phrase that caught my attention and it was something like, ‘Every race wants to be recognized for their uniqueness but not reduced to it.’ It is the TRUTH! I feel like we African-Americans get enough recognition, especially compared to the other races. The problem is that some Black people abuse the benefits we get. I see it first hand and I personally know many African-Americans who do so.

My Father, who was born  in Ghana, came to the USA with no citizenship and only $50 to his name. If he could become very well-off, send his four other siblings to college and live in a two-storey house, then anything is possible. We need to stop crying about our past and worry about our future or else we will never get over this thing called ‘RACE’!  What you said at Texas Southern University inspired me. Unfortunately they cut you off because it was not what they wanted to hear.” - Nana

* “I am thankful for people like you who don’t make political correctness a higher standard than sincerity… BTW: I was in Ghana when Obama visited. He was celebrated as an outstanding hero for being the first ‘Black’ president of the US.” - Sonja

* “You weren’t trying to portray all of his supporters as people who voted for him only because he was black, you were trying to shed light on a particular group of people and a disquieting trend among them. That’s totally valid and is important in confronting race relations in the country. The men who responded to you were clearly partisans who seemed incapable of distinguishing the fact that your comment wasn’t actually about Obama, but the people you were talking about about.” - James

* “You played the role of the small child in The Emperor Has No Clothes parable – except it wasn’t the emperor that you pointed out was a nit wit. It was the the nit wits themselves. Instead of being outraged at the state of the world and their (and our) culpability, they are outraged about you reporting that some people made a serious political choice based on a superficial skin adaptation. No wonder we’re all in the shit, eh?” - Martin

* “Water can shape a dense rock – if but one drop at a time. Bring on the rain, Irshad.” - Phillip

Click here for Part One of this series on racial politics in the US today.

Racial politics and the next generation, part one

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts on Jan 20, 2010

(Courtesy: WikiCommons)

On Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday this past week, I joined MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews, Black radio icon Tom Joyner, and many others to discuss race in “Obama’s America.” The LIVE two-hour event aired from Texas Southern University.

My segment focused on young people and the future of race relations. Something I said early on ignited the emotions of a lot of folks, many supportive and many others enraged. The responses — negative and positive — are still being vented. I’ll post them soon. If you want to weigh in, watch this and this.

To prepare for the broadcast, I asked members of my worldwide Facebook community whether their generation is “color-blind.” The conversation took off like a bat outta hell. Highlights:

* “Every time I hear the term ‘color-blind,’ I gag. Color only becomes an issue if you use it to oppress someone. You can’t help but see color. Sheesh. Enough with this bogus term and let’s get real about racism.” - Rosalind

* “There is no such thing as ‘color-blind,’ only ‘color-neutral’ or ‘color-biased.’ My generation, my friends, are smart enough to take everyone as they come, and being black, I know the look and tone of racists. I see it in my neighborhood speckled with confederate flags. I see it in the looks of the police officers and judges in the ‘wrong counties.’ Racism is far more advanced, and while it’s slimming and suffocating, it still exists.” - Sharonda

*  “The younger generation of white Americans are more ‘color-neutral’ than the previous ones. However, that’s not true for other ethnicities. I’m Afghan, and racism and ethnocentrism are sadly thriving in my culture, even amongst the ones that have grown up in the west. Discrimination is alive, especially in the world of dating/marriage. As human beings, we have  a long way to go towards real acceptance.” -  Naheed

* “I don’t consider myself ‘color-blind’ because I feel it erases part of a person’s history and culture. Our culture is becoming more global by the day. It would be foolish to say we don’t recognize the physical differences, but our generation is noting the possibilities in a positive light.” - Ian

* “There are those of us who see a person’s mood before their color and recognize their color only as something that makes them unique.” - Manda

* “I’ve gotten a couple of my Jewish friends mad because I don’t immediately perceive they are Jewish. Same with friends [in the Middle East] who are Arab Christians and Druze. The fact that I don’t make a push to differentiate them is seen as being insensitive to their unique cultural backgrounds.” - Mehdi

* “In order to become ‘color-blind,’ which I am hoping represents acceptance as a whole human, not avoidance of one’s unique background or culture, individuals must be raised to understand their own fears and frailty. I believe most of our worst behaviors steam from fear – fear of being overlooked, of being less than, of being behind whomever crosses the line first. Raising our children to see individuals versus groups or labels will do more to reduce discrimination than any social or media awareness campaign.” - Michelle

* “Here in India, being fair [lighter-skinned] is a huge plus point, especially among the literate, educated classes, even though we are a multi-coloured nation. No amount of objective reasoning or subjective experiences can cure this disease.” - Chetna

* “Coming from Italy, I hate hearing such discriminatory words as terrone, which means ‘Italian of the South’; negro; Vu Cumpra, which means Moroccans asking ‘do you wanna buy?’ [Vuoi Comprare], frocio, which means ‘faggot’ and stupid words like that. This really hurts me a lot. These words are used by young people every day, in a light-hearted way, like it was normal. We definitely have to do something.” - Juliette

* “I can’t stand the N-word. It doesn’t just affect the black community. The widespread use of it outside of our immediate community is now de-sensitizing any and all Americans. It’s embarrassing to see African-American youths using the N-word, rapid-fire, around elderly caucasians, asians, indians or whatever, essentially forcing these people to get used to this harsh word. We’re becoming de-sensitized to the point of using it N-I-G-G-A style (familiarity) or N-I-G-G-E-R style (racist). For me, there is no distinction between N-I-G-G-E-R and N-I-G-G-A. The first word is an insult while the second word is a term of brotherhood and community.  Yet we ALL know that just as a weapon can be used as a tool, any tool can be used as a weapon.”- Antar

* “I think there’s as much racism as there ever has been, but fewer opportunities for discrimination. Anyone can be a racist — no matter their color or station in life – but it takes power or advantage to discriminate.” - Elizabeth

* “I recently attended a student/parent meeting for students who have high school ‘truancy’ issues. Of the 20 or so students reported absent enough to be considered ‘truant,’ only one was white. There were maybe three Hispanics (my son being one) and the rest were Black. My son skipped those hours with his WHITE friends. Where they not marked absent? Did they get out of having to attend the ‘mandatory’ meeting? Maybe the younger generation is color-blind but their lives are not.” - Lauren

* “The U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid talked about Obama as a ‘light-skinned black’ who doesn’t have a ‘Negro dialect.’ This was a comment prompted not just by Reid’s prejudices, but also his appraisal of the prejudices that he thought the American electorate shared. However, it was a not a racist comment. On the other hand, there is Bill Clinton’s comment that ‘a few years ago, he [Obama] would have been bringing us coffee,’ allegedly uttered in the heat of the moment to Ted Kennedy when Bill was frustrated by Obama’s success over Hillary. That was indeed a racist comment since it was intended in a hurtful and disparaging way.” - John

* “America’s youth (and many adults) really need to understand that they have an important legacy to pass on to the next generation. The responsibility of standing up for conscience and for what is right includes the true acceptance of all people regardless of skin color or background. We need to show respect for those who have gone before them; those brave souls and countless millions who had a dream, sacrificing their own personal aspirations so that a new nation, conceived in liberty, would not perish from the Earth.” - Ismail

PART TWO WILL BE POSTED IN A FEW DAYS. MEANWHILE,  MY FB FANS ARE RECOMMENDING BOOKS, ARTICLES AND VIDEOS FOR FURTHER REFLECTION:

Estherhadas recommends a provocative commentary from the New York Daily News. She says “it’s one Black man’s opinion about why he doesn’t like the term ‘African-American.’”

A quote that stands out for her: “…there is something far from backward about the sound of ‘Negro’ and the magnificent people who used that word to describe themselves.  They gave it majesty; they made it luminous… America was bettered by the non-violent, multi-racial civil rights movement, not by those who saw anything less than black-approved self-segregation as a form of selling out. They did not call themselves African-Americans, which is a pretentious term conceived by Jesse Jackson and some black academics.”

*****

Manda recommends a children’s book called The Crayon Box that Talked, by Shane Derolf. She describes it as “beautiful and relevant.”

*****

Jamie recommends a British TV comedy clip featuring an incompetent translator. He warns, “I can see why it could be incredibly offensive, but I also see the humour in it. The first time I watched I could not stop laughing. An important point to make is that the British will almost always mock themselves also.”

*****

Minki recommends the blistering stand-up act of Russell Peters, who “tells the truth in the most humorous manner.” But she cautions, “it is not for everyone…”

What will happen to Habib?

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts, Announcements on Jan 08, 2010

Martyr in the making? Habib, as shown in “Faith Without Fear”  (National Film Board of Canada/90th Parallel Productions)

U.S. media is currently marinated in analysis of what propels — or compels — a Muslim kid to become a terrorist. Through recent interviews, I too have contributed to the buzz. But combative exchanges don’t bring out the finer, nuanced, points of any serious exploration. Nor do they equip us to connect the dots.

Let this post help rectify that problem.  Without worry of being interrupted, here’s my step-by-step connecting of several dots:

* While filming my PBS documentary, “Faith Without Fear,” I traveled to Yemen and conversed on-camera with Osama bin Laden’s former bodyguard.  Although the Yemeni government identified OBL’s bodyguard as an ex-jihadi, an extremist who’d been rehabilitated, the bodyguard affirmed his commitment to global jihad. In fact, he said he’s making plans for the martyrdom of his 5-year-old son, Habib (see the cutie above).

I knew right then and there that government initiatives to de-program jihadis wouldn’t be enough to defeat the spread of this plague. Even without daddy’s shameless recruiting, Habib is susceptible. He has only to switch on his computer.

* Thanks to the Internet, we’re seeing the globalization of grievance. Jihadis are using and abusing the freedom of the Web to preach a false narrative; one that nonetheless taps into a deep emotional need for young Muslims to belong to something more meaningful than watered-down, consumer society.

* The false narrative being preached is, in a nutshell, that the West hates Islam. After all, goes the story, look at how America and its allies slaughter Muslims indiscriminately.

But the reality is that more Muslims are tortured and murdered by other Muslims than by any foreign power. Last month, researchers — most of them Muslims — released a study proving that in the past two years alone, 98% of al-Qaeda’s victims have been innocent Muslims.

*Jihadis bring spiritual justification to their violence by citing Islam. Take, for example, Mohammad Sidique Khan, ringleader of the July 7 bombings in London, England. He left behind a marytr video. In it, Khan invoked UK foreign policy. But before going there, he proudly declared that “Islam is our religion and the prophet is our role model.”

In “Faith Without Fear,” OBL’s former bodyguard made precisely the same statement about the Prophet. Clearly, religious symbolism plays a role in violent jihadism.

* Moderate Muslims deny this. Reform-minded Muslims acknowledge this and are working from within Islam to fix the problem. We believe it’s our duty. The Quran tells us, “God does not change the condition of a people until they change what is within themselves.” That’s chapter 13, verse 11. I like to think of it as a 13/11 kind of solution to a 9/11 kind of problem.

* Fear stops many reform-minded Muslims from coming forward.  If you want to know what gives rise to that fear, it’s one word: “honor.”

Honor is the cultural custom that requires Muslims to suppress our individuality in order to become property of the community. Which means your life isn’t your own; it belongs to a wider group of people — the family, the tribe, sometimes even the ummah (global Muslim nation).

In turn, that means when a Muslim is accused of dishonoring or shaming by breaking moral norms, the punishment against him or her must be large enough to compensate the family too.

* Tribal honor is so powerful that it afflicts young Muslim-Americans as much as it does the Islamic world. In 2007, PBS sent me and my mother to Detroit for a screening of “Faith Without Fear.” I was roundly pilloried during the Q & A.

As the night wore on, my mom noticed young Muslims gathering in a corner of the room. At the end of the evening, the now-numerous group approached my mom to say, “Thanks for supporting your daughter.”

Mom replied, “That’s nice to hear, but why didn’t you speak up before the reporters left, so that others who think like you would know they’re not alone?”

The kids glanced sheepishly at each other. Then one of them confided a sad truth. “You guys can walk away from Detroit two hours from now,” he whispered, looking at me and mom. “We can’t. And we can’t afford to be accused of dishonoring our families.” This, from a child of the First Amendment.

* Muslim students give me similar explanations when I lecture at American and European universities.  These institutions of higher learning are supposed to be citadels of questioning. Yet reform-minded Muslims often cower in fear at the intimidation and outright warnings from members of their school MSA’s (Muslim Students’ Associations). During my book tour a few years back, I learned of a particularly threatening email circulated by a Muslim student group at a major U.S. university.

SO WHAT CAN BE DONE?

* Muslims have to challenge the culture of honor within our own communities. This tribal custom comes right out of the desert, which doesn’t reflect the reality of a pluralistic and connected generation.  To boot, the culture of honor pre-dates Islam. Why should contemporary Muslims feel trapped and strapped by a non-Islamic, even un-Islamic, mentality?

* Non-Muslims should invest in reform-minded Muslims. Consider how the European Foundation for Democracy (EFD) is going about it. The EFD is bringing together Muslim reformers who would otherwise operate in isolation. Besides creating a network for them, the EFD is giving them access to legislators, policy-makers and journalists so that Muslim reformists can finally be heard.  In effect, they’re creating a counter-jihad of ideas.

It remains to seen what will happen to 5-year-old Habib, whose name, in Arabic, means “beloved.” Whatever becomes of him becomes of us. All of us.

Martyr in the making? Habib, as shown in “Faith Without Fear” (National Film Board of Canada/90th Parallel Productions)

Ten (new) commandments for 2010

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts, Announcements on Jan 01, 2010

Controversial display of Ten Commandments outside the Texas State Capitol Building (courtesy: Wikimedia Commons)

Hello, Moses and Jesus? Hope y’all threw a great New Year’s Eve party in heaven Thursday night.

May I take just a minute of your eternal lives?  I’m a professor of leadership at New York University’s school of public service. In summer 2009, my program, the Moral Courage Project, launched a blogging campaign to stop the stoning of women.

One of the bloggers was Dana Gallagher. Something she posted about the sanctity of human rights caught my eye. I asked her to expand on it and, upon learning that she’s a Christian, I suggested she turn her initial post into an updated version of the Ten Commandments.

To sweeten the incentive, I promised Dana that I’d feature the new commandments on my website and bring them to my Facebook community for lively debate. Honestly, Prophets, I didn’t think she’d take me up on it. But whaddya know?

Be assured that Dana approaches this experiment with respectable values. She grew up in the American Midwest and graduated magna cum laude from Marymount Manhattan College.

Before we dive into her updated commandments, Dana wants you — and my readers –  to understand where she’s coming from. Here she is, in her own words:

I am a young Christian. I’ve been baptized, raised, and confirmed in the same church, and my experiences there have been among the most formative of my life.

Yet, as it is for so many people, my relationship with organized religion is complicated. The higher power that my soul recognizes and the one presented from the pulpit can be difficult to reconcile.

Over time I’ve learned not to fight the distance between them, but simply to let my faith guide me. And it’s my faith that inspires, even requires, me to re-think the Ten Commandments.

According to the Bible, God wrote the Ten Commandments twice. Moses got so fed up with his environment and the people around him that he broke the first set of tablets, and God had to make him some new ones.

With the challenges that we’ve faced in 2009, the first week of 2010 seems a good time to engage in some tablet-breaking of our own. But instead of destroying, let’s be constructive.  Let’s update God’s guidelines for the coming decade – or longer.

What if the commandments appealed to the best in us and what each of us is capable of, rather than assuming that the only thing keeping us from being lecherous, murderous, backstabbing thieves is endless guilt and the threat of hell?

With that in mind, welcome to my list of 10 for 2010:

I: Love yourself unconditionally. Christ asks us to “love thy neighbor as yourself.” Notice the pre-condition here: to embrace others, you must first make peace with who you are. So much of the hatred we direct towards others is spillover from the disdain we feel for ourselves. Love your whole, perfectly imperfect self.

And when you mess up, recognize that this is a part of the human journey. Feeling remorse is more than natural. It’s your spirit saying that your higher self believes you can do better. You can’t experience redemption if you don’t make mistakes. Forgive yourself, but equally important, pledge to do better. It’s the only way forward.

II: Love others unconditionally. Unconditional love is hard to contain, and if you’re able to cultivate it in yourself it’s likely to extend to the people around you. At the same time, it can be all too easy to shrink into ourselves until our hearts and minds narrow down to a lonely world of one.

Make a conscious effort to recognize the beautiful and, yes,  complicated individuals with whom you share this life. For better or worse, we really are in this together.

III: Don’t confuse loving with shoving. If your particular form of love comes with a big, leather-bound set of beliefs, kindly refrain from smacking innocent bystanders over the head with it. Pushing your beliefs on others isn’t faith; it’s insecurity.

IV: Corruption happens. The Bible has undergone many translations and revisions, often made by people whose intentions were not the purest.

No matter what any Sunday sermon or production of “Jesus Christ Superstar” would have you believe, Mary Magdalene was not a prostitute. None of the Gospels refers to her as such, and her bad reputation can be traced to a speech given by Pope Gregory the Great in 591 AD. The Vatican finally issued a quiet retraction in 1969; so quiet that many Christians simply never heard it.

With so much of Christianity being based on the Word, it’s worth taking a closer look and finding out what the Word actually says. There are lots of good books on the subject — Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why, by Bart D. Ehrman, Junia: The First Woman Apostle, by Eldon Jay Epp and the soon to be released And God Said: How Translations Conceal the Bible’s Original Meaning, by Joel M. Hoffman, PhD, to name just a few.

V: Keep your laws on your own naughty bits.  It’s strange to obsess over someone else’s sexual behavior, but everyone is entitled to their opinion. Everyone is not, however, entitled to force those opinions on other people (see III).

Tend to your own naughty bits, please. Just as self-hatred often manifests as hatred of others, sexual repression often rears its ugly head as judgment and punishment of the sexual behavior of others. Show your body some love and maybe it won’t be so concerned about what everyone else is doing with theirs.

VI: Challenge the “bros before hoes” approach to religion. There is just no good reason to insist that women hold a “separate but equal” role in the church. As we all learned during South Africa’s apartheid years, “separate but equal” is a euphemism for subservience.

As with white supremacy, so with male superiority: most of the Christian arguments for it rely on sketchy Biblical quotes (see IV).  The rest can be boiled down to the schoolyard logic of “girls are stupid.” It’s 2010, and it’s time to grow up already.

VII: Be not afraid of scientists. I refer here to actual research-conducting, fact-checking, history-acknowledging scientists, not to dogmatists who jettison or distort any information that doesn’t align with their worldview.

Real scientists do the life affirming work of finding ways to repair the damage we’ve inflicted on the planet, advancing medicine and shedding light on our place within the universe. Yet they’re often subject to suspicion, oppression and hostility by members of the Christian community.

It’s time to make amends. Doing so does not make you an atheist any more than attending Sunday services strips a scientist of her passion for discovery.

VIII: Polar bears are God’s creatures, too. Just because there were only two polar bears on the Ark doesn’t mean there are only supposed to be two on the planet. We all have a responsibility to take care of the Earth and the life that goes with it. Let’s keep working to leave it in better shape than we found it.

IX: Keep your candle lit. Hope fuels our faith when it looks as though there isn’t any love, unconditional or otherwise, to be had. Each of us has a unique light to offer the world. Why else would our Creator have bothered to bring us into it?

X: Know when to be humble. So we don’t have it all figured out. So what? The wonderful thing about being one small part of a much bigger, much greater piece of work is that we don’t need to have all the answers. That’s the Almighty’s role. Our role might very well be to stop and listen after we’ve made nine brazenly big points.

What are yours? 

*****

Click here to join our Facebook community and engage directly with Irshad and Dana. Or email us your ideas: comments@irshadmanji.com.  However you decide to communicate with us, remember: every orthodoxy began as a heresy…

“Ten Commandments,” as rendered by Lucas Cranach the Elder and displayed in the townhall of Wittenberg, Germany (courtesy: Wikimedia Commons)

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