This may be an unusual post, but I ran into an interesting card game entitled Footsteps of the Prophet by Azazelo al-Qureshi. The game is about the succession to Muhammad - it looks interesting and is available in Arabic and English.
Bookmark/Search this post with:
Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon
Reddit
Facebook
Technorati
Michael Jackson lived his whole life surrounded by vipers. They would set him up in compromising positions, have a series of families of "victims" sue him, portray him in the mass media as a serial pedophile thus denying him any defense (of course, even with all the negative publicity, the families kept sending the children over), force him to settle the lawsuits, and then lend him the money to pay them, all on the security of his once considerable assets.
This process of stealing his money went on for years, until there was nothing left to steal. The Jews then came up with the idea of having the frail Jackson pay everything off with a huge concert tour, one that neither they nor Jackson thought he could physically survive. If he didn't do it, they would seize all his assets and ruin him. Essentially, they decided to go for the age-old solution, the pound of flesh. Jackson would pay them off with his life.
Due to his many health scares, it became impossible to insure Jackson for the tour, particularly when the kosher shysters got greedy and vastly extended the tour, so the promoters had to "self-insure', meaning they would take all the risk if Jackson in fact couldn't finish the tour. As everybody knew he wouldn't be able to survive the tour, this was unacceptable, and Jackson became more valuable dead than alive. Alive, he would just create more debt to be shared amongst the creditors, with no more assets to pay them off. Dead before the tour, the banksters could divvy up his tangible assets and use his preexisting insurance to cover the rest (they almost certainly had insurance on his life as security for their loans.)
Jackson, no dummy, was completely hip to what was going on, and who was stealing from him. "Jew me, Sue me" and "Kick me, Kike me."
Is Michael Jackson a hardcore, Mel Gibson-style anti-Semite, or is this just another case of the Jew-run media trying to make a brother look bad? If you haven't already heard, tapes have recently been released to the media of Wacko Jackson accusing Jewish people of trying to suck his blood. To wit:
In phone messages obtained by ABC News, the apparently prejudiced pop star likens them to "leeches" and claims they conspired to leave him penniless. "They suck...they're like leeches...I'm so tired of it," Jackson tells former adviser Dieter Wiesner in one of them. "The Jews do it on purpose." The ugly message, which was made two years ago and aired yesterday on Good Morning America, was one of several provided by Wiesner's lawyer, Howard King.
One can presume that these phone messages were leaked to their cousins in the media by this Wiesner fellow and another fellow named Marc Schaffel, who are currently suing Michael Jackson for money they say he owes them. Sounds like some pretty shysty (sic) business, if you ask me. Then check out how they try to play Jacko, bringing up old shit from 10 years ago and also the fact that he recently relocated to a Jew-hater country out in the Middle East, as if that has to do with anything.
Jackson had to apologize to Jewish groups a decade ago after he included lyrics like "Jew me/Sue me/Everybody do me/Kick me/Kike me" on the song They Don't Care About Us. Jackson, who relocated to Bahrain after he was acquitted of child molesting charges, did not respond to the revelations. You know they did that shit on purpose.
Brothel-owner Wiesner's suit was dismissed, although it appears there may have been some kind of settlement. Marc Schaffel, whose job before hooking onto Jackson was a gay porn producer/director, only won a small amount of what he originally claimed, and Jackson's countersuit was successful (it is clear that Schaffel was the direct target of Jackson's rant to Wiesner.) Jackson lost his ownership of the Beatles catalogue to Sony, run at the time by Tommy Mottola, described by Jackson as the devil.
I think we can assume that Jackson's increasing connections to the Muslim Middle East, and his probable conversion to Islam - after being forced (?) to pick a surrogate Jewish mother for his children (more access to his money) - was partly an attempt to escape the shysters.
The greed of the Jewish shysters extended the tour to the point where it was uninsurable. Either the stress of the impossible tour killed him, or they arranged for him to be given a "hot shot" - a mix of whatever was supposed to be in the shot with heart-attack inducing, and completely undetectable, potassium chloride - to finish him off (note how the mainstream press is suddenly filled with stories of his drug addictions.)
Either way, they got their pound of flesh.
What the fluffy yellow duck* does this have to do with the actual topic of the post? Cypress posted about a RPG drawn from early Islamic history, which sounds pretty intriguing, and you reply with an incoherent, bigoted rant. Cypress, any chance of online play, as we're rather low on Muslim geeks in my neck of the woods?
* I've been trying to moderate my language, as Schenectady's about the business of learning language, and "do as I say, not as I do", goes over about as well as offering baths as a reward.
I am getting quite bored of this now. Is there any Muslim website anywhere in the entire interweb which can guarantee itself free of anti-Semitic hate posts? I am sick to death of "brothers"/"sisters" variously linking to Stormfront, David Duke or some other pond life of the extreme Right in order to underpin their loathing and hate for Jews.
The above comments about Jackson and Jews are undeniably lunatic; but the fact remains that all too many Muslims are happy to play along with the most backwards of bigotry just in case it is aimed at Jews, homosexuals or women. It is exactly this sort of repellent behaviour which is contributing to the image of Islam as a religion of angry, deluded and prejudiced people.
I, for one, am sick to the back teeth of it - perhaps a nice game of cards will settle me down...
I, for one, am sick to the back teeth of it - perhaps a nice game of cards will settle me down...
>>>
I hear ya. But if you notice, nobody volleyed that ball back into their court and raised them, and I for one ignored it. Giving that kind of freak attention is like throwing napalm on a trashfire. (not really sure what that would do, but it sounds giood). Irrational fetishized hatred for specific target groups is one of the hallmarks of a pathologically disordered personality. We'be all seen it: People who pretty much define themselves by who they hate. I haven't even seen that person here before, and maybe that's the last we've seen of them. They probaly drop-pasted that post int a thousand sites all over the net.
Agreed, to an extent Karen; however would you not also recognise that anti-Semitism, homophobia and misogyny are significant issues in the Muslim community - especially amongst so-called "cultural Muslims"?
These issues need to be confronted head-on, combated and removed from circulation. They are major impediments in the way of the progress of Islam, not just in the West, but globally.
Reducing the problem to one where examples of these major bigotries in our midst are taken as simply the random background noise of internet loonies is to not take on board one of the major challenges facing our community today. The reformation and renaissance of the Muslim community requires that it address its weaknesses.
The seeming incapacity of Muslims for self-criticism as a community is matched by a wider seeming discomfort about criticising other Muslims in general. We saw this with regard to recent events in Iran, where - in general - the Muslim community either sided with the regime, or refused comment one way or another, for fear of being seen to be critical of fellow Muslims. That was reprehensible, cowardly and suggests a fundamental misunderstanding about what terms like "solidarity" mean - let alone the Qur'anic injunction to defend the right and struggle against the wrong.
I know what you are saying Abu Faris ....
And I agree with you also. I am not one of these solidarity types who turns a blind eye on the faults and failings of our community. But I would add this as well. No community has exorcised these bigotries from their midst. That doesn't excuse them or mean they should not be addressed. But it does mean they need to be addressed in ways that might have genuine impact. To the extent that the grand enlightened community of the west has attained eradication of these bigotries, it has not happened slowly or easily. And these bigotries are on the rise in the US like a wildfire out of control. One might even suggest that these bigotries rise and fall consistently with the levels and value of education in a given society.
Another issue is the existence of problems globally and in societies the nature and truth of which gets lost in pervasive and irrational condemnation of whole populations. Also, what methods are necessary and what methods work in eradicating bigotry? Indignant condemnation of bigortry? That does nothing to dismantle the formulae of ignorance or the specific details of individual bigotries. Loonies with generally flock to bigoted rants because they are an easy opportunity to download a lot of bad energy. But getting to the widespread bigotries is another matter. Making it taboo to mention or question matters of race, ethnicity, or politics is not a viable way to dismantle bigotry, as we have seen in the US where even suggesting a question of the policies of the state of Israel will uncur screams of antisemitism, questioning the need for inner city populations to address other problems is automatically considered racism, sexism has it's own legitimate and idiotic examples and do all forms.
So how do you separate out the need to dismantle the social manifestation of bigotry in others from the need for responsibility in all communities. Another point, and this is not a solidarity that fears to question or critique the Muslim community, but there are classes of ethnic Muslims whose perceptions of social order and hierarchy are based on hundreds of year old entrenched norms. These are not abandoned quickly or easiiy and it is presumpuous and wholly west-centric for anyone outside that social order to stand and stamp their foot in a condescending manner and tell them to "get up to speed" with how things "should be." This is a very great part of the global problem today. If there are indeed social advances that have been made as a result of numerous factors over a very long span of time, then it is unrealistic to expect those same conditions to be imposed externally over night. And those social advances are anything but universally embraced, certainly in the US where I am myself both apalled and disgusted to see the resurregence of rascist rhetoric in the media as though it was normal and acceptable. The US is backsliding quickly and badly from whatever high water marks were attainted in this regard. But then I don't know if they were actually made, other than legally, widely or people were just too intimidated by public opinion to voice their bigoted ideas. Clearly, this is a huge topic that will demand engagement for decades, if not centuries to come.
As far as some of the topics you mentioned, I think there must be a separation between what expectations are made of ethnic immigrant Muslims, and anyone else, in the US or other western countries where there are social norms backed up by law, and what is done in individual Muslim countries. Social engineering as a function of American foreign policy is disingenuous because it seems only to try to function in those places where very great benefit is to be had to American interests, i.e. corporations.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jIANYpGgIWr_DDlLQqTv_...
Here's an interesting crossroads in this whole debate.
Karen,
Many thanks for the detailed response. I have Fisked your comments:
>>"I know what you are saying Abu Faris ....
And I agree with you also. I am not one of these solidarity types who turns a blind eye on the faults and failings of our community." <<
This I gathered! :)
>>"But I would add this as well. No community has exorcised these bigotries from their midst. That doesn't excuse them or mean they should not be addressed. But it does mean they need to be addressed in ways that might have genuine impact. To the extent that the grand enlightened community of the west has attained eradication of these bigotries, it has not happened slowly or easily. And these bigotries are on the rise in the US like a wildfire out of control. One might even suggest that these bigotries rise and fall consistently with the levels and value of education in a given society."<<
No disagreement here at all.
>>"Another issue is the existence of problems globally and in societies the nature and truth of which gets lost in pervasive and irrational condemnation of whole populations."<<
The genuine concerns revolving around the demonisation of the Muslim community in the West do not detract from the genuine issues of gender-inequality, homophobia, and anti-Jewish racism (to identify three primary evils) that clearly exist in many Muslim communities in both the West and elsewhere.
Indeed the very fact that these issues exist (and very often remain largely unaddressed by the Muslim community itself) provides leverage for the Islamophobes who wish to portray the entire Muslim community as inherently culturally backward or unenlightened.
The knee-jerk reaction of many Muslims to criticism is ultimately self-defeating. The view, often couched in hysterically conspiratorial tones, that this criticism is *solely* based upon ulterior motives designed to undermine or destroy the 'ummah, or is manifest of Orientalist or Western imperialist designs upon the lands and peoples of Islam is not born out by the continued and very real miserable treatment and perceptions of women, homosexuals and non-Muslims (especially Jews) in many Muslim communities.
There should be a recognition that by admitting to these very real failings and dealing with these issues ourselves as a Muslim community most effectively neutralises many of the complaints of non-Muslims about the Muslim community. In short, admitting that the issues raised by even the most trenchant and wicked Islamophobes may, in important cases, have some grounding in reality does not in any way connect or otherwise lend credence to the intentions of the Islamophobes in jumping upon these bandwagons. The whole character and nature of opportunism is to take advantage of real issues to further other ends, after all.
>>"Also, what methods are necessary and what methods work in eradicating bigotry? Indignant condemnation of bigotry? That does nothing to dismantle the formulae of ignorance or the specific details of individual bigotries. Loonies with generally flock to bigoted rants because they are an easy opportunity to download a lot of bad energy. But getting to the widespread bigotries is another matter. Making it taboo to mention or question matters of race, ethnicity, or politics is not a viable way to dismantle bigotry, as we have seen in the US where even suggesting a question of the policies of the state of Israel will uncur screams of antisemitism, questioning the need for inner city populations to address other problems is automatically considered racism, sexism has it's own legitimate and idiotic examples and do all forms."<<
I am not suggesting making it taboo to mention issues of race, ethnicity or politics - indeed quite the reverse. We too in UK (my home country) have considerable experience of the mistakes associated with exactly this sort of misformulation of the responsibilities of multiculturalism.
Agreed, a common tactic of the Zionist Right is to scream anti-Semitism every time any criticism of the policies of the state of Israel are raised. Again, we in UK have considerable experience of the same (especially at the hands of the Board of Deputies here and the Zionist Federation as led by the likes of the appalling Jonathan Hoffman - amongst others - who have directly and overtly equated anti-Zionism as anti-Semitism, indeed any criticism of Israel - save the mildest - as manifest of latent anti-Semitism), This being said, this abuse of the expression "anti-Semitism" for opportunist political ends does not remove the onus upon the Muslim community to combat by all means necessary the scourge of traditional and more modern varieties of anti-Semitic discourse and perceptions from amidst itself. Anti-Semitism is deeply embedded in the group-think of too many Muslims and it needs challenging.
I would argue that you have already placed your finger upon the answer to the question your paragraph here began - education.
"So how do you separate out the need to dismantle the social manifestation of bigotry in others from the need for responsibility in all communities."
One does not - that is the whole point.
>>"Another point, and this is not a solidarity that fears to question or critique the Muslim community, but there are classes of ethnic Muslims whose perceptions of social order and hierarchy are based on hundreds of year old entrenched norms. These are not abandoned quickly or easiiy and it is presumpuous and wholly west-centric for anyone outside that social order to stand and stamp their foot in a condescending manner and tell them to "get up to speed" with how things "should be." This is a very great part of the global problem today. If there are indeed social advances that have been made as a result of numerous factors over a very long span of time, then it is unrealistic to expect those same conditions to be imposed externally over night."
Agreed and disagreed. Unless one makes a start, one will never start at all. Also I think you overplay the degree to which traditional bigotries are embedded in culturally Muslim communities. I live in a cultural Muslim environment, a Muslim majority country - and I can assure you that the majority of its people are absolutely sick to the back teeth of the detritus of centuries of oppression, divide and rule and assorted mediaevalisms that are daily thrust upon them by a political elite and its religious establishment allies as "norms" of their faith.
>>"And those social advances are anything but universally embraced, certainly in the US where I am myself both apalled and disgusted to see the resurregence of rascist rhetoric in the media as though it was normal and acceptable. The US is backsliding quickly and badly from whatever high water marks were attainted in this regard. But then I don't know if they were actually made, other than legally, widely or people were just too intimidated by public opinion to voice their bigoted ideas. Clearly, this is a huge topic that will demand engagement for decades, if not centuries to come."<<
Again agreed - however there is a distinction here to be made between "is" and "should". Just because the situation *is* parlous, or disimproving, or not as we might want it, does not mean that the changes needed *should* not happen. Statements are not the same as normative expressions. What happens and what should happen are not necessarily the same as one another.
>>"As far as some of the topics you mentioned, I think there must be a separation between what expectations are made of ethnic immigrant Muslims, and anyone else, in the US or other western countries where there are social norms backed up by law, and what is done in individual Muslim countries. Social engineering as a function of American foreign policy is disingenuous because it seems only to try to function in those places where very great benefit is to be had to American interests, i.e. corporations."<<
I do not agree at all. The vast majority of Muslims repeatedly interviewed recently by a number of different organisations demanded exactly the sort of norms that we take for granted in the West. The overwhelming majority in countries as diverse as Malaysia and Egypt want truly representational democracy, the separation of religion and state, and an end to the rule of unelected and terminally corrupt elites. Support for these demands of the Street are imperative for the progress of Islam as a whole.
Again the self-interested *intentions* of the limited and partial support offered by a number of Western nations for democratic reform in Muslim-majority countries should not be confused with the very real need in those countries for exactly such changes.
In fact, I remain often completely taken-aback by the continued respect and loyalty to the principles of liberal democracy I encounter across the Muslim world - despite the depredations of colonialism, and neo-colonialism on the part of those nations most readily associated with such ideals. Most people, in my experience, are intelligent enough to distinguish between a good idea and a bad person's (or state's) self-interested promotion of such ideas.
Abu Faris ...
I agree whole heartedly with all your comments. There might have been some confusion in what I was getting at at a few points because I see a need to observe and accept that things take time. Not that we sit back and do nothing and wait for change to happen automatically, not at all. But change is happening, it most certainly is, but we still see the excesses and failings despite, as you point out, that so many people in the community want the very same things everyone wants: equality, justice, etc. I did not mean that the opposite of these were permanently entrenched in MUSLIM communities only or that by very nature of their Muslimness they are entrenched. Pastoral insular social environments all exhibit the same consciousness traits, pretty much no matter when or where they exist. It is not a feature of Islam certainly. The majority of the books at my bedside and which I have poured over for decades are authored by Muslims who lived a thousand years ago.
What I meant by perhaps a differing scale for inside our own states and the expectation of mandating change in other countries is two fold: how welcoming are we of moral and social demands placed upon us by different cultures that our own? Some of which I happen to even agree with. But I also believe in the individual's right to choose by which method he damns himself. Nor is it a matter of PC timidity that dare not question other cultures. And to be honest, I recognize this is a vastly important component of the struggle for daily life in the world we live in. We must speak up and fight against these things.
These are my inner thoughts, sort of the scribblings on paper with erasures, and I will share them with you as they are incomplete. So I am not issuing any papal bull here, just my own inner machinations. The startling polarity by which the WEST and the EAST and ISLAM and THE WEST are bifuated creates its own closed mindedness. Something I have wrastled with is the frequency at which western convert Muslims' opinions and comments are dismissed by ethnic Muslims with claims that we are just falling back on our imperialist nature. And then dismissed by nonMuslims because we are ... one of them. So you can't win sometimes. My poisiton is fashioned by a wholly sympathetic and very close read of the founding ideologues of the 19th and 20th century Islamic revival, not by Fox news and not by my white skin. So I wonder at the value of even our opinions in these narratives.
The other thing is that, and how often this happens, but individuals and groups can despise one another but the minute a common enemy appears on the horizon, then they each see the other as faultless and will defend everything they do. I have seen this in other communities. So the solidarity thing is bad news in any comminity when it covers and protects the weakness of that community. These are hard issues. And sometimes even the converts are the worst offenders in this regard in their desperate attempt to be accepted as "real" Muslims by ethnic Muslims. I was yelled at by a white woman convert one time for "daring" to question the taliban, a body of authority who sought only to usher in pure Islam. None of these issues are easy, there are no formulaic strategies that can be employed, it just takes time. But like the heroic struggle going on in Iran, that is a fight that they must engage in and secure for themselves and any outside tampering will only do more harm than good. Ultimately it must be the people themselves who carve out their own rights and dignities, and if they must demand them and fight for them, well then that is often the way this are historically carried out. The US government cannot enforce equality and the end of our own traditional raceism, how on earth can it possibly presume to eradicate those of others, and with the aid of what army? Slogans don't work, stern warnings don't work, they're laughable. It is only from within that these changes can be made. And as you say, we are part of the solution. But only a small part, and those ethnic Muslims you cite who are sick of the old world social norms need to make their opinions known and then isolate those who still cling to them, not empower them through silence or fearful complicity.
I forget whether I have posted this here or not ...
But I have discovered on iTunes a feature called iTunes U where many of the top universities have a presence with thousands of lectures and keynote talks available for free. I have downloaded about 90 hours worth from Islamic Studies departments and Global Affairs departments and there are some amazing lectures there. I was actually rather heartened to see the general trend in global affairs lectures on these campuses. They are anything but indoctrination centers for American imperialism. If you have iTunes, I'd give it a try, I'm blown away by what I have found there. One can easily put together an education for themselves on these sites that would cost countless thousands of dollars.
Good, pertinent opinions expressed here:
Scottish progressive Muslims
http://progressivescottishmuslims.blogspot.com/
I don't check PI too often (as it's updates are sparse..) but I enjoy your (and others') blog. I'm gonna buy this, like I bought the Ismaili Cookbook (not recommended, I left a review on Amazon). Looking forward to reading more of your thoughts and interesting finds! :D
I'd say the updates aren't so much sparse as sporadic. But stay tuned!