You Don't Have to Be Wrong for Me to Be Right

"Religion captures the very best and very worst of who we are, and to see only the best or the worst of religion is a dangerous error. If you see only the good, you become an apologist and take no responsibility for the incredible violence that religion is so capable of unleashing. If you see only the bad in religion, then you miss all the biggest questions, the most profound longings, the deepest fears and the greatest aspirations that define us. When faith is working right it can be profound, inspiring, and a great force for positive change in the world, and it can help us lead more giving, productive, and fulfilling lives."

This paragraph is an excerpt from You Don't Have to Be Wrong for Me to Be Right: Finding Faith Without Fanaticism, by Brad Hirschfeld.

Not just wisdom, but a personal journey through his own life, his studies of religion, and how they came to be shaped by his disillusioning experience as a fanatic Israeli settler in Hebron makes this book a good read. You don't have to agree with him to find it a valuable resource. Highly recommended, both for those who think their religion is the only one, and for those who deem all religions evil.

Thoughts on "Nakba Day"

Why, since Arabs don't display the pity they claim for themselves towards others, do they merit consideration for this mewling?

When Arabs are sorry for

the peoples they displaced,
the lives Arabs have destroyed,
the wives Arabs have forcibly taken,
the sorrows Arabs have created,
the seeds of hatred Arabs have planted,
the lies in the name of religion Arabs have advocated,
the lies in the name of theft Arabs have propagated,
the massacres of the innocent Arabs have committed,
the massacres of the innocent that Arabs have compelled others to commit in self-defense,
the history of peoples abused, robbed, and raped by their fathers that Arabs celebrate to this day,
their abuse of those who provide Arabs with charity, wealth, health, and education,
the cheap value they hold for the lives of their fellow Arab brothers and sisters when they manipulate them for their own ends,

then the plea of the Arabs for greater pity and understanding will be heard in my ears.

Why should their plea be heard by yours?

***

When The Arabs of Palestine can openly advocate being pro-Israel without fear of being executed without trial by their fellows, then they can discuss the history of the "Nakba". Not before.

Lebanon: a Consociate, not a Democracy

Abu Muqawama admits to being stumped about what the U.S. should do about Lebanon, now that Hezbollah has launched its long-expected yet long-denied military putsch. My answer: nothing much right now, for the Lebanon is still (pardon the pun) a state in flux:

I think the key here is that Lebanon isn't really a democracy, but a consociate; it only appears to have functioning democratic institutions when the partners - the leaders of Lebanon's sects - of the consociate are in near agreement. And aside from Hezbollah, the mostly-unelected leaders of Lebanon's sectarian factions, like mob leaders throughout history, take their cues from the most vocal and strident constituents.

Thus, although Hezbollah has violated the rules, the response from the government is not immediate. At this stage, perhaps nobody knows what that response will be. And no one knows what effect it may have.

Later in the day, "Charles Malik" considered:

the United States might be thinking twice about providing the Lebanese Army with any more munitions in the future. Despite three years of assistance, the Lebanese Army remains more in the position of a caretaker than as an active military force capable of preventing violence and defending the country from chaos.

I wonder. The U.S. has provided the L.A. the arms and training to at least challenge Hezbollah, if it so desires. The past few days have demonstrated that Lebanon isn't a democracy so much as a consociate, and that is perhaps the most one can expect after thirty-plus years of strained constitutionality.

My hunch: only when more people, especially some of the Shia, get tired and angry with Hezbollah will the Army change its mind and take a more active role in current affairs. As long as the L.A. remains armed and united, the possibility of its taking action still exists.

Charles: As I've been saying for a few years, the most important this to do in Lebanon is to destroy Hezbollah's stranglehold on the Shia community.

The Lebanese Army is an extraordinary institution. The Syrians and former President Lahoud - when he was commander of the army - did an amazing job using the army to unify the separated and sectarian youth of Lebanon. The sectarianism remained to a degree, but the Army helped break down the barriers to inter-sectarian dialogue very quickly.

However, given that the Syrians controlled the institution for over 15 years, there are quite a few holdovers from an era in which pro-Syrian yes-men were promoted over competent soldiers who did not agree with the occupation.

Once the Army is a unified body, ie once Lebanese sects support the government and democracy as much as they support their communities, the Army will become a regulated body.

Hezbollah and Syria are the main things preventing the unity of the Lebanese Army.

There is a difference between legality and legitimacy. Legality comes from written laws; legitimacy is sanctioned by time-honored acceptance - custom. At this stage Lebanese institutions rely more on legitimacy than legality. That's why the L.A. not acting immediately isn't necessarily a bad sign.

A few months ago I was convinced that Syria exercised "assassination control" over ALL of Lebanon's generals - because of the fear displayed of Syria at the Nahr al-Bared "victory" press conference. (EVERY general made it a point to excuse Syria, as if one denial wouldn't be sufficient.) It may have taken people a while to realize that with Mughniyah dead, the threat of assassination is gone, at least temporarily, so there is more freedom to maneuver.

I don't know what will happen next, but I don't think what happened in the 1970s and 80s, when the Army pretty much dissolved and its weapons were distributed to the militias, should happen this time.

***

This student of Lebanon's history is quite sure of this: Lebanese anger is a slow-building yet terrible thing. And a consociated system has no bill of rights attached to it to protect either the innocent or the guilty.

5/13/08 3pm Update

Now Lebanon publishes this remarkable letter from General Suleiman to all officers of the Lebanese Army. After a brief review of the past thirty years of Lebanese history, the General curtly blames what in any country would be his civilian superiors for the current situation! "We have repeatedly warned officials of the need to find the necessary solutions in order to avert civil war."

What follows is an amazingly humble and introspective diagnosis of the afflictions of the Lebanese soul, as the General gives his officers their instructions in the broadest terms:

"I am aware of your deep pain due to the current events. I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the 1975 generation hurt a lot, but still was divided, and you are still suffering from the consequences of its division when it comes to restoring the state’s sovereignty throughout the Lebanese territory. In truth, the sadness burdening your souls is due to a feeling of humiliation and to the pangs of conscience. This should constitute a motive to consolidate your unity and cohesion by taking advantage of the past. Turning away from the military institution is not useful at all; rather, it further weakens it, whereas what is required is more creativity and achievements that are born only out of suffering...Do not allow the martyrs to be killed twice."

That is, officers are to do what they think they can do, short of killing people, to avoid civil war from fully breaking out again. There is no mention of taking orders from a higher political authority. The Lebanese Army can thus be understood as a full and separate partner of the Lebanese Consociate, answering to everyone and to no one, possessing its own culture and decision-making processes.

5/14/08 3pm Update

The State Department has announced it plans to speed up deliveries of military aid to the Lebanese Army: "We have a very robust package of support for the Lebanese military and we intend to carry that out and give them the kind of help that they need to be able to, again, carry out their mission and support the Lebanese people."

It appears that Charles need not have worried so much about American support.

5/14/08 4pm Update

Forty Army officers, including the deputy chief of intelligence, have submitted resignations, but Suleiman refused them.

Threatening to resign is a form of politics, and by keeping them in Suleiman is expected to address their grievances. I assume they were protesting the Army's "neutral" stance. Thus it is unlikely that the L.A. will be able to justify remaining non-partisan if trouble breaks out again. Hezbollah may no longer enjoy the freedom of action that it did last week.

If this is the most Hezbollah can do, they can only go downhill from here, and indeed Hezbollah has now suffered a military defeat in its attempt to conquer the Druze's Chouwf stronghold.

The Addams Family, Parts 1, 2, & 3

"You meant to blow them up?
"Of course, why else would a grown man play with trains?"


"You do have natural talent, but that has nothing to do with learning or knowledge."


"From dragons to toy guns to real guns to atom bombs! Thinking like yours can save the world!"

Islam’s ‘Public Enemy #1’

Why does Father Zakaria Botros rate such a title? Because (1) he is a fearless television personality, (2) he speaks in fluent classical Arabic, and (3) he has proved to be both irrefutable and irresistible. Thus he has changed the dynamic by making Islamic scholars accountable:

The most dramatic example of this occurred on another famous show on the international station, Iqra. The host, Basma — a conservative Muslim woman in full hijab — asked two prominent ulema, including Sheikh Gamal Qutb, one-time grand mufti of al-Azhar University, to explain the legality of the Koranic verse (4:24) that permits men to freely copulate with captive women. She repeatedly asked: “According to sharia, is slave-sex still applicable?” The two ulema would give no clear answer — dissembling here, going off on tangents there. Basma remained adamant: Muslim youth were confused, and needed a response, since “there is a certain channel and a certain man who has discussed this issue over twenty times and has received no response from you.”

The flustered Sheikh Qutb roared, “low-life people like that must be totally ignored!” and stormed off the set.

Raymond Ibrahim highlights what makes Botros so important:

Botros’s motive is not to incite the West against Islam, promote “Israeli interests,” or “demonize” Muslims, but to draw Muslims away from the dead legalism of sharia to the spirituality of Christianity. Many Western critics fail to appreciate that, to disempower radical Islam, something theocentric and spiritually satisfying — not secularism, democracy, capitalism, materialism, feminism, etc. — must be offered in its place. The truths of one religion can only be challenged and supplanted by the truths of another. And so Father Zakaria Botros has been fighting fire with fire.

Radical Islam - that is, total sharia law - cannot withstand these arguments. That is enough to explain why its proponents advocate and employ violence to achieve their ends - and why the rest of us must retain the will and means to employ violence, as well as our voices, to oppose them. As George Orwell put it:

“Good people sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”

Nowhere is this more true than in parts of the world threatened by Al Qaeda. The latest post on Michael Totten's blog, The Liberation of Karmah, Part I shows the amazement of U.S. officials at the growing normalcy
and quotes a U.S. marine on the Iraqi experience:

- they had no choice but to submit to them. Otherwise they would end up like their family members with their heads chopped off. If you didn't support Al Qaeda they would blow up your house.”

The unprompted opinion of one of the locals, upon spotting a suspicious character, was even more revealing:

Al Qaeda. That’s their uniform, you know, that beard and that high-cut dishdasha. God, what pieces of shit those fuckers are.”

Yes, God knows. So do the Iraqis. Father Zak isn't "Islam's Public Enemy #1", but represents the hope millions of Muslims have to be free of the forces of radicalism by challenging the learned ulema to either match the humanity of modest Muslims and other religions, or retreat into silence as their flock travels elsewhere.

The Mother of All the Arabs

The Sandmonkey writes about his mother:

[S]he is one of the most racist people I've ever known or met. She hates Blacks, Jews, Christians, Arabs, Indians, Asians...I once jokingly told her that when I will go to the US for college, I would find me a black Jewish wife and have like 3 babies with her, you know, just to mess with her. She looked me straight in the eye and told me that if I actually did that, she would line up the children next to each other on the wall, so that when she shoots them, she wouldn't miss and waste bullets.

Such a thrifty person! Charming.

This used to disturb me (I mean people with PHD's from Georgetown can not be this closed-minded, right?)...I've tried to change her mind for years using every possible logical, philosophical and religious argument out there, and they would hit the brickwall called her frontal lobe, and then wouldn't go anywhere.

Here's the key:

I then realized that it might be best if I just let it be. She , after all, has been this way all of her life, and she isn't going to change now. Plus, what if I did succeed and she saw the error of her ways? She would spend the rest of her life horrified of how she spent the majority of her life and she would try unsuccessfully to make-up for it and fail, because, like, how do you make up for something like that?

My response:

Oho! You're the first Arab I’ve ever known who realized this. Perhaps the better question is why you don’t feel the same way.

The answer, I suppose, is that not only are you innocent of such errors, you respect your parents yet you don’t feel as if they own your soul and therefore you don’t have to follow in the same path they did. How many other Arabs like you are there? What would the world be like if they could come out of the closet?

"I find the term “Islamofascism” to be quite accurate"

Unlike most Americans, Solomon2 grew up with Muslims as his next-door neighbors. Solomon2's memories of them are as good people and happy, generous friends.

About twenty years ago their humor took a darker turn. They told me their religion had moved in another direction and left them behind. They told me they were now proud to be considered "bad Muslims" by some of their co-religionists! At that time, long before 9-11 or even the 1993 World Trade Center attack, I was very puzzled by this response.

Without a doubt there are many such Muslims living in America today, though many may carry on in silence out of fear of ostracism, at the very least. I haven't contacted my old friends lately, yet I imagine that Doctor M. Zuhdi Jasser, president and founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, here interviewed by National Review Online, does a great job of speaking for them and like-minded Muslims:

I have always been a devout practicing Muslim maintaining a central personal spiritual relationship with God in my life. I have also held true to the importance of spiritual practices in my life including fasting, daily prayer, scriptural recitation, charity, community worship, and personal integrity...I found myself frustrated by the politicization of many but not all of the Muslim communities in which I participated, I began to focus on the main problem I experienced — the harmful impact of political Islam upon the practice of Islam in America...[I] realized that at some point anti-Islamists were going to need to take them on to rescue our faith from their clutches...

...Islamists would rather continue wallowing in denial. They prefer to project responsibility for terrorism upon everyone else in the world, rather than placing the responsibility upon the ideology of political Islam and the toxicity of the dreams of an Islamic state. They would much rather debate non-Muslims or former Muslims, because they can change the debate focus to Islamophobia, rather than the central issue of Islamism...

...I’ve never been threatened physically. But if I allow such frivolous attacks or fear of them to modify the intensity of my work, I would dishonor the freedoms which our serviceman and women are fighting to preserve and I might as well take my family back to their motherland of Syria where there are no freedoms and the masses are silent out of fear of the ruling despots. If I stay silent I would no longer be an American...

When we Americans, regardless of our religion or creed, stay silent in the face of creeping fascism we may remain citizens yet lose what it means to be an American in our souls. Each time this happens America dies a little, for its beacon of freedom and justice dims. As Jasser says, America's "liberty-culture mindset is the greatest antidote to Islamist tribalism and collectivism." He concludes with a vision for the future that can be attained through the actions of Muslims like himself:

Once devout Muslims can deconstruct the goal of the Islamic state and prove to our fellow co-religionists that the most pious form of society is one where government and religion are separate and faith practice is allowed only to be judged by God in a laboratory of free will, Islamofascism will die in the dustbin of history.

I will finally add a caveat that my only fear is that many exposed to the term will have little prior knowledge of Islam or contact with Muslims and will carry away a belief that Islam as a spiritual faith is fascistic in its ideology. That cannot be further from the truth of the Islam which I teach my children and so many of the vast majority of Muslims teach their families. But that should stimulate Muslims to even more actively defeat the Islamists who have hijacked our faith for their own political agenda.