Provoking Thoughts News, Commentary, Perspectives

Hearing on Racial Profiling Needed

2006-11-22T09:35:00.000-05:00

Muslims in America are faced with the indignity of yet another profiling incident at a US airport. Six Imams, i.e., Muslim religious leaders, were removed from a domestic flight yesterday in Minnesota. The Imams were taken off a US Airways flight at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport Monday night because of alleged "suspicious activity."

Is the language used familiar?

The Imams, who were handcuffed and questioned for several hours by authorities before being released told the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) that they suspect that the “suspicious activity” cited by the authorities involved the performance of normal evening prayers offered by members of the group in the airport before boarding the flight.

A prominent national Islamic civil rights and advocacy group today called for congressional hearings on religious and ethnic profiling at airports after six Imams, or Muslim religious leaders, were removed from a domestic flight yesterday in Minnesota.

All of the detained Imams, several of whom are from Arizona, were in Minnesota to attend a conference of the North American Imams Federation (NAIF). A representative of the FBI was invited to attend the conference. The people at the Minnesota conference were "discussing how to build bridges" between Muslims and American society.

Instead, "they were treated like terrorists ... humiliated," said Abu Hannoud, a civil rights director for the Arizona chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. The men were taken off the US Airways flight in handcuffs.

Again, does this seem familiar?

CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad said today that security concerns are of "paramount importance," but that the incident in Minnesota was apparently triggered by prejudice and ignorance, not by real evidence of a threat to passenger safety:

"CAIR is receiving more reports of 'flying while Muslim' and racial profiling incidents from members of the Islamic community nationwide. We therefore call for congressional hearings to deal with the issue of racial, religious and ethnic profiling in our nation's airports.

"We also call on the Department of Justice and the Transportation Security Administration to conduct thorough investigations into the incident in Minnesota and to ensure that security procedures of US Airways and other airlines conform to constitutional standards mandating the protection of religious freedom and other civil rights."

He added that CAIR received a letter today from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties saying it has opened a review of the case as it relates to the actions of DHS employees.

To the 70s and 80s Singapore Babies

2006-11-12T01:15:00.000-05:00

Walk Down Memory Lane

A friend emailed me the following post, which I thoroughly enjoyed reading because it brought back a lot of memories of my childhood in Singapore.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Just for good old days.

When life was simple & carefree

To the 70s n 80s babies!

For us born and raised in Singapore and Malaysia (esp. fond of the memory of the Milo truck coming to school once in a blue moon to give away free packet-chocolate-milk at school!). Miss the good old days - despite its low-tech nature....

For your reading pleasure...some might be true.

Hope you will all enjoy reading it. This might bring you back the old memory especially during those school days.....

Signs that you are a 70s' or 80s' baby:

1. You grew up watching G-Force, He-man, Transformers, Thundercats, Silver Hawk, Woody Woodpecker, Chipmunks and Mickey Mouse. Not to forget Ninja Turtles, Mask, Smurfs and Voltron too.

2. Girls watched Japanese cartoon like My Little Pony, "Xiao Tian Tian", "Hua Xian Zi " etc.

3. You grew up brushing your teeth with a mug in primary school after recess time.

4. You squatted by a drain with all your classmates beside you, and brushed your teeth with a tin or colourful plastic mug.

5. Remember the days when the school nurse, comes with a list for the dentist appointment, the sound of the drilling when your friend has a fill in his tooth.

6. You remember the packets of milk that looks like a pyramid we get in primary school to encourage us to drink more milk. (It cost only 30 cent per pack!)

7. In secondary school, girls go to the library to borrow their favourite romance storybook.

8. In secondary school, girls altered their school skirt to shorten it and guys will go to the school appointed school uniform tailor shop to tailor make their school trousers to the then fashionable "baggy pants"!

9. During primary school days, the teacher will punish you using a ruler to hit your palm and cane on the buttock.

10. A bowl of noodles soup cost only 30cent in primary school days.

11. When you were in primary school, girls like to go to the bookshop to buy cute stuff such as animal erasers, various shape sharpeners, colourful notebook etc.

12. Yaohan Department Stores used to be a favourite hangout for families during weekends.

13. In secondary school days, you buy the Bata BM Turbo or Pallas Jazz school shoes. Some guys like to wear those china made ankle high shoes. Some even like to wear those very thick socks with their school shoes.

14. Internet? E-mail? What the hell is that?

15. So you thought a decade or more ago, your friends don't have pagers or hand phones in school.

16. CDs? What's that? Cassette tapes were the norm. Movie tickets used to cost less than $5 last time.

17. The goodies from Mama shop used to be Chickerdis, Mamee , Kum Kum, UFO, O-Ya, Ding Dang chocolate balls with toys in the box, colourful hard "egg", "cigerette" bubble gum, KIKI Bubble Gum, pink bottle of bubbles c/w a small tubes with yellow sticks to blow "more lasting" bubbles that you can pop more air in or slam it on.

18. You never forget 'Ti Kam'. When exams are over, the board games (e.g Monopoly, Donkey, Transportation Comparison Card) & held video games will be all over the class room.

19. Your favourite sound is the bell For it's the homemade ice cream man. The cream that tops Haagan Dazs !

20. And the other peddler you love is the old lady who sells juicy Muah Chee and thick olden syrup rolled in a balloon the tip of a chopstick

21. Another bell is the recess bell, a time to get away from school work and to eat.

22. Another time when there is no bell but all guys will anxiously wait for it...The PJ (Pendidikan Jasmani), PE time (time for football)

23. Your favourite childhood games were playing "guli"(marbles), five stones, five bottle cover, zero-point, catching, "Pepsi-Cola one two three" and/or "Police & Sentry"!

24. The best thirst quencher of all times is the yummy colourful ice tubes you can buy from provision shops for only 10cent. To eat them, break the tab and suck while holding the freezing tube!

25. All gals has a Barbie doll/strawberry shortcake/my little pony/pound puppy, while all boys have a soldiers figurine (combat) or a rubber band catapult that shoots folded paper!

26. Once was the era whereby ice-cream sticks were valuable items, then came the paper aircrafts, chalk fights.

27. Some boys made their own guns from wood, and used 'Bacali' as the bullets.

28. Some even used matches to shoot and burn kids' lanterns during Moon Cake Festival.

29. And your favourite holiday was Lunar New Year! New clothes, Ang Pows, shopping, junk food and family outings!

30. Let's see, the majority of students in universities today were born in 1987 / 88.... They are called "youth".

31. For them, they have never heard of the song "We are the World, we are the Children..." And the "Uptown Girl" they know is by 'West Life' but not 'Billy Joel'.

32. For them, there have always been only one Germany and only one Vietnam. AIDS exists since they were born.

33. CD exists since they were born.

34. Michael Jackson is already whitened.

35. John Travolta is always round in shape and they can't imagine how this fat guy could be a god of dance.

36. They believe that Spiderman and Incredible Hulk are just new films.

37. They can never imagine a black and white screen for a computer.

38. They never know what is Atari or 'Game & Watch'.

39. They can't believe a black and white television ever existed and they
don't even know how to switch on a TV without a remote control.

40. And they never understand how we can go out without a mobile phone when we
were in university...

Let's check if we're getting old...

1. You understand what was written above and you smile.

2. Most of your secondary school friends are getting married.

3. You are always surprised to see small children playing comfortably with
computer.

4. When you see teenagers with mobile phones, you shake your head.

5. You spend less and less time talking on phone with your friends daily.

6. When you meet your old friends from time to time, talking about the good old days, repeating again and again all funny stories you experienced together.

7. Lastly, having read this mail, you are thinking of forwarding it to some other old friends. You think they will like it too.....

Hahaha!.... Yes! We are getting old too...........

Brings back old memories huh?

Cheers to the 70s n 80s babies!!!

Eid Mubarak

2006-10-23T00:26:00.000-04:00

Eid Mubarak to all our Muslim readers

and

Selamat Hari Raya to our South-east Asian Muslim readers

We wish you peace and joy!

To all our non-Muslim readers, we also wish you peace and joy!

Response to Reader Comments on the Pope Article

2006-10-10T15:31:00.000-04:00

Alpheus said:

“When the early Fathers learned reason from the Greeks, this is not equal to 'polluted' but 'learned' to navigate history better. Why? because without reason, many civilizations would be dead by the sword by now (negotitate instead of fight) “.

The influx of Greek philosophy into Christianity came during its early days. The Crusades and the bloody wars in Europe came much later; all of it stemmed from issues within Christianity itself. Clearly, the influx of man-made reason, i.e., Greek philosophical thought, did not “better” Christianity because history shows that there was more sword than negotiation.

“The God of history is also the same Christian God who is transcendental to man's limited understanding. By the same principle of transcendence to which Islam subscribe as well, a religion that can learn reason is more capable, not polluted because something that is reasonable cannot pollute, otherwise it ceases to be reasonable. However, favoring non-reason, you can also argue that being transcendental, God can also be unreasonable. But this argument can only come from a mind that has concluded that the Transcendental God is unreasonable - and this choice of argument has nothing to do between being Christian or Islam”.

I think the point I was trying to make is that a true religion should not have to learn reason because a true religion is reason itself. Having reason (rationality) is having a good judgment and good sense. If Christianity lacked good judgment and good sense at its inception, and required the input of the human mind to provide these attributes, then how and why should one hold this to be a transcendent truth? Surely, God should not have had to rely on his Creation (Man) to perfect his truth for him?

Another reader said:

“Rationality, even if you label it a 'construct' is not changeable. When something is fundamentally rational from the beginning, it remains so for till the end of time. A thing that stands eternity cannot be simply a 'man-made construct'”

Well, that is your understanding. My understanding is that rationality can be derived from two sources – from the divine and from the human mind. It is my contention that the rationality of the human mind is changeable.

Let me give you an example. The religious teachings (Islam and Christianity) prohibit homosexuality, and call it an abomination and a sin. Believers cannot engage in such activities, and they are also to prevent others from doing so in society. This is a religious principle. So not too long ago, open homosexuality in society was discouraged. The religious principle dictated that the divinely inspired rationale behind prohibiting open homosexuality was accepted.

However, the discourse and theories on the topic changed over time with the separation of the church and the state, and the rise of individualism – a new form of rationality. Religion became something for the private domain, while the public domain developed its own set of rationality; acceptance of homosexuality is one of them.

Homosexuality is propagated as a natural condition, something acceptable in society. Consequently, it is no longer rational for someone to not condone homosexuality in society; it is not reasonable to be “homo-phobic”. The good judgment and good sense of the modern man in the West has evolved to accept homosexuality, even though the Christian principle clearly states otherwise. There are even Christian priests who are homosexuals with congregations that think it rational to accept homosexuality and stay a believer.

The Western man has formed his own rationality on the topic of homosexuality that contradicts a transcendent religious principle.

So I re-iterate that man-made constructs are changeable. And if the rationality we talk about is man-made, and without a transcendent principle, then it is open to change.

“The body of teachings of Christ as transmitted by the Bishop of Rome through the Early Fathers and through the Church is admittedly the only set of transcendent principles in the world that is still unchanged for the last 2000 years. Even when Greek rationality became the medium of thinking in theology, it did not change the transcendent principles of the Catholic church for the past 2000 years”.

Given the evidence shown by Christian theologians, I am inclined to believe that some of the transcendent principles in the Bible may be there in spirit, but certainly they have been modified.

"Lastly, I doubt if there is such a thing as a pure "genuine enlightenment" that is 100% independent of human mind. The fact that God uses a prophet's mind means there will always be human element in any revelation. So between 2 prophets, who determines the exclusion of the other? Therein lies the inevitable need for a dialogue".

Indeed, there should be dialogue between the two groups in order to promote mutual tolerance and understanding. But that doesn’t change the fact that Muslims call Prophet Muhammad a “Messenger” for a reason. His job was to relay God’s message in an undiluted form. The angel Gabriel told Muhammad to “recite”. When Muslims talk of God’s word, we do mean his words, and not Muhammad’s understanding of God’s words. The unchangeable divine rationality in Islam stems from the transcendent principles in God’s own words.

The Principled Stance

2006-10-09T13:49:00.000-04:00

The Muslim world has made its point. This can be seen in two recent events.

First, the youth wing of the Danish People’s Party was shown on television drawing mocking images of Prophet Muhammed. But this time around, the Danish Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, quickly denounced the drawing of new cartoons. Absent was the free speech and independent media excuse that the Danish Prime Minister used earlier this year. Instead, he condemned the latest drawings as “tasteless” and “unacceptable”. It is possible that he did so because he did not want a repeat of the widespread protests in Muslim countries that the first incident sparked, which left almost 50 people dead.

Second, the Pope today released a revised text of the speech that quoted a Byzantine emperor’s brusque criticism of Prophet Muhammed. In his revision, he makes it clear that he finds the brusque quote “unacceptable”.

The cartoons controversy and the Pope controversy have shown the world that the Muslim world will not tolerate mockery of religions, and that it is offensive. This is a principled stance that all Muslims abide by. Muslims are duty-bound to defend religions’ honour because it is transcendent truth that people try to live up to.

Sadly, it will be the violent acts that came about during the Muslim protests, and that were sensationalized by the mainstream media, which will stand foremost in the minds of the rest of the world. And so they can only view the principled stance with dubious eyes.

Correction to the Previous Article on Pope's Speech

2006-09-25T14:39:00.000-04:00

A reader of my blog commented (offline) that I had misunderstood parts of the Pope’s speech.

I had written:

What he says on this is profound: “The subject then decides, on the basis of his experiences, what he considers tenable in matters of religion, and the subjective "conscience" becomes the sole arbiter of what is ethical. In this way, though, ethics and religion lose their power to create a community and become a completely personal matter. This is a dangerous state of affairs for humanity, as we see from the disturbing pathologies of religion and reason which necessarily erupt when reason is so reduced that questions of religion and ethics no longer concern it. Attempts to construct an ethic from the rules of evolution or from psychology and sociology, end up being simply inadequate”.

I would agree with him; he is absolutely right that man-made constructs cannot frame a reasonable, ethical and moral society. And Christianity, as he himself has defined, is a combination of Jesus’ teachings and man-made constructs and elements, such as the Greek thought. It is a modified, man-made religion.

The reader said that the Pope actually is in disagreement with me in regards to the above. The reader said that the Pope was making a plea to the Christian world to not exclude theology from the study of science. I agree with that. The reader also said that the Pope was encouraging the study of theology as a science, so that man can come up with man-made constructs that involve religious ethics.

Well, on that point, I stand corrected.

The Pope's Speech is Not All About Violence in Islam

2006-09-23T14:02:00.000-04:00

What the Pope Meant

The recent controversy over Pope Benedict XVI’s comments on Islam in a major lecture at Regensburg University in Germany last week has once again showed that there is little religious commonality between the Christian and Muslim worlds, and for reasons mostly unstated in the mainstream media. There is no commonality between the two religions not because Islam is inherently a violent religion, and Christianity is a peaceful one. Instead, there is no commonality because the underlying basis of what religion actually is differs in both groups. The Pope, in his speech, illustrated that he believed that reason is something exogenous to religion (faith). He states in his speech that Christianity gained reason during its early days because of the beneficial input of Greek philosophical thought. With this premise, the Pope believes that the Christian religion has reason. And Islam, which did not experience a similar input, has no reason. The crux of his message was the since Christianity is a reasonable religion, then the increasingly secular Western world should embrace it within the purview of science, instead of rejecting Christianity as is happening in Europe.

Pope’s Views on Islam

The Pope, who is the highest religious leader in the Christian world, has decided to emphasize on the difference between Islam and Christianity by claiming that the roots of Christianity is reason while the roots of Islam is not. He has chosen to do this at this particular time for a reason. His quote from a Byzantine emperor, “Show me just what Muhammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached”, is yet another Western attempt to draw a link between acts of terrorism in the world today to Islam, the religion.

If the Pope were any other person, it would not have mattered so much. That he is the representative face of the Christian world; it forces one to pay close attention to what actually was said. The Pope would not be as bold as to state something that the Christian (or Western) world does not already believe in. Therefore, it makes absolutely no sense for the Muslim world to demand an apology from the Pope. Such a demand is demeaning to Muslims because it is akin to forcing someone to declare something aloud while retaining something else in the heart.

Muslims Should Not Ask for An Apology

The Muslim demand for an apology has resulted in a non-apology. The Pope has said: “At this time, I wish also to add that I am deeply sorry for the reactions in some countries to a few passages of my address at the University of Regensburg, which were considered offensive to the sensibility of Muslims. These in fact were a quotation from a medieval text, which do not in any way express my personal thought”.

The Pope is a thinking man, and a man of his age and wisdom, does not lightly pick quotations for a speech randomly. The quotation was picked because it expressed the Pope’s own thoughts on the topic of his speech that day “Faith is Reason” – Christianity is a reasonable and non-violent religion and Islam is not.

Pope’s Speech is Not about Violence in Religion

But it is in my opinion that a careful reading of the Pope’s words shows that the difference between Christianity and Islam is NOT in its attitude towards violence (one only has to look at Europe’s bloody history to dismiss the notion of Christianity as a peaceful religion), but rather in its conception and understanding of faith. The Pope very carefully explains in his speech how the early Christians incorporated Greek philosophical thought into Christianity. The Christian conception of reason in faith stems from the Greek tradition of philosophical thought. The Pope admits that the Christian faith benefited from the “mutual enrichment” between Christian thought and Greek thought; that is, the Christian faith benefited positively from the input of a man-made construct. The Pope called this an encounter between “genuine enlightenment and religion”. It is important to note that the Pope views the teachings in Greek philosophical thought as genuine enlightenment, not the teachings of Jesus Christ.

The Pope also mentions in his speech that Islam views God as absolutely transcendent. He says: “His (God) will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality. Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R. Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazn went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God’s will, we would even have to practice idolatry”.

Reason is Endogenous to Islam

The Pope is absolutely right in his reading of Islam’s view of a transcendent God. God indeed cannot be bound by a man-made category, or construct. When the rationality we speak of is a man-made construct, then God cannot be bound up by it. Clearly, God’s will is final, and if he were to even will us to be idol worshippers, that would be the case. But clearly, that is not his will, as evidenced by the multitude of prophets he has sent mankind over time. But, if the rationality we speak of is divine, then that is God’s rationality that we speak of, not a man-made rationality

The Pope spends the rest of his speech on the problem of defining only that which “results from the interplay of mathematical and empirical elements” as scientific. He states that humanity would be reduced when religious and ethical questions are considered as having no place within the collective reason of science.

And Muslims have a revealed religion that is all-encompassing; Islam does not require “genuine enlightenment” from the minds of men because it far surpasses what Man can come up with. There is a difference in a society that depends on the changeable man-made constructs for its ethical and moral foundational structure, and a society that has unchangeable transcendent principles as its foundational structure.

And therein, lays the difference between the two.

Innocent Man Sent to Syria and Tortured

2006-09-19T13:03:00.000-04:00

Today's news story of an innocent man sent by US authorities to be tortured in Syria does not surprise me, nor would it surprise most Muslims. The question is, what we do about it? When will we finally realize that this is not something that can only happen to someone else? When it happens to us?

Innocent Man Sent to Syria and Tortured, Probe Finds
Canadian Report Faults Mounties, U.S. for Deportation

By ROB GILLIES, AP

TORONTO (Sept. 19) - The United States "very likely" sent a Canadian software engineer to Syria, where he was tortured, based on the false accusation by Canadian authorities that he was suspected of links to al-Qaida, according to a new government report.

Syrian-born Maher Arar was exonerated of all suspicion of terrorist activity by the 2 1/2-year commission of inquiry into his case, which urged the Canadian government to offer him financial compensation. Arar is perhaps the world's best-known case of extraordinary rendition -- the U.S. transfer of foreign terror suspects to third countries without court approval.

"I am able to say categorically that there is no evidence to indicate that Mr. Arar has committed any offense or that his activities constitute a threat to the security of Canada," Justice Dennis O'Connor said Monday in a three-volume report on the findings of the inquiry, part of which was made public.

Arar was traveling on a Canadian passport when he was detained at New York's Kennedy Airport on Sept. 26, 2002, on his way home from vacation in

Tunisia

.

Arar said U.S. authorities sent him to Syria for interrogation as a suspected member of al-Qaida, a link he denied.

He spent nearly a year in prison in Syria and made detailed allegations after his release in 2003 about extensive interrogation, beatings and whippings with electrical cables. O'Connor criticized the U.S. and recommended that Ottawa file formal protests with both Washington and the Syrian government over Arar's treatment.

"The American authorities who handled Mr. Arar's case treated Mr. Arar in a most regrettable fashion," O'Connor wrote. "They removed him to Syria against his wishes and in the face of his statements that he would be tortured if sent there. Moreover, they dealt with Canadian officials involved with Mr. Arar's case in a less than forthcoming manner."

The U.S. is already under intense criticism from human rights groups over the practice of sending suspects to countries where they could be tortured.

U.S. and Syrian officials refused to cooperate with the Canadian inquiry.

The commission found the Royal Canadian Mounted Police shared information about Arar with American anti-terrorist agencies both before and after he was detained.

The RCMP asked the U.S. to put Arar on a watch list as an "Islamic extremist individual" suspected of links to the al-Qaida terrorist movement, the report said.

The request was issued after Arar met with another man who was under surveillance, a meeting Arar has said was about how to find inexpensive computer equipment.

"The RCMP had no basis for this description, which had the potential to create serious consequences for Mr. Arar in light of American attitudes and practices," the report said.

The RCMP described Arar as the "target" of a domestic anti-terrorist investigation in Canada when in fact he was a peripheral figure who had come under suspicion only because he had been seen in the company of the man who was under surveillance, the report found.

O'Connor said that much of the material shared with U.S. authorities had not been double-checked to ensure its accuracy and reliability -- a violation of the RCMP's usual rules for divulging information to foreign agencies.

O'Connor concluded that the inaccurate information passed by Canadian police to U.S. authorities "very likely" led to their decision to send Arar to Syria.

"It's quite clear that the RCMP sent inaccurate information to U.S. officials," Arar said at a news conference in Ottawa. "I would have not have even been sent to Syria had this information not been given to them."

"I have waited a long time to have my name cleared. I was tortured and lost a year of my life. I will never be the same," Arar said. "The United States must take responsibility for what it did to me and must stop destroying more innocent lives with its unlawful actions."

The commission concluded there was no evidence Canadian officials participated in or agreed to the decision to send Arar to Syria. But O'Connor recommended that in the future, information should never be provided to a foreign country where there is a credible risk that it will cause or contribute to the use of torture.

Most of the judge's 23 policy recommendations centered on the RCMP and emphasized the need to improve the force's internal policies for national security investigations and the sharing of information with other countries.

Arar's case has been regularly featured on the front pages of Canadian newspapers and public outcry led to the government calling an inquiry. Canada's federal government established the inquiry in 2004 to determine the role Canadian officials played.

O'Connor also found "troubling questions" about the role played by Canadian officials in the cases of three other Canadians of Arab descent -- Ahmad El Maati, Abdullah Almalki and Muayyed Nureddin. All claim they were tortured in Syria after traveling there on personal business, and all suspect that the RCMP, Canadian intelligence or both collaborated with their captors.

O'Connor said he could not get to the bottom of those cases because of the limited nature of his mandate. But he urged the government to appoint an independent investigator -- something short of a full-fledged public inquiry -- to look into those cases.

O'Connor sifted through thousands of pages of documents and sat through testimony from more than 40 witnesses. He delivered two versions of his report to the government: one classified, the other public. But portions of even the public edition of the long-awaited document were withheld due to security concerns.

9/19/2006 06:23:35

Text of Pope's Speech

2006-09-17T14:11:00.000-04:00

I came across this comment from a Muslim reader in response to the Pope's recent speech, which I found interesting. Let me know what you all think of it. I will comment on this recent controversy in a bit.

"The text of the pope's speech confirms what is written in the Koran : the Church changed the words of the book of genesis to adopt the "reason" as was then championed by the Greeks who were pagans. The church's faith is then not following the first book of genesis, but is pagan at its foundation, and considers reason as something outside of God's message. The Old Testament, the New Testament (the non-modified version), and the Koran are the only true texts from God. Koran is the only text from God still unchanged and practiced today on earth. Reason is something internal to the Islamic faith as opposed to being external to the church's faith, an aspect explained by the pope himself. Therefore, from the point of view who anyone who is following the words of God and not modifications of these words, the pope is a pagan, the church is pagan, its followers are pagans, and it is rightly for Muslims to defend God's words against the pagans and dis-believers. The Pope well explained how and why John changed even God's words to suit the reason of the ancient Greeks. The pope will find peace by converting to Islam, and performing shaddah and the sallat if he wants to go to heaven. Pagans have always been big mouths throughout history, because inside themselves they feel empty and they know that they changed the words of God. We Muslims are at peace with ourselves and with God, and we are right and the only non-pagans on earth today".

Read the pope in his own words at:

http://www.singahut.com/PopeSpeech.html

Manliness

2006-09-09T13:50:00.000-04:00

Men acting manly, says Harvard University professor Harvey Mansfield, are what this world needs more of. In his latest book, Manliness, Mansfield argues that men and women have been hurt by the notion of a gender-neutral society; a notion that was dreamt of by feminists. His overarching point is that men should be allowed to be men. And just what are men? He writes that men and women are innately different, and the stereotypical image we have of men has been proven by science. Men are aggressive and assertive, aren’t afraid to fight or kill, especially to protect the weak, they are determined, and they get things done. Most importantly, manly men have confidence in situations of risk. Situations of risk can be a question of impending danger, and it can also be a question where authority is contested. Manly confidence and manliness entails an ability to take charge or to be authoritative in that situation. Mansfield claims that while women also have confidence, they do not seek out situations of risk in the way manly men do, and therein lays the difference.

With this definition of manly men, Mansfield is not telling us anything new about men. His treatise on feminism and the disempowerment of manly men while intriguing is also nothing new. What Mansfield does say that is new (and controversial) is that there is a danger in the growing lack of manliness in the Western society. Boys in schools are not being taught to be men, and that is a danger for the Western political world because manly heroes are needed in the world of politics. He further states that manliness is at odds with modernity because the basic idea of modernism is the rational control of things. Mansfield says that modernism is the reduction of risk for the sake of greater security while manly men like risk, seek risk out, and they do not care for security. Manly men consider security “boring” (Harvey Mansfield Talks Manliness, Human Events: The National Conservative Weekly, Aug. 31, 2006).

He also suggests that the decline in manliness in Western political culture impairs the West’s understanding of the Middle East and the Arab world, where there is an excess of manly men abound. These manly Muslim men suffer because they lose out compared to the rest of the world, resulting in the extremist policies that Mansfield claims Muslims have enacted for over half a century. Therefore, efforts to democratize the Middle East will encounter obstacles because Islam with its consequent of manly men is contrary to democratic ideals. Not unlike what was claimed by Tocqueville.

Even the terrorists fit into Mansfield’s definition of manliness because terrorists are not afraid of death, seek out risk, and are unconcerned about the insecurity of their situation. Consequently, they are powerful manly men because they fear not what others do.

Mansfield’s argument on manly men is one that is convoluted and logically flawed. He states that manliness (by his definition) is contradictory to modernism because manly men are not about rational control. And yet, he advocates that there be more of manly men in society. That is akin to advocating that the West need to have more of uncontrolled men. The manly men that fit into his definition – i.e. manly men like risk, seek risk out, and they do not care for security – include men presently involved in the various bloody battles being waged in the world today. It would include men involved in The War on Terror, The War in Iraq, The War that was in

Lebanon

, The War Against Islamo-Facists and so on. There is no virtue in being one of Mansfield’s manly men – for even terrorists fit into his manly man criteria. Is that not reason enough to limit Mansfield enough of uncontrolled and irrational manly men in the world.

It is a far stretch to go from men being confident and authoritative in situations of risk to men actually seeking out and in thriving risky situations. It is almost as if Mansfield decided that his manly men should be those with the “thrill-seeker” personality type. The thrill-seeker seeks out situations of risk without a care for security, the aim being experiencing the thrill of the situation. The thrill seeker’s aim is not to reduce or eliminate risk or danger because that would mean the end of what he thrives on. When the aim is not the cessation of risk, rather to experience risk, then Mansfield’s man is not being manly. Instead, Mansfield’s man is just a thrill-seeker, an atypical type of man. Check out "Behavioral Expression and Biosocial Bases of Sensation Seeking" by Marvin Zuckerman (Cambridge University Press, 1994) for more on this personality type. Would it be rational to have thrill-seeking men in politics?

Clearly it is not rational. Mansfield himself acknowledges that his manly men and modernism are at odds, which suggests that he is advocating the dismantling of modern society as we know it. In its place, he would have his Western manly men who are ready to do battle with the other manly (and threatening) men.

In Mansfield’s world, it is the Muslim manly men that “threaten” the Western world because the democratization attempts in the Mid-east will face obstacles. Mansfield is advocating that in order to face up to the so-called threat of Muslim manly men, the West should prepare the ground for its own manly men. This sort of thinking leads to nothing, but a repeat of humanity’s bloody history in the Crusades. Have we not learnt anything?

The issue Western society faces is not a lack of readiness to face danger, or experience risky situations (that is clearly not evident in today’s political climate). There is a real and observable decline in the role of masculinity in society. But Mansfield’s definition of manly men is so flawed that he fails to go to the heart of the real issue, which is this declining role of Western masculinity AND the subsequent increase in societal ills, like divorce. His attempt to counter the observable trend of the declining role of masculinity in Western society by advocating that boys be encouraged to be risk-taking thrill-seekers is juvenile.

Mansfield is also painfully wrong on there being a surfeit of Muslim manly men (by his definition). He is right that there are Muslim manly men who have words like honour, respect, principled, and righteousness in their cultural lexicon. However, what he observes, but fails to understand is that they are manly men not because they are inclined to “extremist policies” but rather they are manly because they respect their women as wives, daughters, sisters, and mothers. Muslim men are manly because they place family and society above the self. They are manly because they detest risk, and avoid risk when they can, but they do act to decrease risk when they have to. Finally, they are manly men because they choose to be obedient to God. These attributes are not unique only to Muslims, of course. There are other Eastern cultures that place emphasis on the above manly attributes.

And when men do not fit into the above definition of manly men, then they would fit into Mansfield’s definition, which is that of the risk-taking thrill seeker without a care for security and peace. But for humanity’s sake, let us leave such men to the fringes of society where they belong. manly men? Surely, we have more than

Snakes on a Plane: Racialization of Muslims

2006-09-04T00:47:00.000-04:00

When I received an email recently with a link to a trailer for the new movie Snakes on a Plane, I thought instantly that this was yet another movie about Islamic terrorists striking planes with planted bombs. Given the current climate, where traveling Muslims on planes are harassed by vigilante passengers keen on identifying potential terrorists, I am sure I was not the only one who thought the way I did.

In actuality, the movie is about someone who deposits a boxful of dangerous snakes into the plane in an attempt to kill off a crucial witness about to testify in a high-profile case. The hero in the film, who does battle with the snakes, happens to be a passenger on the plane.

But however laughable this film is, it happens to be an apt metaphor for the events in recent past. The little elderly white woman who refused to allow the Malaga-Manchester plane to depart on schedule and caused the detainment of two British students because she was afraid of being “killed” by dangerous snakes (i.e. the two students who had brown skin) was an example of passenger vigilantism ala Samuel L. Jackson. She had succeeded to rally several other passengers to her cause. Just like Samuel apparently does in the movie: “Enough is enough. I have had it with these **#$@ snakes on this **#$@ plane”.

If you look like a snake, you must be a snake. If you slither like a snake, you must be a snake. If only it were that easy, when it comes to identifying terrorists on a plane. It is well-known that Hindus, Sikhs and Mexicans, or anyone else that fit the stereotypical physical image of Muslims (brown skinned, beards or head scarves) have been subject to violence, harassment and racial slurs. Today, we can also add that rifling through plastic bags, if you fit the above image, is a trigger for getting arrested under suspicion of performing terrorist-like behaviour. So much for behavioural profiling, as well!

I came across an interesting article today that illustrated one of the implications of racial profiling. The article suggested that law enforcement measures, politicians, religious leaders and the media have contributed to stereotyping Muslims as a race. The point of the article was that it is problematic to portray a faith as a race because there is no set of shared physical characteristics. Yet, the article suggests that the intensified US law enforcement scrutiny, especially at airports, has played a large part in creating a new racial identity. The article also warns of the danger of racializing Muslims, pointing to the rejection of French-born Muslims of French identity that resulted in violence earlier this year (9/11: Five years later typecasting Muslims as a race, Sept. 3, 2006, San Francisco Chronicle).

If America does what France has done, that is, oppose their citizens’ right to be French Muslims citizens as opposed to French citizens, then there may be danger of alienating American Muslims. However, contrary to what the article suggests about racialization process, I actually can see a silver lining in this process. If this process can help break down the existing racial and cultural barriers between the varied American Muslim ethnic groups, then it will strengthen and solidify the community. To date, American Muslims are divided by racial bigotry that differentiates between Arab Muslim, African Muslim and South Asian Muslim and so on. This has weakened Muslims as a lobbying group. If this racialization process moves towards this positive light, American Muslims will be the first in the world to represent a truly ideal multi-ethnic Muslim community.

ps:
If you have been detained without explanation while traveling, please report the incident to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in New York at (212) 870-2002. At least, the data of such incidents collected by CAIR would be proof of the invalidity of the Justice Department and Homeland Security’s assertions that racial profiling is not in place at US airports.

Flying While Muslim

2006-08-28T16:44:00.000-04:00

I am under no illusions that a blog like this can affect public mood, but in the least, what it can do is attest to the social awakening of at least one more member of the silent Muslim majority. It is troubling that average Muslims are adversely affected by the increasingly negative portrayal of them on basis of the actions of a few. Each report of alleged terrorist plots by a handful of Muslims is inevitably followed by the blanket treatment of increased scrutiny and hostility to all Muslims. Today, this is apparent in the way Muslims are treated at airports when they want to travel. Muslims boarding a plane are viewed with suspicion. There has been an increase in the number of Muslims being racially profiled and unjustifiably detained by airport and airlines authorities. Two recent examples, which are summarized later in this blog, illustrate this problem.

Muslims, have for the most part, accepted these unjust acts because they choose to understand that people are acting out of fear. They understand that people are afraid of being blown apart in mid-air while on a plane. The majority of Muslims react to news like the recent United Kingdom foiled terror plots in much the same way as a non-Muslim would – apprehension, shock, fear, and outrage. There is a legitimate fear, one that is shared across the board by all, including Muslims. However, it is also clear that the silent acceptance of unjust racial profiling policies has not abated the intense scrutiny and hostility towards Muslims. If anything, it has exacerbated the problem. Since September 11, racial profiling, unjust harassment and detainment by airport officials towards traveling Muslims has become commonplace.

This fact is not acknowledged by the mainstream world media. The notion that everyone undergoes intensive checks is widespread. And that may be true in so far as people going through the security checks through airport checkpoints. However, the mainstream media ignores racial profiling that lead to Muslim being interrogated, harassed and detained at airports. Not everyone is singled out. There are far more incidents at airports involving Muslim people than not. Common Muslim names and the ordering of Muslim special meals on airlines, the final destination of the trip, and where you have flown in from are just some of the markers that are used by airport and airline officials to single out Muslims for special treatment.

By accepting racial profiling, Muslims are unknowingly acknowledging that they have something to be ashamed of. By accepting unjustifiable racial profiling policies, they are also reinforcing in the minds of the others that they should be discriminated against because they are indeed capable of being a potential terrorist. This is too dangerous a perception to stay silent about.

Today, it is racial profiling of Muslims at airports. What will it be tomorrow?

In these times more than in any other time, it is unacceptable to quietly accept the racial profiling others impose on Muslims. It is not enough to live your life in hopes that others will see you as the rule and not the exception. If this sort of thinking is allowed to perpetuate, it can only lead to further damage to our lives as we know it.

Consequences of Racial Profiling

Firstly, when airport and airline officials single out a Muslim under racial profiling, they send out a signal to the Muslim and to all the onlookers that the individual is a potential terrorist. It is no surprise then when people baselessly accuse those of “typically Muslim appearance” of being potential terrorists. It is no surprise then when people have a sick fearful feeling when they see a typically Muslim person sit next to them in an airplane. This is a harmful signal that propagates like a viral infection until all of society is infected. Further, there are 1.3 billion Muslims worldwide. In the Western world, there are 6 million in the United States and almost 22 million Muslims in Europe. That is a whole lot of people in society to alienate and disaffect through racial profiling.

Secondly, the Muslim majority must be vocal about what we are and what we are not because if we are not, then we will lose out in this war of ideas. When we have others speak on behalf of us, we lose out because others will not always have our interests at heart. The antagonistic term “Islamic-fascists” uttered recently by President George Bush is an example of this. Never mind that President Bush got his advice and encouragement from Muslim-haters disguised as political analysts, such as Lebanese-Christian Fouad Ajami. Never mind that the term itself is factually incorrect – fascism denotes a state marked by the centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship. Fascism implies that there is a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism. However, there is no centralized authority in Islam. Muslims do not have a Pope to follow as the Catholics do. This is just one more example of mass misinformation regarding Islam and Muslims.

Summary of Two Recent News Events that Illustrate Racial Profiling

Incident 1:

On August 23, 2006, a plane bound for India returned to Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport after “after several passengers displayed behavior of concern," Northwest Airlines said in a written statement. Passengers on the plane said air marshals intervened after several men began fidgeting with mobile phones and plastic bags. Two Dutch F-16 jets accompanied the 273-seat DC10-30 plane on its return to Amsterdam. When the plane landed, police arrested 12 of the 149 passengers on the Northwest Airlines flight 42 to Mumbai on Wednesday. On August 24, 2006, it was revealed that all 12 arrested were males born in Mumbai, according to the Indian junior foreign minister Anand Sharma. But some apparently held other passports, an Indian Foreign Ministry official added. On the same day, Dutch Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner told journalists in The Hague that the incident did “not appear to be terror related.” And according to CNN, a spokeswoman for the Dutch counter-terrorism office added: "There is no indication of a terrorist threat on the plane that returned to Schiphol."

Indications that racial profiling was a key in this incident include several statements from some of the passengers on the airplane: Sarat Menon, a Dutch-speaking Indian who works in Brussels, said he had chatted to the group, all men, in an airport coffee bar before take-off. They told him they had been on holiday in Tobago. 'Four of them had long beards. They spoke Urdu. They were certainly not highly educated people,' he told the daily Telegraaf. Nitin Patel, an Indian who lives in Boston, told the AD newspaper he had the feeling 'that these men wanted to hijack the aircraft.' They were also described as of 'typically Muslim appearance.' According to passengers, a mobile phone rang and the group cheered, prompting an anxious response among cabin crew. One of them had a guitar case with him. The men were reported to have been sending text messages, passing their mobile phones among each other and walking down the aisles before the seat belt light was turned off.

We know from reports that some of the men had beards, and so were of “typically Muslim appearance”. Apparently, that was enough to invite scrutiny. When they did what travelers would normally do when traveling in a large group – i.e., passing things around between themselves and searching for things in the hand luggage – something I know I myself do when I travel alone, it became a magnified security problem.

And it was also reported in the same CNN article on August 24, 2006 that the men had not been formally charged. But an airport policeman said authorities had enough information to hold the 12 for at least three days. However, the truth emerged a few days later when all 12 men were released and flew back home to India where they told their stories.

The mainstream Western media were eerily silent on the follow-up to this story. Given the explosive coverage given to the arrests of the 12, the average person would think that another (yet again) terror plot involving Muslims was foiled.

What is saddening was a remark from one of 12 men: “It is sad that we were taken for terrorists - despicable people - but it is just fate,".

Incident 2:

On August 16, two Brits of South-Asian origin was forced to leave a plane bound to Manchester from Malaga, Spain, after passengers “became suspicious of their behaviour”, which reportedly amounted to “speaking Arabic” and being “seen repeatedly checking their watches”. The men, 22 year-old students, had gone through the extensive security checks before boarding the plane. Yet, Monarch Airlines pilot insisted that the men be removed for “security reasons” stemming from the Spanish authorities, which was later determined to be untrue. This incident is even more worrying – passengers actually dictated to the airlines that the two students be removed because they were “uncomfortable”. The fact that these two students had undergone and cleared the extensive security checks was lost upon these passengers. It is shocking that the airlines abided the requests of these passengers. If there was anyone that should have been forced to leave the airplane, it should have been those passengers who had raised a ruckus in the first place. If they were uncomfortable, then they should have not boarded the airplane. Instead, they caused the needless delay of the flight and the detainment of two innocent passengers because of racial discrimination.

What do the two examples show? It tells of the growing racial profiling of Muslims. And one can be sure that there are numerous unreported examples of discriminatory incidents occurring in airports around the world today. This is a worrying trend.

Statistics

Let’s look at this from a statistical perspective to illustrate just how irrational people have gotten. There are 1.6 million Muslims in the UK. 24 Muslims in UK were allegedly plotting terrorism. That is 0.0015% of the UK Muslim population! Now let us even say that there are 1000 more of fellow plotters out there in the UK – that’s still only 0.067% of the Muslim population. Where does that leave the rest of the Muslim population in UK? When does is become acceptable to affect 99.93% of the Muslim population for the alleged crimes of 0.067%?

There are about 1.3 billion Muslims worldwide. I am not even going to bother to show the numbers involving say even 200K of potential Muslim terrorists worldwide. But one gets the idea. Apologists for racial profiling say that these mad people are acting out of fear. How can alienating 99.9% of Muslims with racist policies make good tactical sense?

Finally, probability theory says that the chances of something happening the next time are not necessarily related to what has already happened. Data shows that one’s chances of being killed in an aircraft are about 1 in 11 million. On the other hand, the chances of being killed in an automobile accident are 1 in 5000. Statistically, one is at far greater risk driving to the airport than getting on an airplane. However, the perception (called the gambler’s fallacy) is that you have more control over your fate when you are in your car than as a passenger. Data shows otherwise considering that over 50,000 people are killed on the highways every year.

A joke told among mathematicians demonstrates the nature of the fallacy. When flying on an airplane, a man decides to always bring a bomb with him. "The chances of an airplane having a bomb on it are very small," he reasons, "and certainly the chances of having two are almost none!"

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler's_fallacy

When taken from a statistical perspective, it is starkly clear how absurd people have gotten.

It is unacceptable to racially profile people. And it is about time Muslims took a stand on this madness before it escalates into things previously unimaginable. I am not convinced that this is as far-fetched as it appears to be given the growing acceptance of racial profiling and discrimination based on irrational fears.