Category: The Dish

SecDef says today that he just heard about the U.A.E. port company decision. This blog says he sat on the committee that unanimously approved the sale February 13. Hmmm.

I cannot express enough my contempt for the sniveling neo-Nazi, David Irving. That he has such an obviously first-rate mind makes his bigotry all the more repulsive. But … imprisoning someone for their beliefs, however vile, is a violation of basic Western freedoms. We cannot lecture the Muslim world on freedom of speech, while criminalizing it in the West. I know there’s a historical reason for the Austrian law. That doesn’t make it any less objectionable in principle. And what has just happened will only deepen the sense that the West has double-standards among many Muslims.

They’re incorrigible.

The bear subculture makes it to Wikipedia. But some are now officially post-bear, apparently. My own take on the phenom is here. Camille’s is here.

It’s increasingly the issue of our time: can Islam be reconciled to modernity, to a globalized world, dedicated to individual freedom and free markets? Most of the time, I tend to the gloomy view, especially when you see the variants of Islam who get the most press and wield the most influence. The content of the Koran, as well as its alleged origins as a direct message from God also make scholarship, and a reformation, much more problematic than for, say, Christianity. A reader nevertheless insists that there is another reformist current that we should neither ignore nor dismiss:

"Since the early 1900s there have been vigorous movements within Muslim and Arab countries to democratize; there have been activists, writers, thinkers, all of whom are unfortunately in eclipse today, but whose past influence and history make clear that there is another way, even in Islam. Here are two from Pakistan and India: from Pakistan, there was the Frontier Gandhi, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan; a great profile of him ran in the Progressive Magazine. Or, read about Maulana Azad, one of the leaders of the Indian independence movement and still revered among Indian Muslims as their most significant national leader.

Want something closer to the Arab heartland? How about reading up on al-Nahda – the Arab Renaissance – with its reformers, intellectuals, and political developments, including the great Egyptian intellectual Taha Hussein and the Egyptian secularist Ali Abd al-Raziq. And here’s an article about the debate in Egypt between secularism and Islamism."

Thanks for the info. I cannot vouch for all of it, as I am not an expert in this area. But more of us need to be. We should also be aware and more supportive of contemporary Muslim moderates who are speaking out. My reader recommends two more: columnists Ardeshir Cowasjee and Irfan Husain of the Pakistani paper Dawn. Then there’s blogospheric moderate Muslims, Imam Zaid Shakir, and the group blog, Aqoul. One thing I’ve learned these past few years. We need to be a little less certain of what we know about the Muslim world, who is our enemy, who isn’t. Winning this war requires subtlety, engagement, openness to the other’s argument. As readers know, I have no patience for the extremists in Islam, and no doubt about their current ascendancy. But they are not all there is. And we need to do a better job of reaching out to and understanding the arguments of their internal opponents.

The forces for democratization from below in Iran just got a boost – from Freddie Mercury. Keep hope alive.

The Iranian leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, keeps referring to the "Hidden Imam" in his public speeches. This is a little like hearing an American president publicly saying that his policies are dictated by the "Left Behind" series of apocalyptic fiction. Amir Taheri notes an Ahmadinejad speech last month. Here’s Mahmoud:

"They just don’t get it. They think that because they pass a resolution everyone is obliged to obey them. Our message is simple: Pass resolutions until you are blue in the face! We are guided by what the Hidden Imam tells us, not what you dictate in your resolutions."

Here’s a brief account of the doctrine of the Hidden Imam:

"The Hidden Imam will eventually leave his Greater Occultation and appear (zuhur) to the world of humanity. This return is the most significant event in the future for the Shi’ite faithful and has thunderous eschatological consequences. This return will occur shortly before the Final Judgement and the end of history. Imam Mahdi will return at the head of the forces of righteousness and do battle with the forces of evil in one, final, apocalyptic battle."

I don’t know what to make of the fact that a man guided by an eschatological cataclysm is eagerly attempting to get nuclear weapons. But it can’t be good news.

That’s how it looks.

Looking for the bright side, the Guardian’s correspondent visits a women’s factory. An unveiled woman sees him and screams in panic. One big problem with women workers: they have no way to get to the factories, because they are barred from driving, and it’s too dangerous to take cabs. Then there’s this:

"Although women still cannot vote or drive, the last few years have brought important changes, even if they stop well short of equality. Women can now officially exist in their own right with their own identity cards, rather than being included on the card of their husband or father. Travel restrictions have been eased, allowing them to get blanket permission from a male relative for travel abroad, rather than needing separate permission for each trip."

My italics. Here’s a question for Hollywood: why do we rarely see movies about the brutalization of women in Islamic countries? Isn’t this virtual slavery a vital human rights issue? Shouldn’t this appeal to liberal film-makers? The other day, I watched "Not Without My Daughter," the harrowing account of an American woman trapped in Iran by her Iranian husband and his family. The movie was made fifteen years ago. Have I missed any more recent mainstream movies about the persecution of women in the Middle East?