Turkey is by far the most westernized Muslim country in the world. Istanbul, Turkey, is geographically and also is considered Europe. Istanbul in my opinion, actually has more of a european feel that many other european countries.</strong><hr></blockquote>
A Muslim-European summit is short on honesty and long on clichés.
BY TUNKU VARADARAJAN
Thursday, February 21, 2002 12:01 a.m.
[quote]ISTANBUL, Turkey - There was an episode to savor here last week, at a meeting of foreign ministers from the European Union and the Organization of the Islamic Conference - a body that purports to represent the Islamic world, and which is the only international organization of states defined purely in terms of religion.
In a ballroom with radiant views of the Bosphorus, Kamal Kharrazi, the foreign minister of Iran, posed stiffly for a photograph at an evening reception. A dapper, bearded chap, he passed a hand over his chin as a posse of Turkish cameramen edged him closer to a window. Suddenly, one of his minders darted behind Mr. Kharrazi and hustled a waitress out of sight. She was bearing a tray with glasses of wine and would have appeared, alcohol and all, just behind the minister's right shoulder had she stayed in the frame. This, one assumes, would not have gone down well back in Tehran, though the wine, a lively Anatolian red, was going down a treat at the reception - with momentarily impious Muslims and unbelievers alike.
The beauty of Turkey - and by this I mean the elegance of its cultural practices - lies in the fact that it is the only state in the Muslim world audacious enough to convene a conference with more than 40 Islamic foreign ministers present alongside their European counterparts, and then to include the country's leading winemaker and its most popular brewery among the event's sponsors. This may seem trivial in the grand scheme of things - and the theme of the two-day conference, "Civilization and Harmony: The Political Dimension," was grandiose indeed - but it is in these touches of Western custom, these flashes of cultural independence, that one detects the true nature of Turkey's separateness from the ummah, or the Islamic world.
Take another vignette. At Istanbul's Sultanahmet Mosque - known to Westerners as the "Blue Mosque" - I was part of a group of visitors approached by the imam. We knew he was the imam only because he told us so, for his aspect - dark pinstriped suit, white shirt, red floral tie, and the barest designer stubble on his face - revealed not a hint of his vocation. Nowhere else in the Islamic world (and certainly not in mosques in New York or London) would an imam dress in so cosmopolitan a way while on duty, or have so feeble a beard.
What is more, he shook hands with the ladies in our group, and posed for pictures. One woman, a forward type from Germany, asked what seemed an impertinent question: "Sir," she said, with that inimitably Teutonic straightness of face, "you don't mind images?" To which the imam chuckled, then replied: "Madame, this is Turkey."
The imam's repartee was more profound than it might have sounded to his listeners. It laid bare, in a mere phrase, the contours of contemporary Turkish life. In 1924, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, made this observation in a speech to the nation: "Countries may vary, but civilization is one, and for a nation to progress, it must take part in this one civilization. The decline of the Ottomans began when, proud of their triumphs over the West, they cut their ties with the European nations. This was a mistake which we will not repeat."
Indeed, Turkish politics, and much of Turkish life, might be described as an anxiously choreographed ballet, with every move measured to ensure that the historic mistake to which Ataturk referred - to wit, a disregard of Western ways - is always avoided...<hr></blockquote>
before you guys start saying now, "Turkey is ok, the rest of the islamic world is wrong"
My second "homeland" Indonesia, biggest muslim country in the world, is like this too..
you might have heard some nasty things from there, but that's is coming from a very small group (but I admit, too big as well) which is funded by extremist groups..
people, cristians and muslims live in harmony and peace in Indonesia (yes, I know, again not everywhere). The fights between muslims and cristians have mostly taken place at the Maluku's, this because a group of 2000 men (muslims ) where sent there to start riots.
The people living there have recently been very happy due to agreements between cristian leaders and muslim leaders, they have always been neighbours, friends and even family.
A ferm majority of muslims in Indonesia do not hate the USA, muslims DO NOT HATE the USA. Get it out of your heads!!
Even in my family we have cristians AND muslims, all very happy going together..
After giving careful thought I have to conclude that this Gallup poll is not very indicative of the muslim mindset and may have been skewed by people with alterior motives. Think about it; almost 10,000 were polled in 9 countries. The combined population of 3 of the largest countries (Iran, Pakistan, Indonesia) is 445 million (according to <a href="http://emuseum.mnsu.edu/information/population/"; target="_blank">this</a>) and 10,000 is .225%. Not even one quarter of one percent. Now imagine if I factor in ALL 9 nations! The sample was too insignificantly small to draw any conclusions from. Where were these people asked? As they were walking out of mosques? During Anti-US rallies? Who knows.
<strong>After giving careful thought I have to conclude that this Gallup poll is not very indicative of the muslim mindset and may have been skewed by people with alterior motives. Think about it; almost 10,000 were polled in 9 countries. The combined population of 3 of the largest countries (Iran, Pakistan, Indonesia) is 445 million (according to <a href="http://emuseum.mnsu.edu/information/population/"; target="_blank">this</a>) and 10,000 is .225%. Not even one quarter of one percent. Now imagine if I factor in ALL 9 nations! The sample was too insignificantly small to draw any conclusions from. Where were these people asked? As they were walking out of mosques? During Anti-US rallies? Who knows.</strong><hr></blockquote>
In polls like this the number asked/population doesn´t mean the world. As long as its above 1000 its "enough" despite the population, but always count in a certain inaccuracy of a couple of percent and if you want to compare between lets say all 50 states in Us you have to have much more.
The other issue is much more important: Who did they ask and in what situation? Telephone interview is very hard to do in countries without the infrastructure of western europe (you won´t get the average population) and if they interviewed the people on the street I would be very sceptical about the validity of the Gallup.
And another factor to consider is the language and cultural differences not only between "us" and "them" but also between the countries in the Gallup. For instance words can be loaded with emotions, you can have languages that rely more on figurative speech, you can have another understanding of even factual questions aso. More scientific quantitative inquires use a lot of energy on questions like that, especially when the interviewed come from different countries, the audience of the Gallup is from other countries or when you compare figures over long time periodes (the same sentence can mean something completly different twenty years later.)
Backpacking in Indonesia is one of the best experiences I've had. It is by far the most friendly, beautiful and inexpensive country I've ever visited...
The worst thing about Indonisia is all the Australian surfers...
To Muslims the Koran is the very word of God, who spoke through the Angel Gabriel to Muhammad: "This book is not to be doubted," the Koran declares unequivocally at its beginning. Scholars and writers in Islamic countries who have ignored that warning have sometimes found themselves the target of death threats and violence, sending a chill through universities around the world.
Yet despite the fear, a handful of experts have been quietly investigating the origins of the Koran, offering radically new theories about the text's meaning and the rise of Islam.
Christoph Luxenberg, a scholar of ancient Semitic languages in Germany, argues that the Koran has been misread and mistranslated for centuries. His work, based on the earliest copies of the Koran, maintains that parts of Islam's holy book are derived from pre-existing Christian Aramaic texts that were misinterpreted by later Islamic scholars who prepared the editions of the Koran commonly read today.
So, for example, the virgins who are supposedly awaiting good Islamic martyrs as their reward in paradise are in reality "white raisins" of crystal clarity rather than fair maidens.
Christoph Luxenberg, however, is a pseudonym, and his scholarly tome ""The Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Koran" had trouble finding a publisher, although it is considered a major new work by several leading scholars in the field. Verlag Das Arabische Buch in Berlin ultimately published the book.
The caution is not surprising. Salman Rushdie's "Satanic Verses" received a fatwa because it appeared to mock Muhammad. The Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz was stabbed because one of his books was thought to be irreligious. And when the Arab scholar Suliman Bashear argued that Islam developed as a religion gradually rather than emerging fully formed from the mouth of the Prophet, he was injured after being thrown from a second- story window by his students at the University of Nablus in the West Bank. Even many broad-minded liberal Muslims become upset when the historical voracity and authenticity of the Koran is questioned.
The reverberations have affected non-Muslim scholars in Western countries. "Between fear and political correctness, it's not possible to say anything other than sugary nonsense about Islam," said one scholar at an American university who asked not to be named, referring to the threatened violence as well as the widespread reluctance on United States college campuses to criticize other cultures.
While scriptural interpretation may seem like a remote and innocuous activity, close textual study of Jewish and Christian scripture played no small role in loosening the Church's domination on the intellectual and cultural life of Europe, and paving the way for unfettered secular thought. "The Muslims have the benefit of hindsight of the European experience, and they know very well that once you start questioning the holy scriptures, you don't know where it will stop," the scholar explained.
The touchiness about questioning the Koran predates the latest rise of Islamic militancy. As long ago as 1977, John Wansbrough of the School of Oriental and African Studies in London wrote that subjecting the Koran to "analysis by the instruments and techniques of biblical criticism is virtually unknown."
Mr. Wansbrough insisted that the text of the Koran appeared to be a composite of different voices or texts compiled over dozens if not hundreds of years. After all, scholars agree that there is no evidence of the Koran until 691 ? 59 years after Muhammad's death ? when the Dome of the Rock mosque in Jerusalem was built, carrying several Koranic inscriptions.
These inscriptions differ to some degree from the version of the Koran that has been handed down through the centuries, suggesting, scholars say, that the Koran may have still been evolving in the last decade of the seventh century. Moreover, much of what we know as Islam ? the lives and sayings of the Prophet ? is based on texts from between 130 and 300 years after Muhammad's death.
In 1977 two other scholars from the School for Oriental and African Studies at London University ? Patricia Crone (a professor of history at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton) and Michael Cook (a professor of Near Eastern history at Princeton University) ? suggested a radically new approach in their book "Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World."
Since there are no Arabic chronicles from the first century of Islam, the two looked at several non-Muslim, seventh-century accounts that suggested Muhammad was perceived not as the founder of a new religion but as a preacher in the Old Testament tradition, hailing the coming of a Messiah. Many of the early documents refer to the followers of Muhammad as "hagarenes," and the "tribe of Ishmael," in other words as descendants of Hagar, the servant girl that the Jewish patriarch Abraham used to father his son Ishmael.
In its earliest form, Ms. Crone and Mr. Cook argued, the followers of Muhammad may have seen themselves as retaking their place in the Holy Land alongside their Jewish cousins. (And many Jews appear to have welcomed the Arabs as liberators when they entered Jerusalem in 638.)
The idea that Jewish messianism animated the early followers of the Prophet is not widely accepted in the field, but "Hagarism" is credited with opening up the field. "Crone and Cook came up with some very interesting revisionist ideas," says Fred M. Donner of the University of Chicago and author of the recent book "Narratives of Islamic Origins: The Beginnings of Islamic Historical Writing." "I think in trying to reconstruct what happened, they went off the deep end, but they were asking the right questions."
The revisionist school of early Islam has quietly picked up momentum in the last few years as historians began to apply rational standards of proof to this material.
Mr. Cook and Ms. Crone have revised some of their early hypotheses while sticking to others. "We were certainly wrong about quite a lot of things," Ms. Crone said. "But I stick to the basic point we made: that Islamic history did not arise as the classic tradition says it does."
Ms. Crone insists that the Koran and the Islamic tradition present a fundamental paradox. The Koran is a text soaked in monotheistic thinking, filled with stories and references to Abraham, Isaac, Joseph and Jesus, and yet the official history insists that Muhammad, an illiterate camel merchant, received the revelation in Mecca, a remote, sparsely populated part of Arabia, far from the centers of monotheistic thought, in an environment of idol-worshiping Arab Bedouins. Unless one accepts the idea of the angel Gabriel, Ms. Crone says, historians must somehow explain how all these monotheistic stories and ideas found their way into the Koran.
"There are only two possibilities," Ms. Crone said. "Either there had to be substantial numbers of Jews and Christians in Mecca or the Koran had to have been composed somewhere else."
Indeed, many scholars who are not revisionists agree that Islam must be placed back into the wider historical context of the religions of the Middle East rather than seeing it as the spontaneous product of the pristine Arabian desert. "I think there is increasing acceptance, even on the part of many Muslims, that Islam emerged out of the wider monotheistic soup of the Middle East," says Roy Mottahedeh, a professor of Islamic history at Harvard University.
Scholars like Mr. Luxenberg and Gerd- R. Puin, who teaches at Saarland University in Germany, have returned to the earliest known copies of the Koran in order to grasp what it says about the document's origins and composition. Mr. Luxenberg explains these copies are written without vowels and diacritical dots that modern Arabic uses to make it clear what letter is intended. In the eighth and ninth centuries, more than a century after the death of Muhammad, Islamic commentators added diacritical marks to clear up the ambiguities of the text, giving precise meanings to passages based on what they considered to be their proper context. Mr. Luxenberg's radical theory is that many of the text's difficulties can be clarified when it is seen as closely related to Aramaic, the language group of most Middle Eastern Jews and Christians at the time.
For example, the famous passage about the virgins is based on the word hur, which is an adjective in the feminine plural meaning simply "white." Islamic tradition insists the term hur stands for "houri," which means virgin, but Mr. Luxenberg insists that this is a forced misreading of the text. In both ancient Aramaic and in at least one respected dictionary of early Arabic, hur means "white raisin."
Mr. Luxenberg has traced the passages dealing with paradise to a Christian text called Hymns of Paradise by a fourth-century author. Mr. Luxenberg said the word paradise was derived from the Aramaic word for garden and all the descriptions of paradise described it as a garden of flowing waters, abundant fruits and white raisins, a prized delicacy in the ancient Near East. In this context, white raisins, mentioned often as hur, Mr. Luxenberg said, makes more sense than a reward of sexual favors.
In many cases, the differences can be quite significant. Mr. Puin points out that in the early archaic copies of the Koran, it is impossible to distinguish between the words "to fight" and "to kill." In many cases, he said, Islamic exegetes added diacritical marks that yielded the harsher meaning, perhaps reflecting a period in which the Islamic Empire was often at war.
A return to the earliest Koran, Mr. Puin and others suggest, might lead to a more tolerant brand of Islam, as well as one that is more conscious of its close ties to both Judaism and Christianity.
"It is serious and exciting work," Ms. Crone said of Mr. Luxenberg's work. Jane McAuliffe, a professor of Islamic studies at Georgetown University, has asked Mr. Luxenberg to contribute an essay to the Encyclopedia of the Koran, which she is editing.
Mr. Puin would love to see a "critical edition" of the Koran produced, one based on recent philological work, but, he says, "the word critical is misunderstood in the Islamic world ? it is seen as criticizing or attacking the text."
Some Muslim authors have begun to publish skeptical, revisionist work on the Koran as well. Several new volumes of revisionist scholarship, "The Origins of the Koran," and "The Quest for the Historical Muhammad," have been edited by a former Muslim who writes under the pen name Ibn Warraq. Mr. Warraq, who heads a group called the Institute for the Secularization of Islamic Society, makes no bones about having a political agenda. "Biblical scholarship has made people less dogmatic, more open," he said, "and I hope that happens to Muslim society as well."
But many Muslims find the tone and claims of revisionism offensive. "I think the broader implications of some of the revisionist scholarship is to say that the Koran is not an authentic book, that it was fabricated 150 years later," says Ebrahim Moosa, a professor of religious studies at Duke University, as well as a Muslim cleric whose liberal theological leanings earned him the animosity of fundamentalists in South Africa, which he left after his house was firebombed.
Andrew Rippin, an Islamicist at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada, says that freedom of speech in the Islamic world is more likely to evolve from within the Islamic interpretative tradition than from outside attacks on it. Approaches to the Koran that are now branded as heretical ? interpreting the text metaphorically rather than literally ? were widely practiced in mainstream Islam a thousand years ago.
"When I teach the history of the interpretation it is eye-opening to students the amount of independent thought and diversity of interpretation that existed in the early centuries of Islam," Mr. Rippin says. "It was only in more recent centuries that there was a need for limiting interpretation."
<strong>I haven't read through this thread, but I just saw the horrible movie Black Rain, where Michael Douglas is "heroically" portrayed as the most arrogant, conceited, America centric dickhead on the planet. The writers of this screenplay never cease to berate other cultures, and to portay the "gung ho" and CORRUPT American way of doing things as superior.
The sad thing is, I know a lot of fellow Americans who really do think we are superior in every way. No wonder I choose to live in a foreign country. I hate Americans, too. Oh, and the moronic election of George Bush Jr. and his ensuing policies didn't help much, either.</strong><hr></blockquote>
<strong>The sad thing is, I know a lot of fellow Americans who really do think we are superior in every way. No wonder I choose to live in a foreign country. I hate Americans, too. Oh, and the moronic election of George Bush Jr. and his ensuing policies didn't help much, either.</strong><hr></blockquote>
It must be tough to hate yourself like that.
Oh, and at least ou were man enough to leave the country when you decide dyou did not like what ws going on. I am still waiting for half of hollywood to make good on their threats to move to some ohter country too.
I think tonton makes a very relevant point. Why do americans see themselves as so superior to the rest of the world?
i saw that movie to and liked it half way through, but then it dawned on me; This film actually portraits an american (or englishman) as a more perfect japanese then the japanese in the film...
<strong>I think tonton makes a very relevant point. Why do americans see themselves as so superior to the rest of the world?
i saw that movie to and liked it half way through, but then it dawned on me; This film actually portraits an american (or englishman) as a more perfect japanese then the japanese in the film...</strong><hr></blockquote>
Do we? If it's a question how can the point be "relevant"?
<strong>Why do americans see themselves as so superior to the rest of the world?</strong><hr></blockquote>We don't. Well, maybe some do (ahem).
We're just ignorant of the rest of the world - we just don't care about the rest of the world, never think about it, don't even know it exists unless they bomb us or we bomb them.
We're pretty geographically isolated compared to Europe - some states are near Canada or Mexico, but for the most part our nearest neighbor is another state of the US, not another country. And while our big businesses have economic ties with lots of other countries, the average American's day-to-day life isn't much effected by what's going on outside the US.
We are defensive about criticism, though. I think it's because we don't care about other countries, and so we're surprised and shocked when someone criticizes us.
[quote]Approaches to the Koran that are now branded as heretical ? interpreting the text metaphorically rather than literally ? were widely practiced in mainstream Islam a thousand years ago.<hr></blockquote>
This is the real debate in all literature, whether you're talking about the Koran, the Constitution, the Bible, or any important text of this sort. Deconstruction is based on simply following strict interpretations to their logical, minute and usually ridiculuous conclusions. I despise nearly all forms of strict construction (all occasions of it I've come across). They ignore the message and worship the act.
Oh, and plase don't assume that all Americans are arrogant assholes who think they're superior to everyone. I do not think this way by any means, and I do not appreciate the label. This attitude only exacerbates the problem. Thanks.
But it is quite interesting that while so many americans are clearly not really interested (or bothered) with the rest of the world. Your government is trying very hard to be part of almost every conflict that is out there... While you wonder why so much of the world hates your country, I'm wondering the exact opposit: How can you not know this?
How can you let your government screw up poor third world nations over and over again, like El Salvador, Chile, Vitnam etc. and NOT CARE ABOUT IT?
(again: I am not talking about every american here!)
[quote]But it is interesting that while so many americans are clearly not really interested (or bothered) with the rest of the world. Your government is trying very hard to be part of almost every conflict that is out there... While you wonder why so much of the world hates your contry, We are wondering why the exact opposit: How can you not know this?
How can you let your government screw up poor third world nations over and over again, like El Salvador, Chile, Vitnam etc. and NOT CARE ABOUT IT <hr></blockquote>
As for your list of countries at the end there.... many of us DID care very much about the US sponsored abuses in those countries. I, personally took part in numerous very vocal demonstrations BACK THEN. Each of your examples are dated though, and in each case were responces to the policy of containment that, due to its just purpose but blind means-ends logic, used extreme right-wings governments to combat communists.
Years after El Salvadore and Guatamala the US Government apologized for its support of Death squads.....but nobody noticed.
As for whether we are being a part of every conflict or not: I think that this belies a bias on your part.... you are looking for faults in the US policy. = Dog us when we are slow in Bosnia, or Rowanda, but then blame us when we try in Somalia and Kosovo or in other countries.
Blame us for support of Israel but look away at our funding of Egypt Yemen and many other 'third world' countries. etc etc.
Curse us when we are isolationist (which we are quite often, then blame us for trying to change the world when we step in against terrorism.
I think that there was an interesting article in the same issue of the times as the one posted by Scott, it was about the inherently imperialist nature of MASS CULTURE and its flood of kitsch.
I think most anti-Americanists are really responding to this phenomena AND
the effects of the World Bank and the IMF WHICH ARE WESTERN AND NOT MERELY AMERICAN --making the EU complicit there as well.
People from Scandanavia that 'hate' the US do so because they feel Americans are vulgar, don't understand the 'goodness' of a solid social-funding basis, are arrogant and are cultural Imperialists without a culture: of course they probably all listen to blues inspired rock-and-roll, admire funky road trip movies grounded in a progressive 'cowboy' ethic of free thinking, don't trust the immigrant populations that threaten their own 'racial' purity (whereas America is truly multicultural, it really is a melting pot whereas the Swedes are still insulting the Norwegians who are still smarting from the wit of the Fin's, and all of them are pretending to "accept" the Turks in their midts)
<strong>People from Scandanavia that 'hate' the US do so because they feel Americans are vulgar, don't understand the 'goodness' of a solid social-funding basis, are arrogant and are cultural Imperialists without a culture: of course they probably all listen to blues inspired rock-and-roll, admire funky road trip movies grounded in a progressive 'cowboy' ethic of free thinking, don't trust the immigrant populations that threaten their own 'racial' purity (whereas America is truly multicultural, it really is a melting pot whereas the Swedes are still insulting the Norwegians who are still smarting from the wit of the Fin's, and all of them are pretending to "accept" the Turks in their midts)</strong><hr></blockquote>
A couple of points:
I really don´t know anyone who hates US. Some "hate" the politics, both foreign and domestic, but not "the average" american or large parts of american culture (beside mainstream Hollywood films, McD aso)
Those who are most US-skeptical is often those who listen to alternative music from US. BUT its not the same people who have a problem with immigrants.
The only person I know that truly hates america also think China has a good system. I think that speaks for itself.
Thank Teddy Roosevelt and later our foray into WWII for our self-proclaimed role as "policemen" of the world. The Marshall Plan was supposed to help rebuild Europe and Asia post-colonialism, quickly getting our fingers into everyone's business becuase we were the only ones who could afford to help out.
Wow, my last post here completley disapeared. Thank yous to ScottH for showing us how easily racism can be hidden under so called "balenced arguments".
They hate us because their culture is backward and corrupt
Seriously folks. This is the same type of blatent racism that was practiced by the Nazis in WW2. Im not going to argue that there are some ****ed up religious fundementalists out there, but that is hardly reason to go spouting about how muslims hate us and their culture is wrong. You have the same ignorance and single sided blindness here in North America as in the east. Hell, look at how we managed to, more or less, ressurect the government that brought us such great things as the Iran-Contra fiasco.
Further how can you expect them to be pro-US when, on whim, the US decides to drop thousands of bombs on back water little country like Afghanistan because their leaders "endorsed the Al-Queda" (note: So did the US way back when). Innocent bystanders killed in a bombing raid (collateral dammage) on something like the Al-Queda have it just as bad as innocent Americans (horribly murrdered by the evil one) in the WTC. Each are equally innocent (If I remember correctly the majority of the the hi-jackers were Saudi's not Afghanistans), and each are suffering the same ordeals. Let us not start on the fact that the people killed by bombings arent "the main target" as was the case in the WTC attacks, that is beside the point, but rather try to understand that the hatred that you feel towards them is the very same hatred that they feel towards you. Perhaps we should concentrate less turning a country into ash in order to stop a terrorist group in it, and concentrate more on getting together with the UN and starting trade embargos on the countries that do this. Being a cop (especially a self designated cop) often means taking them down WITHOUT shooting them.
Now let us rather take a more laid back approach here. Some times being a part of a community (even a global one) means shaping your self to others, not others to your self. So let us not hate them in return, but rather understand where their hatred for us is coming from, and deal with eliminating that, rather than eliminating them. Indeed there is not all that much difference between us.
The ammount of racism in this thread astounds me.
[ 03-03-2002: Message edited by: The Toolboi ]</p>
[quote]Years after El Salvadore and Guatamala the US Government apologized for its support of Death squads.....but nobody noticed.<hr></blockquote>
The culprit for that could be called the media. You know how it works. Even if the apology were noticed, it doesn't matter much what anybody did about it or how the population felt or feels about it; it happened and that's that.
Comments
<strong>
Turkey is by far the most westernized Muslim country in the world. Istanbul, Turkey, is geographically and also is considered Europe. Istanbul in my opinion, actually has more of a european feel that many other european countries.</strong><hr></blockquote>
This is from last Thursday?s WSJ:
CITIZEN OF THE WORLD
<a href="http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/tvaradarajan/?id=105001667"; target="_blank">Dialogue With the Deaf</a>
A Muslim-European summit is short on honesty and long on clichés.
BY TUNKU VARADARAJAN
Thursday, February 21, 2002 12:01 a.m.
[quote]ISTANBUL, Turkey - There was an episode to savor here last week, at a meeting of foreign ministers from the European Union and the Organization of the Islamic Conference - a body that purports to represent the Islamic world, and which is the only international organization of states defined purely in terms of religion.
In a ballroom with radiant views of the Bosphorus, Kamal Kharrazi, the foreign minister of Iran, posed stiffly for a photograph at an evening reception. A dapper, bearded chap, he passed a hand over his chin as a posse of Turkish cameramen edged him closer to a window. Suddenly, one of his minders darted behind Mr. Kharrazi and hustled a waitress out of sight. She was bearing a tray with glasses of wine and would have appeared, alcohol and all, just behind the minister's right shoulder had she stayed in the frame. This, one assumes, would not have gone down well back in Tehran, though the wine, a lively Anatolian red, was going down a treat at the reception - with momentarily impious Muslims and unbelievers alike.
The beauty of Turkey - and by this I mean the elegance of its cultural practices - lies in the fact that it is the only state in the Muslim world audacious enough to convene a conference with more than 40 Islamic foreign ministers present alongside their European counterparts, and then to include the country's leading winemaker and its most popular brewery among the event's sponsors. This may seem trivial in the grand scheme of things - and the theme of the two-day conference, "Civilization and Harmony: The Political Dimension," was grandiose indeed - but it is in these touches of Western custom, these flashes of cultural independence, that one detects the true nature of Turkey's separateness from the ummah, or the Islamic world.
Take another vignette. At Istanbul's Sultanahmet Mosque - known to Westerners as the "Blue Mosque" - I was part of a group of visitors approached by the imam. We knew he was the imam only because he told us so, for his aspect - dark pinstriped suit, white shirt, red floral tie, and the barest designer stubble on his face - revealed not a hint of his vocation. Nowhere else in the Islamic world (and certainly not in mosques in New York or London) would an imam dress in so cosmopolitan a way while on duty, or have so feeble a beard.
What is more, he shook hands with the ladies in our group, and posed for pictures. One woman, a forward type from Germany, asked what seemed an impertinent question: "Sir," she said, with that inimitably Teutonic straightness of face, "you don't mind images?" To which the imam chuckled, then replied: "Madame, this is Turkey."
The imam's repartee was more profound than it might have sounded to his listeners. It laid bare, in a mere phrase, the contours of contemporary Turkish life. In 1924, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, made this observation in a speech to the nation: "Countries may vary, but civilization is one, and for a nation to progress, it must take part in this one civilization. The decline of the Ottomans began when, proud of their triumphs over the West, they cut their ties with the European nations. This was a mistake which we will not repeat."
Indeed, Turkish politics, and much of Turkish life, might be described as an anxiously choreographed ballet, with every move measured to ensure that the historic mistake to which Ataturk referred - to wit, a disregard of Western ways - is always avoided...<hr></blockquote>
[ 02-28-2002: Message edited by: roger_ramjet ]</p>
My second "homeland" Indonesia, biggest muslim country in the world, is like this too..
you might have heard some nasty things from there, but that's is coming from a very small group (but I admit, too big as well) which is funded by extremist groups..
people, cristians and muslims live in harmony and peace in Indonesia (yes, I know, again not everywhere). The fights between muslims and cristians have mostly taken place at the Maluku's, this because a group of 2000 men (muslims ) where sent there to start riots.
The people living there have recently been very happy due to agreements between cristian leaders and muslim leaders, they have always been neighbours, friends and even family.
A ferm majority of muslims in Indonesia do not hate the USA, muslims DO NOT HATE the USA. Get it out of your heads!!
Even in my family we have cristians AND muslims, all very happy going together..
<strong>After giving careful thought I have to conclude that this Gallup poll is not very indicative of the muslim mindset and may have been skewed by people with alterior motives. Think about it; almost 10,000 were polled in 9 countries. The combined population of 3 of the largest countries (Iran, Pakistan, Indonesia) is 445 million (according to <a href="http://emuseum.mnsu.edu/information/population/"; target="_blank">this</a>) and 10,000 is .225%. Not even one quarter of one percent. Now imagine if I factor in ALL 9 nations! The sample was too insignificantly small to draw any conclusions from. Where were these people asked? As they were walking out of mosques? During Anti-US rallies? Who knows.</strong><hr></blockquote>
In polls like this the number asked/population doesn´t mean the world. As long as its above 1000 its "enough" despite the population, but always count in a certain inaccuracy of a couple of percent and if you want to compare between lets say all 50 states in Us you have to have much more.
The other issue is much more important: Who did they ask and in what situation? Telephone interview is very hard to do in countries without the infrastructure of western europe (you won´t get the average population) and if they interviewed the people on the street I would be very sceptical about the validity of the Gallup.
And another factor to consider is the language and cultural differences not only between "us" and "them" but also between the countries in the Gallup. For instance words can be loaded with emotions, you can have languages that rely more on figurative speech, you can have another understanding of even factual questions aso. More scientific quantitative inquires use a lot of energy on questions like that, especially when the interviewed come from different countries, the audience of the Gallup is from other countries or when you compare figures over long time periodes (the same sentence can mean something completly different twenty years later.)
The worst thing about Indonisia is all the Australian surfers...
By ALEXANDER STILLE
To Muslims the Koran is the very word of God, who spoke through the Angel Gabriel to Muhammad: "This book is not to be doubted," the Koran declares unequivocally at its beginning. Scholars and writers in Islamic countries who have ignored that warning have sometimes found themselves the target of death threats and violence, sending a chill through universities around the world.
Yet despite the fear, a handful of experts have been quietly investigating the origins of the Koran, offering radically new theories about the text's meaning and the rise of Islam.
Christoph Luxenberg, a scholar of ancient Semitic languages in Germany, argues that the Koran has been misread and mistranslated for centuries. His work, based on the earliest copies of the Koran, maintains that parts of Islam's holy book are derived from pre-existing Christian Aramaic texts that were misinterpreted by later Islamic scholars who prepared the editions of the Koran commonly read today.
So, for example, the virgins who are supposedly awaiting good Islamic martyrs as their reward in paradise are in reality "white raisins" of crystal clarity rather than fair maidens.
Christoph Luxenberg, however, is a pseudonym, and his scholarly tome ""The Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Koran" had trouble finding a publisher, although it is considered a major new work by several leading scholars in the field. Verlag Das Arabische Buch in Berlin ultimately published the book.
The caution is not surprising. Salman Rushdie's "Satanic Verses" received a fatwa because it appeared to mock Muhammad. The Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz was stabbed because one of his books was thought to be irreligious. And when the Arab scholar Suliman Bashear argued that Islam developed as a religion gradually rather than emerging fully formed from the mouth of the Prophet, he was injured after being thrown from a second- story window by his students at the University of Nablus in the West Bank. Even many broad-minded liberal Muslims become upset when the historical voracity and authenticity of the Koran is questioned.
The reverberations have affected non-Muslim scholars in Western countries. "Between fear and political correctness, it's not possible to say anything other than sugary nonsense about Islam," said one scholar at an American university who asked not to be named, referring to the threatened violence as well as the widespread reluctance on United States college campuses to criticize other cultures.
While scriptural interpretation may seem like a remote and innocuous activity, close textual study of Jewish and Christian scripture played no small role in loosening the Church's domination on the intellectual and cultural life of Europe, and paving the way for unfettered secular thought. "The Muslims have the benefit of hindsight of the European experience, and they know very well that once you start questioning the holy scriptures, you don't know where it will stop," the scholar explained.
The touchiness about questioning the Koran predates the latest rise of Islamic militancy. As long ago as 1977, John Wansbrough of the School of Oriental and African Studies in London wrote that subjecting the Koran to "analysis by the instruments and techniques of biblical criticism is virtually unknown."
Mr. Wansbrough insisted that the text of the Koran appeared to be a composite of different voices or texts compiled over dozens if not hundreds of years. After all, scholars agree that there is no evidence of the Koran until 691 ? 59 years after Muhammad's death ? when the Dome of the Rock mosque in Jerusalem was built, carrying several Koranic inscriptions.
These inscriptions differ to some degree from the version of the Koran that has been handed down through the centuries, suggesting, scholars say, that the Koran may have still been evolving in the last decade of the seventh century. Moreover, much of what we know as Islam ? the lives and sayings of the Prophet ? is based on texts from between 130 and 300 years after Muhammad's death.
In 1977 two other scholars from the School for Oriental and African Studies at London University ? Patricia Crone (a professor of history at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton) and Michael Cook (a professor of Near Eastern history at Princeton University) ? suggested a radically new approach in their book "Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World."
Since there are no Arabic chronicles from the first century of Islam, the two looked at several non-Muslim, seventh-century accounts that suggested Muhammad was perceived not as the founder of a new religion but as a preacher in the Old Testament tradition, hailing the coming of a Messiah. Many of the early documents refer to the followers of Muhammad as "hagarenes," and the "tribe of Ishmael," in other words as descendants of Hagar, the servant girl that the Jewish patriarch Abraham used to father his son Ishmael.
In its earliest form, Ms. Crone and Mr. Cook argued, the followers of Muhammad may have seen themselves as retaking their place in the Holy Land alongside their Jewish cousins. (And many Jews appear to have welcomed the Arabs as liberators when they entered Jerusalem in 638.)
The idea that Jewish messianism animated the early followers of the Prophet is not widely accepted in the field, but "Hagarism" is credited with opening up the field. "Crone and Cook came up with some very interesting revisionist ideas," says Fred M. Donner of the University of Chicago and author of the recent book "Narratives of Islamic Origins: The Beginnings of Islamic Historical Writing." "I think in trying to reconstruct what happened, they went off the deep end, but they were asking the right questions."
The revisionist school of early Islam has quietly picked up momentum in the last few years as historians began to apply rational standards of proof to this material.
Mr. Cook and Ms. Crone have revised some of their early hypotheses while sticking to others. "We were certainly wrong about quite a lot of things," Ms. Crone said. "But I stick to the basic point we made: that Islamic history did not arise as the classic tradition says it does."
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/02/arts/02ISLA.html"; target="_blank">Radical New Views of Islam and the Origins of the Koran</a>
(Page 2 of 2)
By ALEXANDER STILLE
Ms. Crone insists that the Koran and the Islamic tradition present a fundamental paradox. The Koran is a text soaked in monotheistic thinking, filled with stories and references to Abraham, Isaac, Joseph and Jesus, and yet the official history insists that Muhammad, an illiterate camel merchant, received the revelation in Mecca, a remote, sparsely populated part of Arabia, far from the centers of monotheistic thought, in an environment of idol-worshiping Arab Bedouins. Unless one accepts the idea of the angel Gabriel, Ms. Crone says, historians must somehow explain how all these monotheistic stories and ideas found their way into the Koran.
"There are only two possibilities," Ms. Crone said. "Either there had to be substantial numbers of Jews and Christians in Mecca or the Koran had to have been composed somewhere else."
Indeed, many scholars who are not revisionists agree that Islam must be placed back into the wider historical context of the religions of the Middle East rather than seeing it as the spontaneous product of the pristine Arabian desert. "I think there is increasing acceptance, even on the part of many Muslims, that Islam emerged out of the wider monotheistic soup of the Middle East," says Roy Mottahedeh, a professor of Islamic history at Harvard University.
Scholars like Mr. Luxenberg and Gerd- R. Puin, who teaches at Saarland University in Germany, have returned to the earliest known copies of the Koran in order to grasp what it says about the document's origins and composition. Mr. Luxenberg explains these copies are written without vowels and diacritical dots that modern Arabic uses to make it clear what letter is intended. In the eighth and ninth centuries, more than a century after the death of Muhammad, Islamic commentators added diacritical marks to clear up the ambiguities of the text, giving precise meanings to passages based on what they considered to be their proper context. Mr. Luxenberg's radical theory is that many of the text's difficulties can be clarified when it is seen as closely related to Aramaic, the language group of most Middle Eastern Jews and Christians at the time.
For example, the famous passage about the virgins is based on the word hur, which is an adjective in the feminine plural meaning simply "white." Islamic tradition insists the term hur stands for "houri," which means virgin, but Mr. Luxenberg insists that this is a forced misreading of the text. In both ancient Aramaic and in at least one respected dictionary of early Arabic, hur means "white raisin."
Mr. Luxenberg has traced the passages dealing with paradise to a Christian text called Hymns of Paradise by a fourth-century author. Mr. Luxenberg said the word paradise was derived from the Aramaic word for garden and all the descriptions of paradise described it as a garden of flowing waters, abundant fruits and white raisins, a prized delicacy in the ancient Near East. In this context, white raisins, mentioned often as hur, Mr. Luxenberg said, makes more sense than a reward of sexual favors.
In many cases, the differences can be quite significant. Mr. Puin points out that in the early archaic copies of the Koran, it is impossible to distinguish between the words "to fight" and "to kill." In many cases, he said, Islamic exegetes added diacritical marks that yielded the harsher meaning, perhaps reflecting a period in which the Islamic Empire was often at war.
A return to the earliest Koran, Mr. Puin and others suggest, might lead to a more tolerant brand of Islam, as well as one that is more conscious of its close ties to both Judaism and Christianity.
"It is serious and exciting work," Ms. Crone said of Mr. Luxenberg's work. Jane McAuliffe, a professor of Islamic studies at Georgetown University, has asked Mr. Luxenberg to contribute an essay to the Encyclopedia of the Koran, which she is editing.
Mr. Puin would love to see a "critical edition" of the Koran produced, one based on recent philological work, but, he says, "the word critical is misunderstood in the Islamic world ? it is seen as criticizing or attacking the text."
Some Muslim authors have begun to publish skeptical, revisionist work on the Koran as well. Several new volumes of revisionist scholarship, "The Origins of the Koran," and "The Quest for the Historical Muhammad," have been edited by a former Muslim who writes under the pen name Ibn Warraq. Mr. Warraq, who heads a group called the Institute for the Secularization of Islamic Society, makes no bones about having a political agenda. "Biblical scholarship has made people less dogmatic, more open," he said, "and I hope that happens to Muslim society as well."
But many Muslims find the tone and claims of revisionism offensive. "I think the broader implications of some of the revisionist scholarship is to say that the Koran is not an authentic book, that it was fabricated 150 years later," says Ebrahim Moosa, a professor of religious studies at Duke University, as well as a Muslim cleric whose liberal theological leanings earned him the animosity of fundamentalists in South Africa, which he left after his house was firebombed.
Andrew Rippin, an Islamicist at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada, says that freedom of speech in the Islamic world is more likely to evolve from within the Islamic interpretative tradition than from outside attacks on it. Approaches to the Koran that are now branded as heretical ? interpreting the text metaphorically rather than literally ? were widely practiced in mainstream Islam a thousand years ago.
"When I teach the history of the interpretation it is eye-opening to students the amount of independent thought and diversity of interpretation that existed in the early centuries of Islam," Mr. Rippin says. "It was only in more recent centuries that there was a need for limiting interpretation."
[ 03-01-2002: Message edited by: Scott H. ]</p>
<strong>I haven't read through this thread, but I just saw the horrible movie Black Rain, where Michael Douglas is "heroically" portrayed as the most arrogant, conceited, America centric dickhead on the planet. The writers of this screenplay never cease to berate other cultures, and to portay the "gung ho" and CORRUPT American way of doing things as superior.
The sad thing is, I know a lot of fellow Americans who really do think we are superior in every way. No wonder I choose to live in a foreign country. I hate Americans, too. Oh, and the moronic election of George Bush Jr. and his ensuing policies didn't help much, either.</strong><hr></blockquote>
WTF are you talking about?
about you!!!!!
<strong>
about you!!!!!
I don't think I fit that description.
<strong>The sad thing is, I know a lot of fellow Americans who really do think we are superior in every way. No wonder I choose to live in a foreign country. I hate Americans, too. Oh, and the moronic election of George Bush Jr. and his ensuing policies didn't help much, either.</strong><hr></blockquote>
It must be tough to hate yourself like that.
Oh, and at least ou were man enough to leave the country when you decide dyou did not like what ws going on. I am still waiting for half of hollywood to make good on their threats to move to some ohter country too.
i saw that movie to and liked it half way through, but then it dawned on me; This film actually portraits an american (or englishman) as a more perfect japanese then the japanese in the film...
<strong>I think tonton makes a very relevant point. Why do americans see themselves as so superior to the rest of the world?
i saw that movie to and liked it half way through, but then it dawned on me; This film actually portraits an american (or englishman) as a more perfect japanese then the japanese in the film...</strong><hr></blockquote>
Do we? If it's a question how can the point be "relevant"?
<strong>Why do americans see themselves as so superior to the rest of the world?</strong><hr></blockquote>We don't. Well, maybe some do (ahem).
We're just ignorant of the rest of the world - we just don't care about the rest of the world, never think about it, don't even know it exists unless they bomb us or we bomb them.
We're pretty geographically isolated compared to Europe - some states are near Canada or Mexico, but for the most part our nearest neighbor is another state of the US, not another country. And while our big businesses have economic ties with lots of other countries, the average American's day-to-day life isn't much effected by what's going on outside the US.
We are defensive about criticism, though. I think it's because we don't care about other countries, and so we're surprised and shocked when someone criticizes us.
This is the real debate in all literature, whether you're talking about the Koran, the Constitution, the Bible, or any important text of this sort. Deconstruction is based on simply following strict interpretations to their logical, minute and usually ridiculuous conclusions. I despise nearly all forms of strict construction (all occasions of it I've come across). They ignore the message and worship the act.
Oh, and plase don't assume that all Americans are arrogant assholes who think they're superior to everyone. I do not think this way by any means, and I do not appreciate the label. This attitude only exacerbates the problem. Thanks.
I am ofcourse not talking about everybody!
But it is quite interesting that while so many americans are clearly not really interested (or bothered) with the rest of the world. Your government is trying very hard to be part of almost every conflict that is out there... While you wonder why so much of the world hates your country, I'm wondering the exact opposit: How can you not know this?
How can you let your government screw up poor third world nations over and over again, like El Salvador, Chile, Vitnam etc. and NOT CARE ABOUT IT?
(again: I am not talking about every american here!)
[ 03-03-2002: Message edited by: New ]</p>
How can you let your government screw up poor third world nations over and over again, like El Salvador, Chile, Vitnam etc. and NOT CARE ABOUT IT <hr></blockquote>
As for your list of countries at the end there.... many of us DID care very much about the US sponsored abuses in those countries. I, personally took part in numerous very vocal demonstrations BACK THEN. Each of your examples are dated though, and in each case were responces to the policy of containment that, due to its just purpose but blind means-ends logic, used extreme right-wings governments to combat communists.
Years after El Salvadore and Guatamala the US Government apologized for its support of Death squads.....but nobody noticed.
As for whether we are being a part of every conflict or not: I think that this belies a bias on your part.... you are looking for faults in the US policy. = Dog us when we are slow in Bosnia, or Rowanda, but then blame us when we try in Somalia and Kosovo or in other countries.
Blame us for support of Israel but look away at our funding of Egypt Yemen and many other 'third world' countries. etc etc.
Curse us when we are isolationist (which we are quite often, then blame us for trying to change the world when we step in against terrorism.
I think that there was an interesting article in the same issue of the times as the one posted by Scott, it was about the inherently imperialist nature of MASS CULTURE and its flood of kitsch.
I think most anti-Americanists are really responding to this phenomena AND
the effects of the World Bank and the IMF WHICH ARE WESTERN AND NOT MERELY AMERICAN --making the EU complicit there as well.
People from Scandanavia that 'hate' the US do so because they feel Americans are vulgar, don't understand the 'goodness' of a solid social-funding basis, are arrogant and are cultural Imperialists without a culture: of course they probably all listen to blues inspired rock-and-roll, admire funky road trip movies grounded in a progressive 'cowboy' ethic of free thinking, don't trust the immigrant populations that threaten their own 'racial' purity (whereas America is truly multicultural, it really is a melting pot whereas the Swedes are still insulting the Norwegians who are still smarting from the wit of the Fin's, and all of them are pretending to "accept" the Turks in their midts)
<strong>People from Scandanavia that 'hate' the US do so because they feel Americans are vulgar, don't understand the 'goodness' of a solid social-funding basis, are arrogant and are cultural Imperialists without a culture: of course they probably all listen to blues inspired rock-and-roll, admire funky road trip movies grounded in a progressive 'cowboy' ethic of free thinking, don't trust the immigrant populations that threaten their own 'racial' purity (whereas America is truly multicultural, it really is a melting pot whereas the Swedes are still insulting the Norwegians who are still smarting from the wit of the Fin's, and all of them are pretending to "accept" the Turks in their midts)</strong><hr></blockquote>
A couple of points:
I really don´t know anyone who hates US. Some "hate" the politics, both foreign and domestic, but not "the average" american or large parts of american culture (beside mainstream Hollywood films, McD aso)
Those who are most US-skeptical is often those who listen to alternative music from US. BUT its not the same people who have a problem with immigrants.
The only person I know that truly hates america also think China has a good system. I think that speaks for itself.
They hate us because their culture is backward and corrupt
Seriously folks. This is the same type of blatent racism that was practiced by the Nazis in WW2. Im not going to argue that there are some ****ed up religious fundementalists out there, but that is hardly reason to go spouting about how muslims hate us and their culture is wrong. You have the same ignorance and single sided blindness here in North America as in the east. Hell, look at how we managed to, more or less, ressurect the government that brought us such great things as the Iran-Contra fiasco.
Further how can you expect them to be pro-US when, on whim, the US decides to drop thousands of bombs on back water little country like Afghanistan because their leaders "endorsed the Al-Queda" (note: So did the US way back when). Innocent bystanders killed in a bombing raid (collateral dammage) on something like the Al-Queda have it just as bad as innocent Americans (horribly murrdered by the evil one) in the WTC. Each are equally innocent (If I remember correctly the majority of the the hi-jackers were Saudi's not Afghanistans), and each are suffering the same ordeals. Let us not start on the fact that the people killed by bombings arent "the main target" as was the case in the WTC attacks, that is beside the point, but rather try to understand that the hatred that you feel towards them is the very same hatred that they feel towards you. Perhaps we should concentrate less turning a country into ash in order to stop a terrorist group in it, and concentrate more on getting together with the UN and starting trade embargos on the countries that do this. Being a cop (especially a self designated cop) often means taking them down WITHOUT shooting them.
Now let us rather take a more laid back approach here. Some times being a part of a community (even a global one) means shaping your self to others, not others to your self. So let us not hate them in return, but rather understand where their hatred for us is coming from, and deal with eliminating that, rather than eliminating them. Indeed there is not all that much difference between us.
The ammount of racism in this thread astounds me.
[ 03-03-2002: Message edited by: The Toolboi ]</p>
The culprit for that could be called the media. You know how it works. Even if the apology were noticed, it doesn't matter much what anybody did about it or how the population felt or feels about it; it happened and that's that.