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Author Topic: Letter To a Young Muslim
audra trower williams
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2

posted 10 July 2003 02:20 PM      Profile for audra trower williams   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
When we spoke, I told you that my criticism of religion and those who use it for political ends was not a case of being diplomatic in public. Exploiters and manipulators have always used religion self-righteously to further their own selfish ends. It's true that this is not the whole story. There are, of course, deeply sincere people of religion in different parts of the world who genuinely fight on the side of the poor, but they are usually in conflict with organised religion themselves.

by Tariq Ali


From: And I'm a look you in the eye for every bar of the chorus | Registered: Apr 2001  |  IP: Logged
satana
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Babbler # 2798

posted 10 July 2003 07:54 PM      Profile for satana     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Sometimes when we talk I get the impression that there is not a single Muslim country of which they can feel really proud. Those who have migrated from South Asia are much better treated in Britain than in Saudi Arabia or the Gulf States. It is here that something has to happen. The Arab world is desperate for a change. Over the years, in every discussion with Iraqis, Syrians, Saudis, Egyptians, Jordanians and Palestinians, the same questions are raised, the same problems recur. We are suffocating. Why can't we breathe? Everything seems static: our economy, our politics, our intellectuals and, most of all, our religion.
This is so true everywhere I've been.

Tariq Ali makes some very good observations, but I feel his message is directed mainly at Shia Muslims than all Muslims in general. For example "a rigid separation of state and mosque; the dissolution of the clergy;" This doesn't make much sense in Sunni Islam, which I'm most familiar with, as there is no clergy and the mosque is essentially a meeting place for Muslems not an institution.

quote:
My aversion to religion is by no means confined to Islam alone. And nor do I ignore the role which religious ideologies have played in the past in order to move the world forward. It was the ideological clashes between two rival interpretations of Christianity - the Protestant Reformation versus the Catholic Counter-Reformation - that led to volcanic explosions in Europe. Here was an example of razor-sharp intellectual debates fuelled by theological passions, leading to a civil war, followed by a revolution.
And in the modern era we have Communism and Capitalism...The problem here isn't religion in itself, but ideology in general. When people strongly identify with a certain world view or cause there will always be people with power who will use it for their own purposes. And so long as people have different beliefs and values there will always be clashes. I don't believe theological passions have been "transcended". They have only been replaced with ideologies better adapted to the modern world.

Freedom to think freely, rationally, and imaginatively are desperately needed if the Islamic world is to survive however without being able to express new thinking there can't be much progress. The freedom to move, meet, organize and speak publicly is very tightly controlled in the Islamic world. Anything outside of the state's control is seen as subversive and a threat. In this modern colonialist era Muslims are in a very tight place.

quote:
Unless we move in this direction we will be doomed to reliving old battles and thinking not of a richer and humane future, but of how we can move from the present to the past. It is an unacceptable vision.
This is so true. But hoping for change isn't going to help much. If you want people to change you first have to convince them it is possible.

From: far away | Registered: Jun 2002  |  IP: Logged

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