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Sitaram · Site Admin Joined: 14 Sep 2005 Posts: 1079

http://sulekha.com/chpost.asp?for...ilosophy&show=0&cid=93307

One reader's replies to Sitaram's post on Bernard Lewis:

Around six months ago I read "The Crisis Of Islam" by Bernard E Lewis
and I thought it was an excellent book. Lewis is a professor (I think
at Princeton University, USA) and this is one of his latest books.
I thought it would be interesting to read a viwepoint from a non-
muslim about issues facing the Muslim Nations and I was surprised to
find I agreed with a lot of points he made.

The book is not a review of the actions of al-qaidah but more about
where the hatred for America comes from in the Muslim world.

A major theme he discusses is the silence among the Muslims in
general, about Despotic Muslim leaders who oppress their own people.
Such examples he gives is that of Syria, Iran and Iraq (all within
the last few decades) where thousands have been killed but the Muslim
community did not notice (in other words turned a blind eye).

He also highlights how Arab nations made pacts with the (then) USSR
in a bid to play off the Americans against the Russians. Again the
arab governements had nothing but praise for the Russians whilst they
(Russians) were oppressing Muslims (brutally) in their own nation
(there were around 10-15 million Muslims living in the USSR - we all
know how badly they were treated by the Commies). Even when the
Russians invaded Afghanistan in the late '80's no condemnation could
be heard.

I think the main point Lewis makes is that the terrorist actions and
hence the hatred of America comes from the people of these (primarily
arab) nations revolting against their leaders. The reaction is al-
qaedah (and those groups like it). He suggests the people have had
enough of their leaders suppression - but uprisings are heavily
crushed (e.g. Syria,Jordan,Iraq, Saudia ) so the only way that
certain people can show their anger is by focusing it on the nation
that to some extent has helped support these oppresive regimes. i.e.
America (obviously in its own self-interest).5 months ago Muslims
tried to do a coup in egypt but America got their puppet mubarak to
safety then the revolutionaries were forced to fight to their death
and then Lewis quips that, Muslim's don't stand up against their
rulers?

My one criticism is that he all too easily skates around the Issue of
Israel and the damage that certain American policies have had (such
as supporting these regimes). Something even Michael Moore didn't
touch upon in his documentary.

Anyway, I was impressed by this book - it makes many more points but
I'll leave that up to you to find out.

====================

Sitaram replies:

How refreshing it is to read your post! Your screen name
is certainly appropriate, since what you write is worthy of several
readings and re-thinking.

http://homepage.tinet.ie/~odyssey/Quotes/History/Bernard_Lewis.html

I stumbled across the Bernard Lewis Post page while searching for the
origin and meaning of "tin pot dictator" which occurs in the
paragraph:

"In modern times, the power of the ruler has been vastly augmented by
these huge revenues so that he doesn't need public support or public
approval of his taxes. It has also been increased by all kinds of
modern devices for surveillance and repression so that any tin pot
dictator today wields far greater powers than were ever wielded by
Suleyman the Magnificent or Harun al-Rashid or any of the legendary
rulers of the Islamic past."

It is curious how our wanderings in search engines may lead us to
topics and goals very different from the initial question which set
us off on our quest.

An acquaintance of mine recently asked me to see the
movie "Farhenheit 9/11" and help with ideas for an essay. I was
hesitant to see the movie, because I thought it would be about the
actual collapse of the twin towers, and I felt I had already seen
quite enough. I did not realize that it is a documentary about the
political dynamics allegedly at work in the Bush administration.
Since I am in the midst of writing about "Farhenheit 9/11," I would
value anyone's comments and observations and constructive criticism.

For me, the most important statement to be made about Michael Moore's
documentary is that it is an example of freedom of speech in a free
society. A film critical of a dictator's regime would earn its author
a prison sentence or a death sentence.

The when I first heard the name of the documentary, "FARHENHEIT
9/11," I immediately thought of the science fiction novel by Ray
Bradbury, "Farhenheit 451." Bradbury described a society in which all
books are burned. The temperature of burning paper is 451 degrees
Farhenheit.

Bradbury describes a future in which all books are banned and
censored in an attempt to keep the human race from thinking for
themselves. This frightening world is one in which people are
controlled by the government in every way. A number of restrictions
are placed upon the people of this society. One of which is the
prohibition of the possession and/or reading of literature. The
firemen of this time are paid not to protect citizens from the danger
of fires, but to burn all books to ashes.

Recently, I was watching one of the many panel discussions which air
nowadays on public educational television analyzing the current
climate in the Arab world. One speaker cited the curious statistic
that each year more books are translated into Spanish than have been
translated into Arabic in the past THOUSAND years. The point he was
trying to make with this statistic is that the Arab world is rather
close-minded to new ideas and isolated from the intellectual life of
the rest of the world.

There is no need to burn books which do not exist.

One of the major problems with Islamic ideology and theocracy is that
it attempts to force beliefs and behavior upon society with threats
of violence, with acid in the face of a woman unveiled, with public
beheadings and amputations, with the honor killing of a sister by her
own brother.

I do not believe that one can successfully impose moral codes of
behavior with violence and punishment. Such behavior, so disciplined,
simply goes underground. Even in Bradbury's novel, the desire for
literature goes underground, and people commit books to memory to
preserve them from the fire's flames.

Moral and ethical behavior must start from within, from the
subjective and personal sanctum of each person's heart, and flow
outward to embrace society as a whole. Each individual must come of
their own free will to "hunger and thirst" after righteousness, and
become a connoisseur of justice and mercy. Decency is not a spike to
be driven into the heart of humanity as it were a vampire.

If the non-Islamic world were to decide tomorrow that there was no
possibility EVER of living in peace and coexistence with Islam, and
that only ethnocide could preserve world freedom, then could Islam
really complain about their fate? If it is true that the mujadaheen
who dies in defense of Islam gains instant admission to a paradise
flowing with rivers of wine and milk and honey and populated by
seductive houri virgins, why then the greatest service which the
world could render to Islam is to kill each and every Muslim man,
woman and child. They would all enter into Muhammad's paradise in one
great rush. Imagine such an orgy of blessedness, in one fell swoop!
Would such a genocide be sinful, or would it be a supreme religious
gift?

War is never moral. At it's best war can only hope to be necessary,
unavoidable, expedient.

Can we be certain that there would never be a scenario in which
genocide is the lesser of two evils? If we say that genocide could
never be sanctioned as a tactic for survival, then why do we endeavor
to develop and test weapons of mass destruction? In fact, it seems to
me that the United States has been a pioneer in developing the
technology of mass destruction. I am told that one nuclear submarine
has MORE destructive fire power than ALL the weapons of ALL five
years of World War II (both sides) combined. If this is true, than a
small crew of men on such a submarine can unleash the destruction of
World War II. And there a number of such submarines deployed around
the world. So many little World War II's quietly circulating the
world in the ocean's cool quiet depths, awaiting the command to
surface.

Were we truly horrified by war and killing then we would prefer
invasion, slavery, and death to the defilement of bloodshed. Genuine,
sincere pacifism, in its purest form would choose enslavement or
death over violence.

If faced with the sin of genocide for a year, and the reign of peace
and harmony for 1000 years, versus a thousand years of terrorism and
guerilla warfare with a clean conscience, then which choice do we
make?

Lutheran minister Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hanged in 1945 for his part
in an assassination attempt on Hitler. Peace-loving Jimmy Carter
praises Bonhoeffer highly.

What would happen if the Kaaba in Mecca were destroyed tomorrow with
a surgically precise missile strike? Roman forces destroyed the
Temple in Jerusalem in 70 C.E, led by Titus under Emperor Vespasian.
Judaism survived the destruction of their one and only temple by
evolving a different mode of worship. Islam would survive the
destruction of the Kaaba, I am certain, but the Islam which survived
would be a different Islam from the Islam we have known for
centuries. In the "Sayings of Muhammed," which are preserved by the
oral tradition of the Hadith, there is a prediction that the Kaaba
will one day be destroyed. You may read of this in a paperback
entitled "The Sayings of Muhammed" (ISBN 0-88001-641-8), translated
by Neil Robinson, (Ecco Press), on page 27, a saying of "prophet"
Muhammed concerning the Kaaba: "The person who destroys the Kaaba
will be "Old Thin Legs", an Abyssinian."

Masada

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/masada.html

Masada today is one of the Jewish people's greatest symbols. Israeli
soldiers take an oath there: "Masada shall not fall again."

Masada was the scene of a mass suicide of Jews circa 72 C.E. They
took their own lives rather than fall into the hands of the Romans.
Was it really such a bad choice? How many alternative choices were
open to them? Today, Israeli solders swear their oath of allegiance
at the site of the Masada suicide. Is the suicide of Masada really
genocide turned inside out?

Sometimes we make the enemy go away by making ourselves go away.
Sometimes we make the enemy go away by killing every man, woman and
child, so that the enemy becomes a bad and distant memory. Suicide?
Genocide? Genocide as suicide turned inside out? Think about it.
Imagine two mirrors face to face, reflecting each other in perfect
symmetry. The Romans facing the Jews, the Romans bent on genocide and
the Jews resigned to suicide. Suicide and genocide are the same thing
seen from different angles.

Elazar ben Yair's final speech, as recorded by the historian
Josephus, was a masterful oration:

Sitaram · Site Admin Joined: 14 Sep 2005 Posts: 1079

Between Al-Lah and the Three there can be no peace. I don't want it. I want the fight. To the death; that is the kind of idea I am. What kind of idea are you?
(Salman Rushdie: The Satanic Verses, p.124)

WHAT KIND OF IDEA ARE YOU? Are you the kind that compromises, does deals, accomodates itself to society, aims to find a niche, to survive; or are you the cussed, bloody-minded, ramrod-backed type of damnfool notion that would rather break than sway with the breeze? --

The kind that will almost certainly, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, be smashed to bits; but, the hundredth time, will change the world.

- also from Satanic Verses

http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/...winglife01-20/702-4143300-2827256

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