[lit-ideas] faith & secularism
- From: JimKandJulieB@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 18 May 2005 04:17:23 EDT
"At the end of the day, it's not about words or holy books or pork or dogs
or any of that. It's about what these things symbolize on a personal level. It
is infuriating to see objects that we hold sacred degraded and debased by
foreigners who felt the need to travel thousands of kilometers to do this.
That's not to say that all troops disrespect Islam- some of them seem to
genuinely want to understand our beliefs. It does seem like the people in
charge have
decided to make degradation and humiliation a policy.
By doing such things, this war is taken to another level- it is no longer a
war against terror or terrorists- it is, quite simply, a war against Islam
and even secular Muslims are being forced to take sides."
_http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/_ (http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/)
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
The Dead and the Undead...
?She stood in the crowded room as her drove of minions stood around her...?A
huddling mass trying to draw closer to her aura of evil. The lights flashed
against her fangs as her cruel lips curled into a grimace. It was meant to be
a smile but it wouldn't reach her cold, lifeless eyes? It was a leer- the
leer of the undead before a feeding...
The above was not a scene from Buffy the Vampire Slayer- it was just Condi
Rice in Iraq a day ago. At home, we fondly refer to her as The Vampire. She's
such a contrast to Bush- he simply looks stupid. She, on the other hand,
looks utterly evil.
The last two weeks have been violent. The number of explosions in Baghdad
alone is frightening. There have also been several assassinations- bodies
being
found here and there. It's somewhat disturbing to know that corpses are
turning up in the most unexpected places. Many people will tell you it's not
wise
to eat river fish anymore because they have been nourished on the human
remains being dumped into the river. That thought alone has given me more than
one sleepless night. It is almost as if Baghdad has turned into a giant
graveyard.
The latest corpses were those of some Sunni and Shia clerics- several of
them well-known. People are being patient and there is a general consensus
that
these killings are being done to provoke civil war. Also worrisome is the
fact that we are hearing of people being rounded up by security forces (Iraqi)
and then being found dead days later- apparently when the new Iraqi government
recently decided to reinstate the death penalty, they had something else in
mind.
But back to the explosions. One of the larger blasts was in an area called
Ma'moun, which is a middle class area located in west Baghdad. It?s a
relatively calm residential area with shops that provide the basics and a bit
more.
It happened in the morning, as the shops were opening up for their daily
business and it occurred right in front of a butchers shop. Immediately after,
we
heard that a man living in a house in front of the blast site was hauled off
by the Americans because it was said that after the bomb went off, he sniped
an Iraqi National Guardsman.
I didn?t think much about the story- nothing about it stood out: an
explosion and a sniper- hardly an anomaly. The interesting news started
circulating a
couple of days later. People from the area claim that the man was taken away
not because he shot anyone, but because he knew too much about the bomb.
Rumor has it that he saw an American patrol passing through the area and
pausing
at the bomb site minutes before the explosion. Soon after they drove away, t
he bomb went off and chaos ensued. He ran out of his house screaming to the
neighbors and bystanders that the Americans had either planted the bomb or
seen the bomb and done nothing about it. He was promptly taken away.
The bombs are mysterious. Some of them explode in the midst of National
Guard and near American troops or Iraqi Police and others explode near
mosques,
churches, and shops or in the middle of sougs. One thing that surprises us
about the news reports of these bombs is that they are inevitably linked to
suicide bombers. The reality is that some of these bombs are not suicide
bombs-
they are car bombs that are either being remotely detonated or maybe time
bombs. All we know is that the techniques differ and apparently so do the
intentions. Some will tell you they are resistance. Some say Chalabi and his
thugs
are responsible for a number of them. Others blame Iran and the SCIRI militia
Badir.
In any case, they are terrifying. If you're close enough, the first sound is
a that of an earsplitting blast and the sounds that follow are of a rain of
glass, shrapnel and other sharp things. Then the wails begin- the shrill
mechanical wails of an occasional ambulance combined with the wail of car
alarms
from neighboring vehicles? and finally the wail of people trying to sort out
their dead and dying from the debris.
The day before yesterday, a bomb fell on Mustansiriya University- _Khalid of
Secrets in Baghdad_ (http://secretsinbaghdad.blogspot.com/) blogs about it.
We've been watching the protests about _the Newsweek article_
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050517/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/newsweek_quran) with
interest. I?m
not surprised at the turnout at these protests- the thousands of Muslims angry
at the desecration of the Quran. What did surprise me was the collective
shock that seems to have struck the Islamic world like a slap in the face. How
is this shocking? It's terrible and disturbing in the extreme- but how is it
shocking? After what happened in Abu Ghraib and other Iraqi prisons how is
this astonishing? American jailers in Afghanistan and Iraq have shown little
respect for human life and dignity- why should they be expected to respect a
holy book?
_Juan Cole has some good links about the topic._
(http://www.juancole.com/2005/05/guantanamo-controversies-bible-and.html)
Now Newsweek have retracted the story- obviously under pressure from the
White House. Is it true? Probably. We've seen enough blatant disregard and
disrespect for Islam in Iraq the last two years to make this story sound very
plausible. On a daily basis, mosques are raided, clerics are dragged away with
bags over their heads? Several months ago the world witnessed the execution of
an unarmed Iraqi prisoner inside a mosque. Is this latest so very surprising?
Detainees coming back after weeks or months in prison talk of being forced
to eat pork, not being allowed to pray, being exposed to dogs, having Islam
insulted and generally being treated like animals trapped in a small cage. At
the end of the day, it's not about words or holy books or pork or dogs or any
of that. It's about what these things symbolize on a personal level. It is
infuriating to see objects that we hold sacred degraded and debased by
foreigners who felt the need to travel thousands of kilometers to do this.
That's not
to say that all troops disrespect Islam- some of them seem to genuinely want
to understand our beliefs. It does seem like the people in charge have
decided to make degradation and humiliation a policy.
By doing such things, this war is taken to another level- it is no longer a
war against terror or terrorists- it is, quite simply, a war against Islam
and even secular Muslims are being forced to take sides.
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