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 Posted by Aron on February 18 2006 (Saturday) : 09:51 PMAli Abunimah from the Electronic Intifada is a brilliant and articulate writer and speaker. In this video from PBS' Newshour, Abunimah engages in a debate with Shi'ite neocon Fouad Ajami. I find almost chilling Ajami's statement that the 15 million Muslims living in Europe have to learn to "play by the rules" of European society. German Jews before the war believed that if they "play by the rules" and were "good Germans" they would be spared Nazi persecution. But as Abunimah points out, xenophobes don't care about "rules". By this time however, the discussion on the subject has deteriorated into a farce. The "totally lacking a sense of irony" award goes to all the right-wing pundits and bloggers who are foaming out of one side of their mouth about the threat to free speech Muslims and Arabs represnet, and foaming out of the other side of their mouth about "liberals" oppossing Bush & Co's wiretapping policies and out of their rear complaining how publishing more photos about Abu Graib will just "fan the flames" and "serves no purpose" except promoting "liberal agendas". One more sophisticated neo-con actually wrote a clever piece in last-week's NY Times Week in Review, where he skewered "liberals" and demonized Muslims while appearing to be thoughtful and logical. Liberals, he opined, support the "abstract principle" of free speech because they believe "anything goes." They totally lack any moral values and so can't understand why anyone might get offended by anything. Worse still,, because liberals have no spine, have no moral values and don't think anything is worth dying for, they can't understand why Muslims, who "believe Christians and Jews are evil apostates," are willing to die over cartoons printed in a Christian press. In short, "liberals' don't understand that Muslims and Arabs are out to kill us all. Of course, as I noted in my first piece on this topic, the Jyllands-Posten is a right wing rag, and most of the pundits going on about free speech on this issue, are also right-wing islamophobes. On the other hand the articles from left wing pundits about the poor Arab and Muslim "victims" who are just venting their rage against "Western imperialism" are equally tiresome. One such pundit, also in last week's NY Times Week in Review, opined that the Mullahs in Denmark who went around the Arab world to complain about the cartoons and stir up the reaction, had no choice in the matter since the Danish government refused to apologize. While that may be the case, that doesn't explain why these Mullahs added to the mix a particularly inflmatory cartoon depicting Muhammed as a pig, which never appeared in the Jyllands-Posten. By the way, I don't view Abunimah as one of these knee-jerk pundits. Ali is extremely thoughtful in what he says and writes. In these staged TV panels, you don't really have an opportunity to do anything more than frame a debate. And I agree with him that the context for the anger and rage in the Muslim world is Western xenophobia against Muslims and our meddling in the Middle East. But beyond that context, the big question remains: what needs to be done. As I have often written, wallowing in victimhood is not a solution. Playing by the rules of those who have power is also not a solution. The proper path to empowerment is to take responsibility for and control over your own actions. One needs to act, not in response to some outside provocation, but because this act is born of truth and love. This is the path Ghandi taught and every day that passes I see how wise he was. < | >
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  Cost of the War in Iraq
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"Entre los individuos, como entre las naciones, el respeto al derecho ajeno es la paz -- Among individuals, as among nations, respect for the rights of others is peace" -Benito Juárez
"It isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at it." -Eleanor Roosevelt "Let them call me a rebel and welcome. I feel no concern from it. But should I suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul" -Thomas Paine | |
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