Sunday, January 27, 2008

Daniel Pipes: A failure on all fronts

Posted: January 15, 2008, 3:03 PM by Marni Soupcoff
Daniel Pipes

George W. Bush's policies toward the Middle East and Islam will loom large when historians judge his presidency. On the occasion of concluding his eight-day, six-country trip to the Middle East and entering his final year in office, I offer some provisional assessments.

His hallmark has been a readiness to break with long-established bipartisan positions and adopt stunningly new policies, and by late 2005 he had laid out his novel approach in four major areas.

- Radical Islam Prior to 9/11, American authorities viewed Islamist violence as a narrow criminal problem. Calling for a "war against terror" in September, 2001, Bush broadened the conflict. Specifying the precise force behind terrorism in October, 2005, he termed it "Islamic radicalism," "militant jihad-ism" and "Islamo-fascism."

- Pre-emptive war Deterrence had long been the policy of choice against the Soviet Union and other threats, but Bush added a second policy in June, 2002: pre-emption. U.S. security, he said, "will require all Americans to be forward-looking and resolute, to be ready for preemptive action when necessary to defend our liberty and to defend our lives." Nine months later, this new doctrine served as his basis to invade Iraq and eliminate Saddam Hussein before the latter could develop nuclear weapons.

- Arab-Israeli conflict Bush avoided the old-style and counterproductive "peace process" diplomacy and tried a new approach in June, 2003, by establishing the goal of "two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side, in peace and security." In addition, he outlined his final-status vision, specified a timetable, and even attempted to sideline a recalcitrant leader (Yasser Arafat) and prop up a forthcoming one (Ehud Olmert).

- Democracy Deriding "Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East" as a policy that "did nothing to make us safe," Bush announced in November, 2003, "a forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East," by which he meant pushing regimes to open up to citizen participation.

So much for intentions. How, in fact, have things worked out?

At the end of his first term, I concluded that the Bush policies, other than the Arab-Israeli one, stood "a good chance of working." No longer. Today, I perceive failure in all four areas.

Bush's once-improved understanding of radical Islam has been reversed, to the point that he uses lengthy and inelegant euphemisms to avoid referring to the problem by name, relying on formulations like "a group of extremists who seek to use religion as a path to power and a means of domination."

Pre-emptive war requires convincing observers that the pre-emption was indeed justified, something the Bush administration failed to do. Only half the American population (and a far smaller proportion of people in the Middle East) accept the need for invading Iraq. This has created domestic divisions within the United States and external hostility greater than at any time since the Vietnam War. Among the costs: increased difficulty in taking pre-emptive action against the Iranian nuclear program.

Bush's vision of resolving a century of Arab-Israeli conflict by anointing Mahmoud Abbas as leader of a Palestinian state is illusory. Would a sovereign "Palestine" alongside Israel drain the anti-Zionist hatred and close down the irredentist war against Israel? No. Rather, the mischievous goal of creating "Palestine" will inspire more fervour to eliminate the Jewish state.

Finally, encouraging democracy is clearly a worthy goal, but when the Middle East's dominant popular force is totalitarian Islam, is it such a great idea to rush headlong ahead? Yet rushing ahead characterized Washington's initial approach -- until the policy's damage to U.S. interests became too apparent to ignore, causing it largely to be abandoned.

At a time when George W. Bush arouses such intense dislike among his critics, someone who wishes him well, like myself, criticizes reluctantly. But criticize one must; to pretend all is well, or to remain loyal to the person despite his record, does no one a favor. A frank recognition of mistakes must precede their repair.

I respect Bush's benign motivation and good intentions while mourning his having squandered a record-breaking 90% job-approval rating following 9/11 and his bequeathing to the next president a polarized electorate, a military reluctant to use force against Iran, Hamas ruling Gaza, an Iraqi disaster-in-waiting, radical Islam on the ascendant and unprecedented levels of global anti-Americanism.

Conservatives have much work ahead to reconstruct their Middle East policy.

- Daniel Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum.
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2008/01/15/daniel-pipes-a-failure-on-all-fronts.aspx

Funny Arabic Conditions

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Aspects of learning int eh present and the past

Definition of learning :

Learning refers to an intensive activity that increases the capacity and willingness of individuals, groups, organizations, and communities, to acquire and productively apply new knowledge and skills, to grow and mature, and to adapt successfully to changes and challenges. It has several forms and aspects that change from one time to anther.

Variation in aspects of learning:

Aspects of learning have changed progressively from a very ancient structure to a modern form to serve learners in an easy and efficient way. It is a continuous emergence to the archaeological inscriptions and drawings, figures and images that is used by people in the past that can be considered as means of education aimed to deliver messages to another recipient that is compatible with his learning abilities at that period of time. Afterward, people learn through self-education and stimulation. There are many movies and series that dramatize the way people used to learn. What we observe is a small mosque with dozens of small boys. The Imam is the only teacher whose main concern is to deliver the right message to his students, and increase their knowledge abilities and potentials. The material he uses is exclusive to the holly Quran teachings and some of the Arabic language.

Aspects of learning in the Quran :

The words of God carry significant indications of learning aspects. These words come out to existence either through the prophet words or in God's books. Some of the hints are transmitted in Quran:

And We ordained laws for him in the tablets in all matters, both commanding and explaining all things, (and said): "Take and hold these with firmness, and enjoin thy people to hold fast by the best in the precepts: soon shall I show you the homes of the wicked,- (How they lie desolate). (Al A'raf, 7.145) [1]

24. Seest thou not how Allah sets forth a parable? - A goodly word like a goodly tree, whose root is firmly fixed, and its branches (reach) to the heavens,- of its Lord. So Allah sets forth parables for men, in order that they may receive admonition.

25. It brings forth its fruit at all times, by the leave of its Lord. So Allah sets forth parables for men, in order that they may receive admonition.

26. And the parable of an evil Word is that of an evil tree: It is torn up by the root from the surface of the earth: it has no stability. (Ibrahim, 14.24,25,26) [2]

In Christianity, The monks learn from Christ the sole of his teachings. In their teaching process, they depend on a live environment using methods that transfer learning into a discovery. They used to form alphabets from bones and give them to children to play and learn spelling.

Later than that, with the modern renaissance in Europe and the French revolution, which the Islamic in heritage is one of its improvement features, the aspect of learning takes a new approach due to the appearance of the printing machine. This discovery gives birth to a large number of books with thousands of copies.

Moreover, in 1905, appears what is called "museums schools". These schools serve learning a lot through offering mobile conferences, photographs, slides, films, drawings, paintings… From 1941 to 1945, the World War II consists of new aspects of learning through the growth of the audio-visual tools that has military and industrial uses. Moreover, through the fax invention and the radio technology, learning adopts new aspects. Throughout Radio and Television, people become more connected to each other than before. Also, in the forties of the twentieth century, there is the creation of the computer technology which encloses the main role of the evolution of learning and human knowledge, which is the best reliable aspect of learning in the world. Furthermore, In 1980, Technology products accelerates a lot to an extent that some of it passes the light speed. This technology is used in the video and interactive multimedia system. Finally, in 1990, Internet achieved The Extreme Growth among learners in the globe. It grows rapidly and excessively in the United States as well as in other countries. Therefore, Internet provides learners many educational means and different aspects by which individual can have success to education: wherever, whenever, and whatever domain he likes.

On the basis of what I have talked about above, Man's aspects of learning are very old and variable to the place and time. I can divide these aspects into four steps:

1- Visual means: they are called by that name for the reason that they relay on sight as the principal source of education. Man sees reality fulfilled his environment, he realizes that and understand his realization through direct sensory expressions.

2- Audio-Visual: This is to confirm that it uses more than one sense property in the educational process such as sight and hearing. Cinema helps with that a lot through providing knowledge by animated pictures and its sound effects.

3- Information technology (IT) schools: Such schools are used to serve theoretical and practical methods in the context of the educational process. The function of this schools is to give access to new aspects of learning and education.

4- Technology of learning and education: It is a common concept that people link technology learning with the new modern innovation, electronic machines, and computers. It is the a consequence of the industrial revolution. Unlike education, people should use all use all these things for his benefit to achieve better goals in this field.

Within the framework above, we can say that the new aspects of learning can be used in a great deal to help students deal with their educative program. We, thanks to Technology availability, are capable to speak about Sparknotes[3]or Bookmooch[4]. But, still, old aspects of learning give us very important intellects in deferent specialties and fields


References

Alsharaf, Hisham ;Fajr network; Attaalim bayna lmadi wa lhader "Learning between the present and the past"; http://69.57.136.227/?act=artc&id=2321 accessed 17/01/2008



[1] The Holly Quran. Al A'raf, 145 Trans. Yusuf Ali. Riyadh: Darussalam, 2001

[2] Ibid, Ibrahim,.24,26

[3] Study guides and discussion forums offered on various academic subjects. Literature section includes brief analyses of characters, themes and plots. http://sparknotes.com

[4] Every time you give someone a book, you earn a point and can get any book you want from anyone else at http://bookmooch.com

Made by Abdelkrim Amrani

knightkrm@gmail.com

Friday, January 18, 2008

Islamophobia: Making Muslims the Enemy


Islamophobia: Making Muslims the Enemy


08 January 2008


Islamophobia

In their new book, Islamophobia: Making Muslims the Enemy, coauthors Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg explore a largely unexamined phenomenon – the “deeply ingrained anxiety” some Westerners, and especially Americans, experience when considering Islam and Muslim cultures. Peter Gottschalk, professor of religion at Wesleyan University in Connecticut and the author of Beyond Hindu and Muslim, says that in times of crisis, such as the 1979 Iranian hostage situation or the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, the long-simmering resentments and suspicions “inherited along with a European Christian heritage, manifest themselves.” Professor Gottschalk and his former student Gabriel Greenberg explore those anxieties through the political cartoon, the print medium with the most immediate impact.

In prejudices such as racism, sexism, and more recently Islamophobia, Peter Gottschalk says there are historical conditions that enable certain groups to feel an antagonism toward another group that seem to “justify” that antagonism. Speaking with host Judith Latham of VOA News Now’s Press Conference USA, he explains that such attitudes form a “constantly reaffirming, re-substantiating perspective.” Gabriel Greenberg notes, for example, that from the time of the Crusades, Islam was experienced by surrounding cultures as a “competitor.” Some of the things many non-Muslim Americans today tend to associate with Islam are characteristics that are “negatively valued” Professor Gottschalk says, such as terrorism, the oppression of women, and associations with “Arabs” or the Middle East.

Protests against Danish cartoons
Muslims in several countries hold up banners, protesting against the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in a Danish newspape two years ago
In the case of the political cartoon, it simultaneously amuses one group with its stereotypical presentation and simultaneously offends another. For example, two years ago Danish cartoons satirizing the Prophet Muhammed appeared in several European newspapers and deeply upset Muslim readers, bringing about a very public outcry. Gabriel Greenberg says political cartoons seem to have greater emotional impact than do newspaper editorials. In the process of stereotyping, Peter Gottschalk says, the cartoon takes the “presumed qualities of a whole people and broadcasts them by use of a single image” – for example, the “violence of Muslim men.” An effective antidote to that kind of belief, the authors point out, is first-hand experience – going to school with, or working with, people of different ethnic or religious backgrounds.

Professor Gottschalk and Mr. Greenberg say it is also important for leaders to use “less general and more nuanced language.” Instead of talking about “the Muslim world,” which comprises more than a billion people spread across the globe, one could be more specific and talk about certain people in country X. By contrast, in the United States, which is a majority “Christian country,” there is whole spectrum of views about the intersection of “Christianity” with personal faith, social identity, or political positions on various public issues. Similarly, Professor Gottschalk explains, there are a variety of movements within Islam that may be “authoritarian, revival, or reform” in nature. And that, he says, is quite different from what some people call “Islamofacism,” which tends to lump together the Taliban, terrorism, and the politics of a democratic country such as Turkey, thereby creating a “monolithic enemy.” Gabriel Greenberg notes that the media have a responsibility to inform people and to create “mutual understanding” rather than to spread fear of the “other.” So what individuals and groups need to cultivate instead is a sense of a “common humanity” rather than a contest of “us against them.”

For full audio of the program Press Conference USA click here..

Consuming the Orient

Saturday, January 12, 2008
MARLENE SCHAFERS
ISTANBUL - Turkish Daily News

A fat golden crescent on a dark blue background with the enigmatic caption �Aimez-vous l'Orient?� (Do you love the Orient?) invites visitors to the newest exhibition at the Ottoman Bank Museum titled �Consuming the Orient.�

The exhibition poster's minimalist treatment of the oriental crescent symbol is in many ways the opposite of what is on display in the exhibition itself, which shows the Western view of the East as reflected in popular consumer products of the late 19th and 20th centuries. Large, colorful advertisement posters, cartoons, product wrappings and postcards are united in their depiction of �the Orient� in Western consumer culture.

The exhibition focuses on the Orient as a commodity, an object for consumption. Consumption is broadly conceived, represented by objects ranging from tourism artifacts and products claiming to be typically Oriental � like coffee and carpets � to dreams and imagination, represented by cartoons and movie posters on display.

The exhibition's curator Edhem Eldem, history professor at Boğaziçi University, responds to the flexible notion of what forms the �Orient,� which is, after all, a construct of Western culture, science, art and politics. Eldem has chosen to focus on an Arabian-Islamic Orient, whose geographical area stretches from Turkey to the Maghreb (meaning the West, but here the term refers to North African countries except Egypt) along the Mediterranean basin.

The exhibition's visual backbone is 53 impressive posters from the Abderrahman Slaoui Foundation of Casablanca. �I know there is a danger that the posters dominate the other objects in the exhibition,� said Eldem. Considering the artistic innovation and beauty of many of them, however, this is surely not to the disadvantage of the show.

The objects are arranged around four recurrent, thematic motifs in the Western view of the East: First, the notion of exoticism, a tendency to show the Orient as foreign and strange. The cliché of palm trees and camels in the desert as typically Oriental is encountered here in its most obvious fashion. Travel guides and tourist handbooks are also guilty of appealing to exoticism, depicting a world �out there� in what attempts to be dry, objective language, inviting tourists to venture into the unknown.

Stereotypes of Oriental people are the focus of the second motif. The appeal of the unknown Orient was not confined to landscapes and monumental sights, it also included curiosity about people living in the East. This ethnographic twist, as Eldem termed it, resulted in clichés about the idleness of �the Turk� or the backwardness of �the Arab.� Yet Eldem continuously stresses that Orientalism is not as simple and easily condemnable as it seems. For example, in the French comic strip �Bécassine chez les Turcs,� Germans are ultimately the bad characters and Ottomans are depicted much more favorably.

The third theme represented in the exhibition is eroticism, a Western interest in Eastern sexuality that ranges from curiosity to condemnation. The most classical expression of European erotic fascination with the Orient is the harem, full of beautiful, idle women at the ready disposal of their master, an image reproduced in countless novels, cartoons and movies. From a different perspective, these fantasies of Oriental polygamy went hand in hand with the general image of oriental homosexuality.

Historicism is the fourth theme; this construction of history and the present depicted the East as the background for Western history through references to biblical sites or Roman remains. In the hands of historicism's supporters, history became especially useful as a tool to justify colonial claims. Italy could thus claim �historical� rights to rule in northern Africa since it saw itself as the modern continuation of the Roman Empire.

The exhibition's last section, which focuses on Orientalism in Turkey by Turks themselves, is what makes the exhibition so extraordinary and controversial. In response to Orientalist attitudes, demeaning attitudes from the West, the Ottomans of the early 19th century, in their quest for Westernization, started adopting the very same notions they had tried to reject and projected them onto the people who were the �real Orientals� in their eyes: The uneducated masses, Kurds and especially Arabs. This tendency gained momentum with the establishment of the Republic, which tried to sever all connections with an unwanted �Oriental� Ottoman past in order to finally become part of the admired West.

While projecting Orientalist notions onto others in attempts to become Western, items of Turkish popular culture tell the story of what Eldem called �self-Orientalization.� The film posters and popular book covers on display reveal an Ottoman revival in Turkey since the 1980s. An Oriental past is being accepted and actively promoted, ironically using exactly those clichés the West had produced and Ottoman elites had once revolted against. Thus the erotic belly dancer and the wild, untamed Ottoman soldier reappear as main characters in popular Turkish movies of the late 20th century.

Little text accompanies the artifacts on display. Instead, the posters and objects speak for themselves, allowing the viewer to come to his or her own understanding of what it means to consume the East. Letting the objects speak for themselves also encourages an appreciation for their artistic value apart from the default �Orientalist condemnation,� which too often becomes just a form of political correctness. The artists were products of their time and therefore naturally imbued with Orientalist notions, and Eldem wanted to show the �innocent side� of Orientalism, which is too often forgotten. Rather than being active producers of an Orientalist and thus disfiguring, subduing discourse, the objects of Western consumer culture were merely reproducing a system already in place. This is doubtless a controversial point linked to normative notions of guilt and liability. In how far can we condemn advertisers for reproducing � often unconsciously � clichés of a mystical, exotic Orient? Should cartoons with humoristic depictions of �the Oriental� still be reprinted today?

Eldem is well aware that his exhibition raises these delicate questions. Yet rather than trying to give standard answers, he aims to show the manifold, even contradictory sides of Orientalism. And thus the minimalist golden crescent of the exhibition poster stands exactly for these aesthetic and naive sides of Orientalism, which lie at the heart of �Consuming the Orient.�

�Consuming the Orient � Doğuyu Tüketmek�

Ottoman Bank Museum, Voyvoda Caddesi 35/37, Karaköy

The exhibition runs through March 2. Open every day from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.

© 2005 Dogan Daily News Inc. www.turkishdailynews.com.tr

‘Charming romantic comedy’ is a critique of Arab women’s roles

The Arab-American community complains that we see few representations of Arab men here besides the terrorists or thugs who have become the default villains in action movies and military-style television series like "24." But images of Arab women are nonexistent — they’re either wrapped in robes or not there at all. So it will please that special-interest group now that there’s an Arab chick flick in the theater, with gorgeous, sympathetic Arab women who have issues with romance and identity that any woman can relate to. That should make them happy, shouldn’t it? We’ll see.


The Lebanese selection for best Foreign Language Film category at the Oscars, "Caramel" is a charming romantic comedy with a sharp edge that manages to present a pointed critique of the place women fill in the Arab world, even in an emancipated and modern society such as Lebanon. The women in the film — all stunningly beautiful and none of them professional actresses — have to navigate a culture that tries to keep them in their place and under control in a thousand ways.

Set in Beirut, the movie focuses on a group of women of different ages who frequent a ramshackle beauty parlor. The owner, Layale, played by the film’s young director and screenwriter Nadine Labaki, is having an affair with a married man. Layale is a Christian, like most of the characters, but of course that doesn’t affect the fact that she’s desperately in love with Rabih. An unseen charmer, he pulls up in front of the shop — presumably when he has a free hour — and honks for her to come out.


Scenes from ‘Caramel,’ directed by Natine Labaki. Photos courtesy of Roadside Attractions.

Her friend and fellow hairdresser Nisrine rolls her eyes when Layale goes running out, but with a sense of understanding rather than disapproval. Nisrine has her own problems. A Muslim, she’s engaged to be married, but her fiancé doesn’t’ know that she isn’t a virgin. Nisrine carefully rolls down her sleeves and buttons her blouse over her tight camisole when she and her boyfriend visit his family, and we understand everything about a woman’s role in a Lebanese Muslim household from that scene. The women literally fight over who can do more to serve the men at the table. The scene is funny and good-natured, but it makes its point.

Rima is the other woman who works in the shop, and she’s a different type altogether. Dressed in loose jeans rather than the tight, revealing clothes of the other young women, Rima is clearly a lesbian, although it’s uncertain if she knows. Sneaking glances at pretty girls on the bus, she seems uncomfortable in her own body. When an unfamiliar woman comes into the shop for a shampoo, Rima is powerfully smitten.

Several other women have major roles in the film as well, and their stories are told with the same warmth and genuineness as the women in the salon. Although there is absolutely no feminist rhetoric in "Caramel," there is a powerful sense of sisterhood, of the emotional bonds that form between women wherever they may live — in a Arab country with its long history of oppression, in America where a woman can earn women’s votes by showing a little of what’s behind the mask, and in Israel, a country that’s both modern and Middle Eastern in its attitude toward women.

The title of the film refers to the method of hair removal popular in Lebanon. Instead of wax, Layale cooks up caramel, cools it slightly, and then uses it to remove body hair. Offering a special on this sugar waxing, she lures her lover’s wife to the salon, just so she can see her competition. Rather than being creepy, this scene underscores the poignant situation of the two women, desperately trying to please the man they both love. The need of all the women in "Caramel" to please the men in their lives — most of whom are sensitive and well-meaning — is what gives the film its affecting quality. For these women, life without marriage or love is unthinkable, and they’ll go to any lengths — trickery, deceit, surgery — to keep themselves desirable and acceptable to men. Their only power is in their bodies, and that’s why the beauty salon becomes the symbol of their oppression as well as their strength.

"Caramel" opens in New York on
Jan. 25.

On a mission to change mindsets

by Bindu Rai on Friday,January 18,2008

(SUPPLIED)



Kiefer Sutherland launched a manhunt for them on 24. Arnold Schwarzenegger hijacked a fighter jet to gun them down in True Lies. And Bruce Willis declared martial law to capture them in The Siege.


These are Hollywood’s reel bad Arabs, most often bracketed into the stereotypical role of gun-toting terrorists on screen. In fact, comedian Maz Jobrani happened to play one such evildoer on 24, who steals a nuclear warhead to embark on a spree of death and mayhem in downtown Los Angeles.


“But I was a terrorist with a conscience,” Iranian-born Jobrani tells Emirates Business. “When my character spots schoolchildren in the playground, he has a change of heart. And then two seconds later he gets shot, thanks to his good deed of the day.”


Jobrani, along with Ahmed Ahmed and Aron Kader, make up the trio of Axis of Evil – a name appropriated from United States President George Bush’s famous speech on the axis of evil nations – Iraq, Iran and North Korea.

With this group, the three comedians aim to bridge the cultural gap between Arab and Western cultures through humour. The trio have just finished their first stand-up comedy tour of the Middle East in partnership with Showtime Arabia, with performances in Dubai, Cairo, Amman and Beirut. Highlights of their regional tour are now being showcased on Showcomedy every Friday, offering plenty of behind-the-scenes action.

Combining humour and politics, the trio have attempted to address misconceptions about the Middle East and its international image and help cultures understand each other better. For Ahmed, Kader and Jobrani, comedy is the best way to break down existing barriers and achieve their objectives, with a few laughs along the way.

Egyptian-born Ahmed says: “Living in the United States as an Arab, you are prone to living with some form of prejudice, but post September 11, things just got worse.”

Ahmed talks of being detained at domestic airports across the US over the years. He says: “I was even arrested once, at Las Vegas airport, the day before President Bush was re-elected. I discovered later that more than 10,000 Muslims were thrown in jail around the time on suspicion.”

But he still manages to find some humour in the situation, saying: “At the time, I was arrested by a black cop and a white cop, and while they were taking me away in handcuffs, the black cop whispered in my ear, ‘Now you know what it feels like to be a black man in the 1960s’.”

He eventually ended up in a downtown holding cell for nearly 17 hours with “thugs and gang bangers” he says.

“After 12 hours in the holding cell, a Mexican gang member with tattoos and a shaved head walked up to me and said, ‘Hey amigo… so you locked up here coz you Arab?’ I said ‘yeah’. ‘They thought u a terrorist amigo?’, I said ‘yeah’. ‘Then blow this place up and get us outta here’. That’s when I finally started laughing,” he says.

Palestinian-born Kader’s experiences may not be as colourful, but he does say as a comedian, making Muslims laugh at themselves works well in their favour.

“When we perform in comedy clubs across the US, it’s great to see our Muslim audiences appreciate our brand of humour. And the added bonus is the American audience present in the crowd realise that all Arabs are really not like Osama bin Laden; we too have a sense of humour,” he says.


Funny bone

Emirates Business caught up with Maz Jobrani, Ahmed Ahmed and Aron Kader, the threesome from Axis of Evil, to talk humour and politics.

MAZ JOBRANI

BEST STAGE LINE: There isn’t one that stands out. When performing, you come up with a gag that’s so funny you start laughing yourself.

PRESIDENT BUSH AND HIS WAR ON TERROR: It is very frustrating to see a man who is ignorant about the world as the president of our country. When his administration was trying to sell the war in Iraq to the American people, I recall Bush saying they were going to welcome us with flowers, and I thought: does he believe this? Furthermore, isn’t there anybody who says, ‘now here’s a counterpoint: what if they don’t accept us with flowers?’

SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AS A COMEDIAN: A big part of what we’re trying to do with our American audiences is for them to leave thinking: “Hey, that guy was Iranian, and he was funny; they’re all not bad.”

IF YOU CAME FACE TO FACE WITH OSAMA BIN LADEN YOU'D SAY: ‘There you are! I’ve been looking for you’.

AHMED AHMED

BEST STAGE LINE: People love my Arab jokes. One of my more popular ones is: Do you know how I catch an air marshal on the plane? He’s the guy reading the People magazine upside down and looking at me.

PRESIDENT BUSH AND HIS WAR ON TERROR: He reminds me of the guy in high school who walks around beating his chest, but inside is a wimp.

SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AS A COMEDIAN: I started doing comedy years before 9/11. I tell people, if you can laugh at yourself, then come to my shows. Otherwise don’t waste your money. I’m not a political activist or a statesman nor am I running for office. My agenda is to make people laugh.

WORST CRITICISM RECEIVED: When I first started doing comedy, my father said, ‘Ahmed, what is this Hollywood bull? Are you in a cult?’ After he saw me on TV, baba turned around and said, ‘Ah, my son Ahmed. He gets his humour from me’.

IF YOU CAME FACE TO FACE WITH OSAMA BIN LADEN YOU'D SAY: Why are you so mad at America?

ARON KADER

BEST STAGE LINE: It’s more of a pick-up line: Excuse me, I’ve noticed you but it’s not working out between us. Maybe we can be friends. I’ll fax you my number if you give me yours.

PRESIDENT BUSH AND HIS WAR ON TERROR: After the Hurricane Katrina disaster my Republican friend heard me bad-mouthing Bush and responded: ‘Bush just made a couple of mistakes’. I snapped back and said, ‘A couple of mistakes… President Clinton with a blue dress was a mistake’. There’s a mistake like I’m choking on a pretzel, and then there’s a mistake like ‘oops, I’m torturing prisoners in Guantanamo Bay’. But Bush has given so much to the comedy world.

SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AS A COMEDIAN: My first responsibility is to make people laugh.

IF YOU CAME FACE TO FACE WITH OSAMA BIN LADEN YOU'D SAY: Well, it all depends on how tall he really is... [laughs]. We have this joke that he’s probably hiding somewhere in the US, sitting at a Yankees game. But if I do ever meet him, I want to ask him if he really does have kidney problems. How does a guy like that survive in such wilderness where he pitches a tent and hooks up to a dialysis machine? What outdoors survival guide did he read?

Related Articles
VIDEO AUDIO PHOTO
Emirates

POLL

Will a decreased perception of risk make the GCC attractive to global real estate investors?


View Result

Sheikh Mohammed, leader of change

The UAE celebrates two years of achievement on the anniversary of Sheikh Mohammed becoming Vice-President and Prime Minister, and Ruler of Dubai.

Last word in luxury

Big dreams come to life in the UAE, the world’s ultimate leisure destination, and home to some of the most expensive (and outrageous) distractions.



The GCC’s dollar dilemma

Exhaustive coverage of the future of the dollar peg as Middle East countries - torn between a sliding dollar and rising inflation - continue to debate alternatives.


Last Update at 7:45 pm on January 18, 2008

Terrorism, climate change to figure in Manmohan-Brown talks



Date:19/01/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/01/19/stories/2008011959041300.htm


Back

Front Page

Terrorism, climate change to figure in Manmohan-Brown talks

Sandeep Dikshit

NEW DELHI: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will arrive here on Sunday to coordinate the approach of the two countries on reforms of multilateral institutions providing aid to African countries, climate change and terrorism.

“We want to bring out two themes — to work with India in third countries and talk in detail with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh about reforms in the international system. The visit will also give Mr. Brown an opportunity to explain Britain’s philosophy of development,” British High Commissioner Richard Stagg said on Friday.

Recalling that both countries had resolved to work closely on terrorism issues, the High Commissioner said they would discuss “practical areas” for collaboration. Subjects could include exchanging experiences on keeping the rail transport functioning (Mumbai suburban rail and London metro) after terrorist strikes and ensuring the possibility of a terrorist attack on multinational sporting events is kept to the minimum.

On his maiden visit to the country after taking over as Prime Minister in June last year, Mr. Brown is expected to utilise his two-day stay to discuss the situation in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Myanmar. Mr. Stagg said Britain felt that effective steps had not been taken to make the Myanmar government more inclusive and both Prime Ministers would discuss the implications of the lack of progress and ways to address it.

Entrepreneurship conference

On Sunday, Mr. Brown will also address an entrepreneurship conference which will discuss some practical issues facing businessmen. This will be followed by a private dinner with Dr. Singh, with formal talks to take place the next day.

Also on Monday, Mr. Brown will deliver a speech with the focus on an altered international framework and making international governance both representative and effective to reflect the changed realities of the world. He will also be conferred an honorary degree by the Delhi University. A joint press conference with Dr. Singh has also been planned.

© Copyright 2000 - 2008 The Hindu

Tories attack Islamic terrorism 'rebranding'

Last Updated: 3:52pm GMT 18/01/2008

Conservative MPs have attacked Jacqui Smith's apparent rebranding of Islamic terrorism as "anti-Islamic activity".

  • Have your say: Did the 'war on terror' glorify killers?
  • IT 'anorak' who spread al-Qa'eda hate
  • US to step up security for British travellers
  • The move comes after the Home Secretary's first official speech on radicalisation, in which she repeatedly used the phrase "anti-Islamic" to describe the activities of Muslim extremists.

    advertisement

    At one point Mrs Smith said: "As so many Muslims in the UK and across the world have pointed out, there is nothing Islamic about the wish to terrorise, nothing Islamic about plotting murder, pain and grief.

    "Indeed, if anything, these actions are anti-Islamic."

    Conservative MP Philip Davies complained that the Home Office appeared to be spending too much time discussing what to call terrorism as opposed to actually fighting it.

    "Whenever anyone refers to Islamic terrorism, they are not saying all Muslims are terrorists," he said.

    "Everybody knows what people mean is terrorists doing it in the name of Islam, misguidedly.

    "If the Government spent less time worrying about this, and more time worrying about things such as having effective border controls, we would be getting somewhere."

    The criticism comes as ministers reportedly move to drop the term "war on terror" and refer to jihadis as "criminals" in an attempt to stop glorifying acts of terrorism.

    The Home Office has denied that any words or phrases have been banned.

    Information appearing on telegraph.co.uk is the copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited and must not be reproduced in any medium without licence. For the full copyright statement see Copyright


    BOOK REVIEW
    A fresh look at terrorism's roots

    Leaderless Jihad by Marc Sageman

    Reviewed by David Isenberg

    When considering solutions to really important problems it is useful to step back and ask what if everything we know is wrong.

    The question, of course, is not asked nearly enough. Questions that are complex and difficult often require solutions that are equally difficult and complex. Sometimes they require us to shake off our preconceived blinders and think in entirely new ways,

    Take, for example, the issue of terrorism. To look at a document
    BOOK REVIEW
    A fresh look at terrorism's roots

    Leaderless Jihad by Marc Sageman

    Reviewed by David Isenberg

    When considering solutions to really important problems it is useful to step back and ask what if everything we know is wrong.

    The question, of course, is not asked nearly enough. Questions that are complex and difficult often require solutions that are equally difficult and complex. Sometimes they require us to shake off our preconceived blinders and think in entirely new ways,

    Take, for example, the issue of terrorism. To look at a document



    like the White House's National Strategy for Combating Terrorism is to read statements like this:
    The terrorism we confront today springs from: Political alienation; grievances that can be blamed on others; subcultures of conspiracy and misinformation; and an ideology that justifies murder.
    But what if that is wrong? What if all the platitudes and cliches about why people turn to terror, such as George W Bush administration claims that global Islamic terrorists hate democracy and freedom, are based on myths and sound bites, signifying nothing? What if most of the terror experts are guilty of the same sin that the intelligence agencies were accused of in regard to the reason the US invaded Iraq, ie, cherry picking the evidence?

    If that is the problem then the answer is this book.

    Marc Sageman is a University of Pennsylvania professor of psychiatry and ethnopolitical conflict, and a former Foreign Service Officer who worked closely with Islamic fundamentalists during the Afghan-Soviet war in the 1980s and gained an intimate understanding of their networks. His 2004 book Understanding Terror Networks gave the first social explanation of the global wave of activity.

    Now, in his new book, Leaderless Jihad, we have a book that chooses to boldly go where few books on terrorism have gone before; namely to use scientific method to study terrorism.

    In so doing he chooses not to focus on individuals and their backgrounds, or "root" (micro and macro approaches respectively) causes, to explain how the Muslims who carried out the September 11, 2001, attacks and those like them are radicalized to become terrorists. Sageman takes the common sense view that you can't defeat an enemy until you know them and understand what drives them. Instead, by using ordinary social science methods he studies how people in groups influence each other to become terrorists.

    By building his own evidence-based, independently checked database of over 500 terrorists he has been able to see what various members of al-Qaeda had in common. He finds that are "part of a violent Islamist born-again social movement".

    And this social movement, similar to the Russian anarchists of the late 19th century, is actually motivated by idealism. Sageman's data show that they are generally idealistic young people seeking glory fighting for justice and fairness.

    This runs counter to the Bush administration counter-terrorist strategy, which is framed in terms of promoting democracy and freedom; a concept that that is readily grasped by the American domestic audience.

    But these are not terms with which Middle Eastern Muslims identify. To them democracy means leaders who win elections with almost 100% of the vote. And if a Salafi Islamist party does win an election, as was the case with the Islamic Salvation Front in Algeria in 1992 or Hamas in the Gaza Strip in 2006, the election results are canceled or the world shuns the victor.

    Thus, those who eventually become terrorists see Western-style democracy as a harmful "domination of man over man", undermining their theocratic utopia (Salaf). In their view that was the only time world history that a fair and just community existed. The Salafis, like other religious fundamentalists, see the Muslim decline over the past centuries as evidence that they have strayed from the righteous path.

    Among Sageman's most useful points is his description of al-Qaeda both as a social movement and an ideology. The most important thing the United States can do, in countering global Islamic terrorism, is to avoid the mistakes of the early Cold War era when policymakers assumed that communism was one global monolithic movement. It wasn't and neither is al-Qaeda. Even before September 11 it had evolved beyond the group that had first formed in the aftermath of fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan and it has evolved several times since, and will continue to do so. Increasingly, to paraphrase, the old cliche about politics, all terrorism is local.

    Sageman also does an excellent job of debunking the conventional wisdom as to how people become terrorists, ie, that they are brainwashed when they are immature children or teenagers, that they lack family obligations, act out of sexual frustration, that there is something intrinsically wrong with them (the "bad seed" school of thought).

    Sageman finds that one of the greatest motivators for joining an Islamic terrorist social movement is the one that is most easily understood; relationships with friends and kin. In other words, there is no to-down recruitment into al-Qaeda. Rather, the movement forms through the spontaneous self-organization of informal, trusted friends.

    On a positive note, despite much right-wing fear-mongering, Sageman finds that there are far fewer homegrown Islamic terrorists in the United States than in other regions, like Europe. He attributes this to the fact that the Muslim community in the United States is far less radicalized, due to America's greater acceptance of immigrants, as a part of its integrationist, religiously tolerant, "American Dream", "melting pot" mythology. In short, inclusion, as opposed to exclusion, pays dividends.

    In conclusion, Sageman finds that as Islamic terrorism has evolved it has increasingly degraded, out of necessity due to its own lack of appeal, into a "leaderless jihad". To the extent it still has an agenda, it is set by general guidelines found on the Internet, which allows it to maintain a facade of unity. Without the Internet it would dissipate into a political vacuum.

    In truth, Islamic terrorism is not an existential threat to the existence of the United States. No amount of ominous predictions of al-Qaeda acquiring chemical, biological or nuclear weapons will change that.

    According to Sageman, the only thing that can keep al-Qaeda from fading into the dust heap of history is if the United States "transforms its fight against global Islamic terrorism into a war against Islam, which would mobilize all Muslims against the United States".

    Thus, the answer to the Islamic threat is the same one proffered by George Kennan with respect to the Soviet Union; containment. The goal is to accelerate the process of internal decay already taking place within al-Qaeda and its copycat cells.

    Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty-First Century by Marc Sageman. University of Pennsylvania Press (December 2007) . ISBN-10: 0812240650. Price US$24.95, 176 pages.

    David Isenberg is an analyst in national and international security affairs, sento@earthlink.net. He is also a member of the Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy, an adjunct scholar with the Cato Institute, contributor to the Straus Military Reform Project, a research fellow at the Independent Institute, and a US Navy veteran. The views expressed are his own.

    (Copyright 2008 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

    Friday, January 11, 2008

    Japan Rejoins US Anti-Terrorism Mission

    TOKYO (AP) — Japan's defense minister ordered the navy Friday to return to the Indian Ocean on a U.S.-backed anti-terrorism mission, ending a three-month hiatus but deepening political divisions with the opposition.

    Washington lobbied strongly for the deployment, including a rare public foray into domestic politics by U.S. Ambassador Thomas Schieffer who had met with lawmakers to urge their support.

    Japan had refueled ships since 2001 in support of U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan, but was forced to abandon the mission in November, when the opposition blocked an extension, saying it violated Japan's pacifist constitution and did not have the United Nations' backing.

    Public opinion polls show increasing support for sending troops abroad — as long as it does not involve combat. But the opposition accused the ruling camp of forcing its will on the people.

    Friday's order was issued by Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba after Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's ruling coalition forced a bill through the country's parliament to revive the mission.

    Fukuda said he expects the ships to leave by the end of the month, meaning they could be back in the Indian Ocean in February.

    Unable to build a consensus, Fukuda's ruling coalition made the rare move of using its two-thirds majority in the lower house to overrule the opposition-controlled upper house, which voted down the mission on Thursday. It was the first such override since 1951.

    "We want to restart this mission as soon as possible," Ishiba said. "We are committed to actively contribute to the fight against terrorism."

    Under the new orders, Japanese ships will monitor possible terrorist activity at sea and will refuel and resupply ally vessels, but will not directly be involved in the hostilities in Afghanistan — a restriction aimed at winning over a public wary of violating the spirit of the post-World War II constitution.

    When the mission was halted, only two Japanese ships, a tanker and a destroyer, were in the region. The new mission was also expected to involve only two or three ships at a time.

    Officials said the mission, though tightly restricted, symbolizes Japan's commitment to the war on terror and its support of Washington, its main ally and trading partner.

    Fukuda and other ruling-party lawmakers have stressed that Japan must fulfill its obligations in the global war against terrorism and accept a security role commensurate with its economic clout.

    Schieffer, the U.S. ambassador, lauded the bill's passage on Friday.

    "Terrorism is the bane of our time," he said in a statement. "Japan has demonstrated its willingness to stand with those who are trying to create a safer, more tolerant world."

    So far, Japan has supplied 132 million gallons of fuel to coalition warships, including those from the U.S., Britain and Pakistan, according to the Japanese government.

    "This is a clear abuse of power," said Yoshito Sengoku, a lawmaker of the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan. "The government will now surely lose the trust of the people."

    Tuesday, January 8, 2008

    U.S. wants life in prison for 3 in terrorism case

    By Jane SuttonMIAMI, Jan 8 (Reuters) - U.S. former "enemy combatant" Jose Padilla and two other men convicted last year of conspiring to aid terrorists abroad returned to a Miami court on Tuesday for a hearing to decide whether they will spend the rest of their lives behind bars.The hearing was scheduled to last several days and began with a long list of defense challenges to a government sentencing report recommending life in prison for all three.Padilla, a U.S. convert to Islam once accused by the Bush administration of plotting a radiological "dirty bomb" attack, was convicted in August of unrelated charges he offered his services to al Qaeda.Jurors convicted him and co-defendants Adham Hassoun and Kifah Jayyousi on charges of conspiracy to murder, kidnap and maim persons abroad, conspiracy to provide material support for terrorism, and providing material support for terrorism.The three Muslim men were accused of forming a Florida support cell that provided money and recruits for Islamist radicals seeking to establish Taliban-style governments in countries where Muslims lived.Prosecutors asked U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke for maximum prison terms under a "terrorism enhancement" provision that increases the penalty if a crime is committed with the aim of influencing government conduct.Defense lawyers disputed the sentencing report's historic description of the jihadist movement that arose in the 1980s, and denied that the defendants aided mujahideen fighters or terrorist groups that advocated the violent overthrow of "infidel governments."They contend Padilla moved to the Middle East in 1998 to study Arabic and Islam in Egypt, not to train as a killer at an al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan. They also contend Hassoun and Jayyousi supported groups that aided Muslim victims of atrocities in Kosovo, Bosnia and Chechnya in the 1990s.'JIHAD' AGAINST THE SOVIETSOne of Hassoun's lawyers, Kenneth Swartz, cited events depicted in the popular movie "Charlie Wilson's War" as evidence that aid to Muslim guerrillas is not synonymous with aiding terrorism. The movie portrays a U.S. congressman's covert efforts to fund and arm the mujahideen fighters who drove the Soviets out of Afghanistan in 1989."Jihad was not a bad word in our society back then," Swartz said.Prosecutors said the jury had already settled those issues by convicting the trio, and accused defense lawyers of trying to undercut the jury's decision.The Bush administration praised the conviction of the three men as "a vivid reminder of the serious threat that we face" from terrorism. But the case has also tested the limits of presidential authority in the fight against terrorism.Padilla, 37, was arrested in Chicago upon returning from Egypt in 2002 and President George W. Bush ordered him held in a military prison as an "enemy combatant."Faced with a Supreme Court challenge to Bush's authority to jail someone without charge, the government added Padilla to an existing terrorism support case in Miami and turned him over to civilian authorities in 2006.Padilla never was charged in any bomb plot. He was implicated by two suspected al Qaeda operatives now held without charge at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.One claimed he falsely implicated Padilla under torture at a Moroccan prison. The CIA destroyed interrogation videotapes of the other, Abu Zubaydah, whom news reports said was subjected to a form of simulated drowning known as "waterboarding" and widely condemned as torture.Padilla's lawyers have asked the judge to order the government to turn over any remaining evidence from those interrogations in hopes of overturning his conviction.Padilla and Hassoun, a Lebanese-born Palestinian computer programmer, have been jailed for more than five years. Jayyousi, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Jordan, had been out on bond during the trial but was jailed upon conviction. (Editing by Tom Brown and Mohammad Zargham)

    © Reuters 2008 All rights reserved

    Defending the West

    By Jamie GlazovFrontPageMagazine.com 1/8/2008
    Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Ibn Warraq, an independent researcher based at a humanist think tank in the USA. He is the author of Why I am Not a Muslim (1995), and editor of anthologies of Koranic criticism, The Origins of the Koran (1998), What the Koran Really Says (2002), and the forthcoming Which Koran? (2008) -- all Prometheus Books. He also edited an anthology of testimonies of ex-Muslims, Leaving Islam (2003). Warraq’s op-ed pieces have appeared in the Wall Street Journal in America and The Guardian in London, and he has addressed distinguished governing bodies round the world, including the United Nations in Geneva on the subject of apostasy. His latest book, entitled Defending the West is a critical study of the thought of Edward Said. FP: Ibn Warraq, welcome to Frontpage Interview. It is an honor and privilege to speak with you.Warraq: Thank you for having me. It has been a long time since we last talked.FP: What inspired you to write this book? Warraq: My new book, Defending the West is an extension, and a logical consequence, of my earlier work and concerns. In my first book, Why I am Not a Muslim, (1995), I attempted to warn the West about the Rise of Militant Islam. I saw, and described the book, as "my war effort". It was a very ambitious book since I was striving to show the true totalitarian nature of Islam, to submit Islam to critical examination, and at the same time trying to bring out the strengths of Western civilization, and show why the West was truly preferable to the mind-numbing certainties of a religion that was the result of a mediaeval mindset. What made both tasks - a critique of Islam and a Defence of the West- so much more difficult was the pernicious influence of Edward Said's Orientalism, and Culture and Imperialism. What made any criticism of Islam in particular and the non-Western world in general almost impossible was the fear among Western scholars of being called "orientalist", leading to self-censorship, and an exaggerated respect for the tender sensibilities of Muslims. In a similar manner, today, charges of "Islamophobia" are hurled at those who dare to criticize that most criticizable of all religions, in order to silence and rule out of court what are, in fact, perfectly legitimate concerns about security, and the negative influence of Islam on Western institutions. The result was my new book, Defending the West (2007), an attempt to tackle once again two related tasks - the Defence of the West and a critique of Edward Said's arguments that had successfully silenced critical thought and placed all Western intellectuals on the defensive.FP: Tell us about Edward Said's influence in the humanities.Warraq: Edward Said, who died in September 2003, was Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University , and the author of more than twenty books on cultural, literary, and political subjects, such as Joseph Conrad and the Fiction of Autobiography, Covering Islam, Musical Elaborations, The World, the Text, and the Critic. Said also saw himself as a Palestinian, and defended the Palestinian cause with passion, and rage, writing influential books on the conflict such as The Question of Palestine, The Politics of Dispossession, and Peace and Its Discontents. Arguably his most influential-and in my view the most pernicious - work was Orientalism (1978), giving birth to entire new disciplines, such as Postcolonial Studies, and influencing several others such as Subaltern Studies. Universities round the world heaped honours on Said - he is said to have received at least seventeen honorary doctorates - and at the same time turned out hundreds of students whose doctoral theses were on or influenced by Orientalism. From the The Oxford Classical Dictionary to a book on Mozart's Operas, one can see Said's influence at work in all the humanities, almost negating centuries of Western scholarship of the highest order.Take Classical Studies. The prestigious The Oxford Classical Dictionary [OCD] under the entry on the historian and mercenary leader Xenophon has a cross reference to an entry on "Orientalism", since he has left us an account of the life of the Persian Cyrus the Great. But the article in the OCD does not mention that Xenophon in fact came to feel at home with the Persians, and looked at non-Greeks in a discriminating but fair manner, distinguishing enlightened Persians from backward tribes. He never goes beyond justifiable rejection of what is uncultured. But for Said and his ilk any critical look at non-Europeans is considered "biased", "racist", and "Orientalist", making it impossible for responsible historians, sociologists and anthropologists to make cross-cultural assessments and judgements. The result is that we in the West now condone, and certainly do not condemn, barbaric behaviour committed by non-Europeans. Western feminists remain scandalously silent about the treatment of women in Islamic societies.Said dismisses such classics of the Western canon as Aeschylus' The Persians as "orientalist" and the Western Classicists remain silent, and do not come to The Greek playwright's defence. Far from being "racist", Aeschylus' drama is a tragedy according full dignity and humanity to the Persians, praising their valour and ethics.In English Literature departments, the classics from Jane Austen, Charles Dickens to Rudyard Kipling are dismissed as "imperialist" and "racist". Thus, despite evidence to the contrary, Said claims that Jane Austen condones slavery- I present the relevant, and, I think, the decisive evidence to the contrary in my book. But such is Said's influence that a recent B.B.C. Televison production of Austen's Mansfield Park has a scene set on a sugar plantation in the West Indies showing the conditions of slaves. Of course, no such scene exists in the original novel. There is only a passing reference to the slave trade, and it is clear from her all her other writings that Jane Austen was an abolitionist. Said similarly misreads Kipling's novel, Kim. But once again such is his influence that various editions of Kipling's novel published by Penguin books carry a preface from Said. I give numerous examples of Said's total incomprehension of Kim, and the novels of Austen.A discussion of Mozart's operas, for example by Nicholas Till, Mozart and the Enlightenment, is similarly marred by the Orientalist thesis. Again I show Mozart's generous and positive attitude to the "other".As for the visual arts, I shall begin with this example:In the guest book at the Dahesh Museum on Madison Avenue, in Upper Manhattan, there is an entry by a tourist, possibly German, who enthuses about the Orientalist paintings in the collection, saying how much she admired and enjoyed them. Then, almost as an afterthought, as though she has only just remembered to put on her ideological spectacles, she adds words to the effect that, "of course, they were Orientalist works, hence imperialist and reprehensible." Apparently, she felt guilty for having enjoyed and appreciated Orientalist art. How many other ordinary lovers of paintings, sculpture, drawings, watercolors and engravings have had their natural inclination to enjoy works of Orientalist art damaged, or even destroyed by the influence of Edward Said and his followers? How many people have had their enjoyment of Jane Austen spoiled by Said's insidious claim that Austen was condoning slavery?Much of Westerners' travel writings are dismissed as "orientalist". Where Said finds Kinglake's account of his travels in Islamic lands, Eothen, overrated, Jacques Barzun considers it a minor masterpiece. Finally, in filed I have a special interest in: Islamic Studies.For a number of years now, Islamologists have been aware of the disastrous effect of Said’s Orientalism on their discipline. Professor Berg, of the University of N.Carolina, has complained that the latter’s influence has resulted in “a fear of asking and answering potentially embarrassing questions – ones which might upset Muslim sensibilities….”.FP: Would it be fair to say that Said simply lied in much of his work?Warraq: Yes, indeed. Said deliberately misrepresents the work of distinguished scholars such as Richard Southern and Raymond Schwab, making them sound as though they were endorsing Said's own views when in fact they were arguing the opposite. Though I do not venture into Said's writings on the Arab-Israeli dispute, scholars such as Justus Reid Weiner have shown how Said fabricated all sorts of autobiographical information.
    Let us take his Palestinian stance. A man is indeed free, to a certain extent, to choose whatever identity he wishes, and who are we to quibble if Said defines himself as a Palestinian; and, perhaps, justice of the cause he wishes to defend is separate from the character of the man who wishes to defend it. But how can we characterize Said's willingness to accept fianancial compensation from the Israeli government for losses that he never, in fact, suffered, except as fraud? Another of Said's fabrications concerns his putative family home in Jerusalem . Justus Weiner describes the situation in great detail, I wish to single out just one aspect of the saga. Weiner writes: "In 1992, Said wrote of having heard, years earlier, "that Martin Buber had lived in the house for a time after 1948" (emphasis added by Weiner). Last year, in a speech at Birzeit University on the West Bank, he amplified this thought with characteristic vehemence: 'The house from which my family departed in 1948-was displaced- was also the house in which the great Jewish philosopher Martin Buber lived for a while, and Buber of course was a great apostle of coexistence between Arabs and Jews, but he didn't mind living in an Arab house whose inhabitants had been displaced'. But the truth is the other way round: it was Said's aunt who evicted the Bubers, an event-surely a memorable one- that took place during the very period when Edward Said was allegedly growing up in the selfsame house, and long before Israel's war of independence in 1948. But there can be little wonder why neither that event, nor the presence in and subsequent removal from the building of Martin Buber's surely no less memorable library of some 15,000 books, has ever figured in his meticulous recollections of 'my beautiful old house...in Al-Talbiyeh'. The Bubers and their library were there. Said was not." This is not the first time that Said has traduced a great scholar.FP: The Left simply adored Said. He is like a God-figure to them. Tell us why.Warraq: Edward Said's Orientalism gave those unable to think for themselves a formula. His work had the attraction of an all-purpose tool which his acolytes, eager, intellectually unprepared, aesthetically unsophisticated, could apply to every cultural phenomenon without having to think critically or without having to conduct any real archival research requiring mastery of languages, or research in the field requiring the mastery of technique and a rigorous methodology. Said's Orientalism displays all the laziness and arrogance of the man of letters who does not have much time for empirical research or, above all, for making sense of its results. His method derives from the work of fashionable French intellectuals and theorists. Existentialists, structuralists, deconstructionists, post-modernists all postulate grandiose theories, but, unfortunately, these are based on flimsy historical or empirical foundations. Claude Lévi-Strauss, with just a few years of fieldwork in Brazil , constructed a grand theory about the structures of the human mind. This tradition was carried on by Michel Foucault, surely one of the great charlatans of modern times.
    Said, influenced by Foucault, Marx and the French intellectual tradition, refuses to acknowledge evidence that does not fit into his already prepared Procrustean bed. Said in an ideologue who is immune to argument, he believes his ideas about man, history and society to be self-evident, and anyone opposing them is either stupid or malevolent.
    But why was it so successful among Western intellectuals? Post- Second World War Western intellectuals, and leftists were consumed by guilt for the West's colonial past and continuing colonialist present, and wholeheartedly embraced any theory or ideology that voiced or at least seemed to voice the putatively thwarted aspirations of the peoples of the Third World . Orientalism came at the precise time when anti-Western rhetoric was at its most shrill, and was already being taught at western universities, and third-worldism was at its most popular. Jean-Paul Sartre[1] preached that all white men were complicit in the exploitation of the Third World , and that violence against westerners was a legitimate means for colonized men to re-acquire their manhood. Said went further: “It is therefore correct that every European, in what he could say about the Orient, was consequently a racist, an imperialist, and almost totally ethnocentric." [2] Not only, for Said, is every European a racist, but he must necessarily be so. As I have argued, Western Civilisation has been more willing to criticize itself than any other major culture.These self-administered admonishments are a far cry from Said's savage strictures, and yet they found a new generation ready to take them to heart. Berating and blaming the West, a fashionable game in the 1960s and 1970s which impressionable youth took seriously, had the results we now see when the same generation appears unwilling to defend the West against the greatest threat that it has faced since the Nazis.
    When shown that Said is indeed a fraud, his friends and supporters in academia, side-step the criticisms and evidence, and pretend, as did several reviewers of Robert Irwin's book on Said, that Said may indeed have got the "footling details" wrong but he was, nonetheless, onto a higher truth. Said's influence, thus, was a result of a conjunction of several intellectual and political trends: post-French Algeria and post-Vietnam tiers mondisme [third-worldism], the politicization of increasingly post-modernist English departments which had argued away the very idea of truth, objective truth, and the influence of Michel Foucault. In effect Said played on each of these confidence tricks to create a master fraud which bound American academics and Middle East tyrants in unstated bonds of anti-American complicity. [3]
    FP: What have been the reactions to your work so far? Any surprises?
    So far there have been three very favourable reviews, one by Bruce Thornton in the City Journal, one by Michaell Weiss in the New York Sun, and one by Rebecca Bynum.
    However, I am quite sure that the Liberal establishment who swallowed Said’s nonsense whole will not take it lying down, and I am expecting some violent attacks in the New York Times, The New York Review of Books, and in England, The London Review of Books, and the daily, The Guardian. Roger Scruton once said one should write to offend as many people as possible, and I suspect I have written just such a book. After all there would be no point in writing a book about a man who had absolutely no influence, and who was not considered important. Unfortunately, Said continues to poison young minds, and for that reason is worth criticizing in a strong but also in as scholarly a fashion as possible.FP: What do you hope your work will help achieve?
    Warraq: Let me answer that by an example. Even before my book was actually published there was a description of it and a photo of the cover on Amazon.com. An art historian wrote to me that the description alone gave him confidence to defend certain works of 18th Century French paintings that had hitherto been dismissed as “orientalist” in Said’s pejorative sense. I hope curators in art museums will now dust off paintings left to moulder in damp basements because they had been dubbed “orientalist”.
    I also hope that the humanities departments in Western universities will get back their confidence and teach the Western canon in an unabashed manner- from Herodotus and Aeschylus to George Eliot and Jane Austen. That the real Orientalists-such as Sir William Jones, Ignaz Goldziher, and many others I discuss in my book- will get their due recognition as great scholars who devoted their lives to recovering humankind’s manifold creations, to uncovering the history of our past. That the universities will go back to their traditional task of scholarship untainted by political correctness, to the never-ending labour of striving for the objective truth.
    FP: I would like to turn to some personal aspects and also get your perspective on some recent developments, as well as on the conflict we face in general.
    First, could you share some thoughts for us on your own spiritual and intellectual journey -- in terms of where you think you may stand at the moment? I mean this in the context of the long road you have traveled. And I also mean it in generally. Have you, for instance, changed at all over the years? Do you have an outlook on something that is perhaps different than how you saw it in the past? What is looming large on your consciousness these days? Where, for instance, do you think you stand politically? Would you, for example, consider yourself a Conservative, etc? And what would you say is the state of your faith? Do you see yourself today as an atheist, an agnostic, a believer, etc?
    Warraq: Of course, I have changed over the years. As a great Irish comic, Spike Milligan, used to say, "I have changed my mind, socks, and underwear". I have changed my mind on economic and political issues, and I certainly no longer wear velvet trousers as I used to in the sixties.
    I forget which 19th Century European politician said "if you are not a socialist when young you have no heart, but if you remain one when you get older you have no brains". I was never a joiner of parties, or attracted to ideologies, but when I did vote, both in France and Great Britain , I voted for Francois Mitterand, the Socialist, and James Callaghan, the leader of the Labour Party, respectively. But the transforming events of the last thirty years such as the collapse of Communism, and the success of the market-oriented countries in Asia means I am less attracted to government intervention, on the whole, in the economy. I am sceptical of grandiose schemes since they are all utopic. I remain a sceptic, and an empiricist. But can the market really solve all our problems? Surely some kind of intervention of the government might be deemed necessary to protect us from unbridled exploitation by ruthless entrepreneurs. And the market has an unfortunate influence on the quality of culture, it can lead to its dumbing down.
    The other great transforming event of my life-time is, of course, the World Trade Center atrocities of 11 September, 2001 . The Left generally has been not only unable to comprehend what hit us on 9/11, it has also gone to the extent of apologizing, condoning and making alliances with the Islamists. It is a failure of the Liberal imagination since Liberals still do not understand what motivates the Islamists. Liberals, six years after the event, are still looking for the "root-cause" in poverty, American foreign policy, and the Israel-Arab conflict. I am not sure that the Conservatives in the USA understand the nature of the threat, either. They are reluctant to criticize religion in general, and are more worried by secular humanists than by the Islamo-fascists Since I am a secularist, and an agnostic, there are many Conservatives who fear me more than they fear Bin Laden.
    FP: There are, of course, courageous anti-fascist Muslims like Thomas Haidon and Hasan Mahmud who wish to try to bring Islam into the modern and democratic world. As we know, they face a huge calling and large, perhaps insurmountable, obstacles. The effort to “reform” Islam is not, to say the least, going very well. Is there any hope in this area? What are your thoughts at the possibility of an Islamic Reformation and also of simply not giving up on supporting such an effort?
    Warraq: I have no short answer to the question of a possibility of reform in Islam. Here is something I wrote earlier:
    Since there is no Pope or even, in principle, an organized clergy in Islam how would we ever know if an Islamic Reformation had taken place? One person’s reformation will be another person’s decadence. My perspective will be from The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, which many Muslims still do not accept. I think those who do accept the latter declaration would agree that a de facto reformation had taken place in Islamic societies, as for example in Pakistan or Egypt, if we were to find that the following conditions now obtained in them:
    1. The subordinate place of women has given way to full social and legal equality. Women have freedom of action, are able to travel alone, are permitted to uncover their faces, and are allowed the same property and inheritance rights as men, and their testimony in a court of law is equal to that of men .
    2. No girl is forced into marriage, and no girl is permitted to marry until fully physically mature. Every woman is free to marry a man of her own choice without permission from a putative guardian or parents, or to remain single if that is her choice. Muslim women are free to marry non-Muslims. They are free to divorce and are entitled to maintenance in the case of divorce.
    3. Women have equal access to secular education, equal opportunities for higher education, and are free to choose their subjects of study. They are free to choose their own work and are allowed to fully participate in public life-from politics and sports to the arts and sciences.
    4. All citizens are equal in front of the law, irrespective of race, religion, creed, or sexual orientation. In other words, non-Muslims (Christians , Jews , Pagans , Zoroastrians , Hindus , Buddhists ,atheists ) and homosexuals enjoy the same human rights as Muslims.
    5. Jihad in the military sense is rejected since it does not respect the rights of non-Muslims. Freedom of expression, freedom of thought and belief, freedom of intellectual and scientific inquiry, freedom of conscience and religion – including the freedom to change one’s religion or belief - and freedom from religion: the freedom not to believe in any deity are all protected , and where blasphemy is not a crime. These freedoms include the right to examine the historical foundations of Islam, and to explain the rise and fall of Islam by the normal mechanisms of human history, and the freedom to criticize Islam and the Koran.
    6. No person is subjected to cruel punishments such as mutilation of limbs for theft, stoning to death for adultery. Copies of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses, and Ibn Warraq’s Why I Am not a Muslim are freely available. Well, at least the latter rather than the former!
    But how likely is such a reformation in today’s Islamic societies? Can Islam institute such reforms and stay Islam? There are some, I believe, misguided liberal Muslims who want to have their cake and eat it. These liberals often argue that the real Islam is compatible with Human Rights, that the real Islam is feminist, that the real Islam is egalitarian, that the real Islam tolerates other religions and beliefs, and so on. They then proceed to some truly creative re-interpretation of the embarrassing, intolerant, bellicose and misogynist verses of the Koran.
    But intellectual honesty demands that we reject just such dishonest tinkering with the Holy Text, which, while it may be open to some re-interpretation is not infinitely elastic. As a tactic it will simply not work either, because to trade verses with fundamentalists is to do battle on the fanatics’ terms, on the fanatics’ ground. For every text that the liberal Muslims produce, the mullahs will adduce dozens of counter examples exegetically, philologically and historically far more legitimate.
    Reform cannot be achieved on these terms – whatever mental gymnastics the liberal reformists perform they cannot escape the fact that Othodox Islam is incompatible with Human Rights. There are moderate Muslims, but Islam itself is not moderate. Islam itself is a fascist ideology. There is no difference between Islam and Islamic fundamentalism, at most there is a difference of degree but not of kind. All the tenets of Islamic fundamentalism are derived from the Koran, the Sunna, the Hadith – Islamic fundamentalism is a totalitarian construct derived by Muslim jurists from the fundamental and defining texts of Islam.
    The only solution is to bring the questions of human rights out of the religious sphere and into the sphere of the civil state, in other words to separate religion from the state, and to promote a secular state where Islam is relegated to the personal, and where it would continue to provide consolation, comfort, and meaning to millions of individuals. Are Islamic societies secularizable? Yes, there are my reasons for thinking so.
    Since September 11, every journalist has been eager to point out that in Islam there is no separation between mosque and state. Indeed in Classical Arabic there are no pair of words corresponding to ‘lay’ and ‘ecclesiastical’, ‘spiritual’ and ‘temporal’, ‘ secular’ and ‘religious’. But what these same journalists fail to add is that the doctrinal lack of a separation of mosque and state did not mean that Islamic history was a chronicle of a series of relentless Muslim theocracies. On the contrary, as Carl Brown demonstrated recently, Muslim history has been marked by a de facto separation of state and religious community.
    Many of the modern leaders of culturally Islamic countries were secular in their outlook and approach to the problems of modern industrializing societies; leaders such Muhmmad Ali Jinnah of Pakistan , Nasser of Egypt, Sukarno of Indonesia. Unfortunately, corruption, nepotism, incompetence, pandering to the mullas, the obscurantist religious scholars, and above all economic failure in Islamic countries led to the rising influence of the Islamic fundamentalists, who, sensing that their time had come, demanded ever more introduction of Islam in public life.
    Other indications that Islamic societies are secularizable come from the Islamic Republic of Iran, of all places. Iran has adopted many institutions from the Western democracies, and which have nothing to do with Islam historically or doctrinally, institutions such as popular elections, a constituent assembly, a parliament, even a constitution inspired by the 1958 French Constitution.
    The empirical evidence does not bear out conventional wisdom that Militant Islam is born out of economic despair. Nonetheless, Islamists are adept at exploiting the economic and political failures of almost all regimes in the Islamic world. Thus only an introduction of accountable, representative government that can improve the economic conditions of its people can take the wind out of the sails of the Islamists. Democracy will ensure that citizens will have legitimate outlets to express their grievances, with some hope of ameliorating their lives. With the partial exception of Turkey , there is not a single stable democracy in the Islamic world. It is not surprising that Muslims living under repressive regimes turn to Islamists for support, both moral and economic.
    How did secularization take place in the Christian West? Some of the factors involved in the secularization of the West were: advances in knowledge in general and the sciences in particular meant that the criteria of rationality could be applied to religious dogma with devastating effect; Biblical Criticism which led to the abandonment of a literal reading of the Bible; religious tolerance and religious pluralism that eventually led to tolerance and pluralism tout court. As scholar Chadwick put it, “once concede equality to a distinctive group, you could not confine it to that group. You could not confine it to Protestants; nor, later, to Christians; nor, at last, to believers in God. A free market in some opinions became a free market in all opinions ... Christian conscience was the force which began to make Europe ‘secular’; that is, to allow many religions or no religion in a state, and repudiate any kind of pressure upon the man who rejected the accepted and inherited axioms of society ....My conscience is my own”.
    What lessons can we learn from this process of secularization of the West? First, we who live in the free West and enjoy freedom of expression and scientific inquiry should encourage a rational look at Islam, should encourage Koranic criticism. Only Koranic criticism can help Muslims to look at their Holy Scripture in a more rational and objective way, and prevent young Muslims from being fanaticized by the Koran’s less tolerant verses. It does not make sense to lament the lack of a reformation in Islam, and at same time boycott books like “Why I am Not A Muslim”. Instead of which, political leaders, journalists and even scholars are bent on protecting the tender sensibilities of the Muslims. We are not doing Islam any favors by protecting it from enlightenment values.
    Second, simply by protecting non-Muslims in Islamic societies we are encouraging religious pluralism, which in turn can lead to pluralism in general. By insisting on article 18 of the UDHR which states, “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, ....”, we are loosening the grip of fanatics, we are encouraging in the words of Chadwick a free market in all opinions, in other words democracy.
    We can encourage rationality by education, secular education. This will mean the closing of religious madrasas where young children from poor families learn only the Koran by heart, learn the doctrine of Jihad, learn, in short to be fanatics. The failure of the central government in Pakistan , for example, to provide free schools, and economic prosperity for all its citizens has led to the rise of madrasas where poor children are given some schooling and food that their poor parents cannot provide. In Pakistan , it is clear that many of these religious schools are funded by Saudi Arabia . The West must do its utmost to reduce the ideological and financial influence of the Saudis, and instead encourage Pakistan to provide free secular education for all children, boys and girls. The West can give aid with strings attached to this end.
    What kind of education? One hopes that education will encourage critical thinking, and rationality. Again to encourage pluralism, I should like to see the glories of pre-Islamic history to be taught to all children. But education alone cannot solve the problems.
    Several million young educated people enter the job market only to learn that their education has not opened the doors to economic prosperity they had dreamed of. Education without economic opportunities at the end leads to social frustrations which can only help the fundamentalists.Islamic countries will never make any progress if they continue to blame all their ills on the West. Islamic countries need charismatic leaders capable of self-criticism who can say to their people that “the fault is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings” , nor does the fault lie with some putative Imperialist –Zionist conspiracy; leaders who can lead their people to democracy, who can institute a civil state and a uniform code of civil laws separate from and independent of religious institutions, but allowing free choice of religious belief and practice who can pass legislation to enshrine the rights of all its citizens, men and women, Muslim and non-Muslim as set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the various UN Conventions, who institute free secular education for all. The West must review its continuing and unconditional support for Saudi Arabia which is responsible for the spread of radical Islam. Will the West encourage secularism in the Islamic world when two of its recent leaders, Tony Blair, and now, Gordon Brown, and Gearge W. Bush, have done more than any other leaders in the West since 1945 to introduce more and more religion into the public sphere? May I remind them of the words of James Madison, “There is not a shadow of right in the general government to intermeddle with religion. Its least interference with it would be a most flagrant usurpation”.FP: What are you short-term future plans? What project do you have in mind? What do you see as your next contribution to the battle? What, in the end, drives you and makes you tick? The battle can tire us and also often disillusion us. From where do you derive your energy and the inspiration, courage and passion to proceed?
    Warraq: I should like to work on two projects. First, I should like to return to some kind of Koranic Criticism of the philological, historical kind. I am lucky to be involved with some German scholars who are breaking new ground in the field of the History of the Rise of Islam, and the Collection of the Koran, especially its relation to the Syriac linguistic background in the Near East .
    I should also like to research further the neglected and positive aspects of Western civilization, to write on its uniqueness, and try to explain the reasons for its obvious success.
    FP: Ibn Warraq, thank you for joining us. And thank you for your courageous and priceless contribution to the fight for historical truth and liberty -- and against historical amnesia and tyranny.
    Warraq: Thank you so much for having me, and listening to me so patiently.
    Notes:
    [1] Jean-Paul Sartre, Preface in Frantz Fanon.The Wretched of the Earth. New York : Grove Press Inc.1968 [Ist edn.1961].
    [2] Orientalism , p.204
    [3] I owe most of the observations in this paragraph to Fred Siegel, Professor of History, The Cooper Union for Science and Art in New York.
    Jamie Glazov is Frontpage Magazine's managing editor. He holds a Ph.D. in History with a specialty in U.S. and Canadian foreign policy. He edited and wrote the introduction to David Horowitz’s Left Illusions. He is also the co-editor (with David Horowitz) of The Hate America Left and the author of Canadian Policy Toward Khrushchev’s Soviet Union (McGill-Queens University Press, 2002) and 15 Tips on How to be a Good Leftist. To see his previous symposiums, interviews and articles Click Here. Email him at jglazov@rogers.com.