[Kevin Andrew Murphy]

Dick,

Well that's a weird way to change the subject.

Could you answer the original question?

[Dan Halberstein]

What KAM said, Dick. Although you have just made a heartfelt plea for a depiction, say, of a crucifix immersed in urine receiving NEA funding. The "racial" notion of religion is also interesting, if not entirely original (c.f. the evolution of German federal law c. 1933-1945.)

[Katy Evans-Bush]

Honestly. Alex, I'm with you. But beware of using Mercutio's famous line, because look what happened to him.

Amyway, what is "Islam"? There are bookshelves of texts on the subject, and just a cursory look around the streets will show you lots of ways of living "inside" it. It's like Judaism in that respect. And, like Judaism (and of course Christianity) it is undergoing a surge of fundamentalism, which means that everyone is getting more polarised. This is largely political, but there are many different contributing factors.

There ARE actually very erudite scholars, enlightened commentators and ecumenical leaders trying to cast light on the situation. But one's listening to them.

Is anyone here interested in what is actually HAPPENING, or do you just want to spout your opinions all day? Which of us really UNDERSTANDS what's going on? We all own the angry young men of Palestine. We made them as much as we made the angry young men of Detroit. And we all know, & Shakespeare knew, what angry young men can do to a social system, and in this global culture we can see the effects of thinking things are "not our problem."

Anyone who's just in America, and never leaves America, can't possibly see the wood for the trees - or not without trying really hard. I've said it before and I'll say it again: most Europeans consider Bush the greatest threat to world peace.

And anyway, how about G8?

[Alexander Grace]

That goes for every race that that uses their religion as justification for committing all their horrors.

Islam is not a race.

Katy, I am aware of his fate. I thought I made clear how strongly I felt on the matter.

Anyway, he was already mortally wounded when he said what he said, so I'm fairly confident there is no parallel.

Forgot to say: good post, Katy. This thread has much more to do with the individuals arguing than the issues.

[This message has been edited by Alexander Grace (edited June 09, 2005).]

[Katy Evans-Bush]

Alex, sorry, that was a flippant remark. And I thought YOUR post was excellent. Perhaps we should retire to the mutual admiration chamber?

KEB

[Kevin Andrew Murphy]

Katy,

You don't have to be a world traveler to know much of what's going on in the world, especially things in boldface print like most of everyone in Europe thinking Bush is scary crazy.

Yes, we are spouting opinions here, but we're also engaging in an international dialogue, and that's a good thing.

With "not my problem" thinking, the trouble is that any problem worth speaking of is generally a Gordian Knot you could devote your life to unraveling and still not solve. And most often the solutions folk try to apply spawn even more problems, cf. Iraq. Or trying to get prisoners to talk by applying urine to holy books.

It's also rather a catch 22: Anything you do that would upset people enough to get them to break is also something that can get the same sort of people to riot.

[Katy Evans-Bush]

There seems to be a difference between reading something and knowing it. Or knowing it and feeling it.

Anyway I always find myself hideously at odds in these political discussions. And my vantage point I realise is not universal, but I do think it's useful: I feel anti-Americanism in small practical ways, the remarks are made to me, assumptions are made about me, cabbied say things, blokes at work say things, middle-class English women say things. So it feels very real to me.

Half my colleagues or more are Bengali Muslims, and while I don't agree with many people's views here either, I feel their "solidity" every day. I also have lots of respect for people's principles. My Muslim colleagues give ten per cent of their earnings to charity; they don't have mortgages, they have funding setups with "ethical" financial organisations that also give to charity; they increasingly buy a brand of cola called Qibla (half-owned by the family of someone I know) which gives a tithe of its profits to charites, including non-Muslim charities.

My colleague sitting three feet away as I type edits an Islamic magazine that has, on its masthead, a plea to dispose of it respectfully - not in the rubbish bin - because it contains holy material. It's a MAGAZINE. Do you think his, or his family's, attitude towards Americans might change subtly every time someone defaces the Koran? And he's a serious, thoughtful, respectable person. Not that he'd EVER become a bomber. So why all the polarisation?

I spend my entire life as the PR manager of a regeneration programme here trying to unravel the strands of belief: personal, political, cultural - just to make something simple happen, like some teenage girls to be allowed to go to an after-school club.

We are in the constituency that recently voted in George Galloway MP (of fame); they voted him in as a protest against the incumbent, Oona King, solely because she had voted in favour of invading Iraq. I can't tell you how angry local people were and are about that. It made a difference to my everyday life because we were short a dignitary... people marched in the street when the US invaded Iraq, the streets were TEEMING. Schools were empty; my kid called me from Parliament and was on TV getting roughed up by the police; highly respectable Muslim people - academics too - were also marching, not just hippies & kids.

A lot of the men in Guantanamo are UK citizens, and it staggers me that the land of the free and home of the brave is locking up UK citizens without even the hope of a trial. You read the articles about them and their families, they look like people I know.

Meanwhile, with every incident, the Muslim community draws further back into itself for protection, the girls are under more and more pressure to wear hijab, young men already caught between the culture they were born into and that of their (panicking) parents get angrier and angrier, and more and more lost, and start seeking a cultural identity that differentiates them from the "anti-Muslim" world. When I went home for a visit in Aug 2002, one colleague - with whom I get on well - asked where I was going - I said NY - he said, all covered in confusion, "Oh - well - never mind - "

I have to go support my team member Akbal in court soon, because he was hauled in for having dropped his ticket on London Transport on a day when the ticket inspectors were out. They're throwing the book at him. He's a young, trendy-looking Bengali guy who does volunteer work as a community mediator. If I'd dropped my ticket, I am SURE I'd have had a ten-pound fine. Recent police figures show that stop-&-search is WAY up for Asian-looking men; young Asian law-abiding men aren't feeling very safe.

How can you tell who's a terrorist? In MY world you are never more than two or three degrees separated from an Al-Qaeda sympathiser. And every time Bush makes a speech the degree goes down by .1%. It totally doesn't follow that you lock up everyone who looks like one or even knows one. It would be every Asian man over the age of sixteen.

Better to solve the actual PROBLEM I'd have thought, which means sitting down and thinking about what it actually IS.

KEB

[Janet Kenny]

Thanks for that Katy.
Janet

[Dick Morgan]

KEB:

While it doesn't seem likely that we will share political views very soon I would like to thank you for sharing a piece of your world--of your days, as it were. I am in the middle of my first novel and your writing was quite beautiful in places--and more importantly ---seeming seamless ---which is the highest compliment I could think of to give to a fellow writer.

Dick Morgan

[Robert Meyer]

Dan said:
...The "racial" notion of religion is also interesting, if not entirely original (c.f. the evolution of German federal law c. 1933-1945.)

Dan, have you ever read <u>Nietzsche & Wagner: A Lesson In Subjugation</u> by Joachim Kohler (trans. Ronald Taylor)? In chapter 10 ("Return to the Underworld"), there are some interesting thoughts on both men making their own slightly different religions and how those two 'theologies' (both with a racial / national element) had a great impact on Hitler. By ch. 10, both men are dead and their widows, who have been sniping at each other, make temporary peace during the 3rd Reich. For me at least, any racial or national religion seems false, even if it wasn't filled with evil. I know there is a need for social justice in religion; but at it's core the temporal world seems to fade away and it's only the lover & the beloved, like St John of the Cross' <u>Dark Night of the Soul</u> or Martin Buber's <u>I and Thou</u>.

Robert Meyer


[This message has been edited by Robert Meyer (edited June 10, 2005).]