under|progress

Muslim blogosphere's secret Nordic weapon: Svend White

Thank God the Anglophone Muslim blogosphere has Svend White to tap into the latest goings on in Scandinavia, in particular Denmark. His detailed posts on the cartoon crisis and the subsequent fallout is a wealth of valuable information. In one of his latest offerings he looks at a new study of the whole affair, which questions the response of the Danish government:

"The early Muslim response did not demand government censorship.  The October 2005 letter from Muslim ambassadors to the Prime Minister explicitly affirmed freedom of speech (and presciently warned of the danger of unrest in Muslim societies), as did even Egypt's protest letter the following month to the UN.  All that was asked was for him to distance the government from Jyllands-Posten's divisive PR campaign against Islam.  In other words, the argument that the Danish government had no choice but to rebuff Muslims because they were demanding that the government ignore Danish laws protecting speech are patently false."

He also looks at the German Catholic response to Popetown, a cartoon lampooning the Vatican which was pulled off the schedule by the BBC a couple of years ago. It is currently being screened on MTV. He noted the double standards at operation (no 'solidatry' being shown by other media outlets); my response, playing devil's advocate, was to note the lack of violence associated with the protests by Catholics:

"Muslims for the most part live in and/or come from much rougher neighborhoods than Westerners, places with much less political stablity, and sometimes various kinds of violence and even warfare playing out within society. One hopes for a peaceful response, but expecting people living in such unstable societies to just write a letter to their non-existent congressman is hopelessly out of touch with reality."

Review of John Ware's latest outing

Osama Saeed has a review of John Ware's latest programme on Muslims. You can watch Ware's Panorama investigation on the BBC.

Update: Interpal has responded to the programme:

"We are extremely concerned that the Panorama production team appears to have gone out with a pre-set thesis and made a programme to suit a particular political agenda," said Mr. Hewitt. "There is a severe imbalance inherent in the content that gives the lie to the claim that this is responsible investigative journalism. In giving viewers an incomplete narrative, they have been left with a distorted picture of the truth, without which it is impossible to reach balanced and reasoned conclusions."

BBC Editors note comments on the programme. You can make a formal complaint too.

Update 2: Read Saracen's more detailed analysis.

The City Circle: 'Who should the Government talk to?'

You can now listen to The City Circle debate between Iqbal Sacraine, Martin Bright, Yahya Birt and Madeleine Bunting on who actually represents Muslims in Britain.

On that point, Ehsan Masood also had an article at openDemocracy on Muslim Britain.

Osama Saeed (1, 2) and Yusuf Smith have more on Martin Bright's latest work.

Istanbul 2006

The thing I miss most about my last trip to Istanbul is my cigarette-puffing, tea-drinking, Naqshi friends we would meet in or near Fatih Camii.

We risk losing the "state of peace"

Thanks to the Idiot and his Poodle, the "state of peace" assumed by nations (one of those generalisations which is good) since 1945, bolstered by international bodies and jurisprudence, is gradually fading. We're returning, slowly and worryingly, to a generalised "state of war" assumed between peoples.

Standing shoulder to ankle: the Poodle yaps again

Here's a definition of terrorism:

"The calculated use of violence or the threat of violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological." [US Department of Defense]

Here's another (from the same website):

"International terrorism is terrorism conducted with the support of a foreign government or organization and / or directed against foreign nationals, institutions or governments." [US State Department]

Here's what Israel is doing (warning graphic and disturbing pictures in some of these posts): 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. They have targetted either civilians, civilian infrastucture, government members or government buildings and institutions. All of these are more or less calculated; unless Israel has completely incompetent personnel, in which case they're still gullty of killing through incompetence. All these Israeli actions are designed to coerce the respective societies (Palestinian or Lebanese) in the aid of a political or ideological goal.

Yet, I have just caught the rolling news ticker on Murdoch's Mouthpiece that the Poodle is calling on Iran and Syria to stop terrorism. Of course, the real problem is that the US is that their definition of terrorism can bite them on their rear end.

(Incidentally, from what I've seen Sky News has been surprisingly more balanced then the BBC. This disappoints me as I am a defender of the BBC against critics with alterior motives; like Rupert Murdoch.)

The Carnival of Islam in the West

Abu Sahajj, of Wa Salaam, has started a new blogging carnival: The Carnival of Islam in the West.

"[T]his carnival is an effort to allow Muslims in the West to express what life is like for Muslims living in the West. It doesn’t matter if you are a US, Canadian or British national, if you are a Muslim living in the West, you fit the criteria and people want to hear your story[.]"

Check his blog for more details, and email him if you wish to host the carnival. He is scheduling the hosts for the rest of this year and most of 2007.

Connecting consumerism to the bombing of Beirut

Avari (1, 2): "Do you think there's really no connection between a foreign policy that encourages and cultivates in the public a sense that we must, at any cost, defend our lifestyle (rather than criticize ourselves and make meaningful changes) and the crass consumerism that is excused as limitless, global capitalism; free-market capitalism -- you have to let the market do what it wants (the market has agency, so you the protagonist can deny responsibility), when it wants, how it wants, because eventually it will create a state of prosperity for all [...] The very same way we must stand by Condoleeza Rice when she's not-so-nice and urges us to see the slaughter of 384 civilians as the "birth pangs" of a new Middle East. It's history, you see, so there's no sense of moral responsibility: Israel isn't culpable for the deaths of civilians, because those civilians have to die. It's the way things must be. You're only blameworthy if you resist; resistance is idolatry, and the market is monotheistic God."

Dear Lapdog Poodle Tony

Do you honesty expect me, or any other Muslim in Britain, to succeed in this if you keep following this idiot?

A tale of two Christs

In the comments section to her a post on Nasser, Willow highlights some Muslim attitudes towards the depiction of Jesus (upon whom be peace) in Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ:

"Passion of the Christ was an absolute blockbuster here, despite the fact that it shows the on-screen representation (and torture) of a Muslim prophet; people loved it because, to quote a cousin of mine, 'It shows the Jews for what they really are.'"

I wonder what her cousin thinks of The Da Vinci Code? Does he think it's an insult to Muslims like my friend? Here's a MSN conversation (cleaned up to make sense to the reader), involving my friend, one very boring afternoon at work on the very subject of The Da Vinci Code:

My friend, A: "I think it's good The Da Vinci Code was banned by some Muslim countries."
Me: "Why so?"
A: "Because they insult the prophet Jesus, peace be upon him."
Me: "How so? In what way?"
A: "Well, they say Hazrat Isa, peace be upon him, had children. This an insult and a lie."
Me: "What?! How is saying that Hazrat Isa (as) having children an insult? It might be historically inaccurate, but an *insult*? I mean the Prophet (saw) had children. The Prophet Ibrahim (as) prayed to God for a child. The Prophet Yakoub (as) cried so much he lost his eyesight upon hearing he had lost his son, Prophet Yusuf (as). The Prophet Zakariah (as) beseeched his Lord too for a child. So how can saying that someone had children be an insult? Surely children are a gift??"
A: "Well, it's not in the Qur'an that Hazrat Isa, peace be upon him, had children. Muslims and Christians know how it feels when they're insulted and in this case DVC is an insult to us both."
Me: "But those same Muslim countries didn't ban The Passion of the Christ. In fact, some eargerly showed it I think. And before I forget, you also saw PotC didn't you?"
A: "Yes but that was different. That didn't insult anyone. It was from the Bible."
Me: "...other than contradicting the entire Qur'anic view of the Prophet Jesus (as)?"