Female Soldiers in Israeli Army

This interesting news article in NYT describes the interaction between a female soldier and ultra-orthodox jews in Israeli army.

“During my first year of service, I spent about a week certifying a group of religious soldiers on grenade launchers. On the second day I brought one to the classroom, so I could point to different parts as I was demonstrating how to use them. The moment I touched the weapon, one of the soldiers got up from his chair and left. Soon, the room was filled with the sound of scraping chairs. I proceeded with my lesson plan until I was left alone with one bespectacled soldier, who had been furiously taking notes. It was only when I stopped talking that he looked up, horrified to find that the two of us were alone.”

My commander later explained to me that while these particular religious soldiers had no problem being instructed by a woman holding erasable markers and pointing at posters, their doctrine prevented them from seeing a woman touch a weapon. Something to do with a line written somewhere that mentioned women and instruments of war and said the two didn’t go together. I never heard of it before or after, and still don’t quite understand it. “

“Last month, the law exempting ultra-Orthodox Jews — known as Haredim — from mandatory service in the Israel Defense Forces expired. Although many very religious Jews, like the ones I worked with, had long volunteered to serve, those who chose to dedicate their lives to the study of the Torah had been officially exempt from service since 2002, and some had been exempt since the founding of Israel. Defense Minister Ehud Barak granted the army a month to figure out how to begin drafting Haredim. That period ended a few days ago, but a comprehensive solution has yet to be presented. The truth is, no one expects that it will really happen; there is no simple way to force an entire community into a life that goes against what they believe.”

“One of the reasons religious Jews claim they cannot serve in the I.D.F. has to do with the presence of women, who make up about 30 percent of the army. Last year, several religious soldiers walked out of a ceremony in which a woman sang. Evidently, this is one more thing women are not allowed to do. My encounter with ultra-religious men in the army was the first time I entered a world in which being myself meant existing in a universe where the rules for what I could or could not do rested primarily on my gender. As a female soldier, the so-called burden equality issue has a flip side: It would mean having to accept the burden of serving alongside thousands of individuals who see me as less than equal. For them, I could never be a soldier first; I would always be a woman, whose actions may spell danger to their most deeply held beliefs.”

Read more;

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/09/opinion/sunday/what-happens-when-the-two-israels-meet.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=opinion?hp

 

 

‘An Appeal to the Conscience of Muslims’ By Tariq Ramadan

(Shared by Azeem Farooki )

One controversy subsides; a worse one begins. After the Danish cartoons, the Dutch video Fitna and several low-grade irritants, a short, crudely executed — and scrupulously insulting — film has inflamed deep-seated resentment. Several hundreds of furious demonstrators gathered in front of the American Embassy in Cairo and the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. In the confusion and violence, a US Ambassador and three diplomats were killed. Elsewhere, embassies came under violent attacks, with many wounded and serious damage to material. Literalist Salafists succeeded in mobilising a relatively small number of demonstrators; over-excited young people and ordinary citizens who, firm in their intention to protect the Prophet’s [PBUH] reputation, joined in to express their rejection of the American government and its policies. The demonstrations were the work of a tiny minority, but media coverage and the rapid spread of the protest movement have destabilised the region, and may well have substantial consequences for the future of Middle East — and for the process of democratisation and normalisation in the region.

The violence must be condemned unconditionally. To attack innocents, diplomats and to kill indiscriminately is anti-Islamic by its very nature. Muslims cannot respond to insults to their religion in this way. On this principle, there can be no compromise.

Still, there is every reason to ask what lies behind such vulgar provocations (whose intent is clearly to set off a reaction by mocking Muslims’ unanimous respect for the Prophet [PBUH]. Here we have individuals, or interest groups (and not the American government) that make cynical use of the noblest values — freedom of speech — to attain the most poisonous objectives, promoting hatred, racism and contempt. Well-established and protected in their rich and comfortable societies, they pretend to celebrate critical intelligence and wit at the expense of a religion practised by much less fortunate people, many of who are struggling with numerous social frustrations and are barely surviving. But behind the celebration of freedom of speech hides the arrogance of ideologists and well-fed racists who feed off the multiform humiliation of Muslims and to demonstrate the clear “superiority” of their civilisation or the validity of their resistance to the “cancer” of retrograde Islam. In criticising this ideological stance there can be no compromise either.

In the light of the contemporary Muslim conscience, while deploring and regretting the emotive reactions of the populations of the Muslim-majority societies of the Global South, we must take into account their social and historical reality. Economically and culturally disadvantaged, their political and cultural sensitivities are sorely tried by deliberate insults to the sacred symbols that give meaning to their perseverance and their lives — the very symbols invoked by leaders or Islamist tendencies to nurture resentment and to give voice to anger. This reality in no way justifies violence, but helps us understand its source and seek out possible solutions. It is the task of the elites, the leaders, of Muslim religious scholars and intellectuals, to play a leading role in order to head-off explosions of anger and mob violence. They bear three kinds of responsibilities.

First, they must turn their attention to education and work towards a deeper understanding of Islam, one that focuses on meaning and ultimate goals, and not simply on rituals and prohibitions. The task at hand is enormous and requires the full participation of all schools of thought.

Second, Islam’s extraordinary diversity must be accepted and celebrated. Islam is one, but its interpretations are many. The existence of literalist, traditionalist, reformist, mystic, rationalist and other currents is a fact, a reality that must be treated positively and qualitatively, for each of them has its own legitimacy and should (must!) contribute a multifaceted debate among Muslims. Unfortunately, today’s Muslim religious scholars, and the leaders of various trends, are caught up in an ideological confrontation, and often a clash of egos, that create divisions and transform them into dangerous populists who claim for themselves the title of sole and authentic representatives of Islam. Within Sunnis, as within Shiites; between Sunnis and Shiites; scholars and schools of thought lash out at one another, forgetting the fundamental teachings and the principles that unite them and instead splitting along doctrinal or political lines that remain secondary at best. The consequences of these divisions are serious. Populism pushes people to vent their emotions blindly in the guise of legitimacy. The attitude — or the absence of it — of such scholars perpetuates among Muslims nationalist, sectarian and often racist postures based on their particular school of thought, their nationality or their culture. Instead of calling upon individual egos to control themselves, and upon minds to understand and celebrate diversity, leaders and scholars play, in their rhetoric or in their silence, upon people’s emotions and sense of belonging with catastrophic consequences. The Great Powers, West and East, easily exploit these divisions and internal conflicts such as the danger-fraught fracture between Sunnis and Shiites.

Instead, it is imperative that voices from the two traditions collaborate on the fundamental principles that unite all Muslims. Whenever considerations of belonging threaten to replace principles, religious scholars, intellectuals and leaders must return to shared principles, must find common ground between these considerations, in full respect of legitimate diversity.

Third, scholars and intellectuals must have the courage to expose themselves further. Instead of encouraging popular feelings, or use those feelings to further their own religious identity (Sunnis, Shiites, reformists, Sufis, etc.) or their political ideology, they must face the issue squarely, dare to be self-critical, commit themselves to dialogue and — more often than not — tell Muslims what they may not like to hear about their own failings, their lack of coherence, their propensity to play the victim, failure to understand and to accept responsibility. Far from the feverish rhetoric of the populists, they must put their credibility on the line to awaken consciences in an attempt to counter emotionalism and mass blindness. The educated elites, students, intellectuals and professionals also have a major responsibility. The way they follow their leaders, as does their status as intermediaries, accountable, simplifying and participating in grassroots dynamics is an absolute imperative. The passivity of the educated elites, looking down upon inflamed and uncontrolled populations far below them, is a grievous fault.

Ultimately we end up with the leaders — and the people — we deserve. Without committed and determined religious scholars, intellectuals and business people aware of the critical nature of the issues, there can be little doubt that we will be heading for an upsurge of religious populism and the emotional blindness of the masses. The words and the commitment of the leaders must set the highest standards — beginning with knowledge, understanding, coherence and self-criticism. They must abandon the notion of victimisation by appealing to responsibility, by freeing themselves from the illusion that opposition to the “other” can lead to reconciliation with one’s self. Make no mistake: The violent reactions to the insults uttered against the Prophet [PBUH] have driven many Muslims to behaviours far removed from the principles of Islam. We become ourselves not in opposition to someone else, but in accord and at peace with our conscience, our principles and our aspirations. In the serene mastery of ourselves, and not in the aggressive rejection of the Other. Such is the message the world’s Muslims need to hear, and most of all, put into practice.

Tariq Ramadan is professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies in the Faculty of Oriental Studies at Oxford University . He is the author of Islam and the Arab Awakening and also teaches at the Oxford Faculty of Theology. He is Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Islamic Studies, (Qatar), Senior Research Fellow at Doshisha University (Kyoto, Japan)

One of the world’s top 100 most influential intellectuals in the world by Time Magazine in 2004.

He is President of the European think tank : European Muslim Network (EMN) in Brussels.

An online poll provided by the American Foreign Policy magazine in 2009 and in 2010 placed Ramadan on the 49th spot in a list of the world’s top 100 contemporary intellectuals.

In 2008, an open online poll, Tariq Ramadan was voted the 8th top most intellectual person in the world on the list of Top 100 Public Intellectuals by Prospect Magazine (UK). 

This article was originally published in the Gulf News

 

 

 

The Sources of Salafi Conduct

( Shared by Tahir Mahmood)

This article from Foreign Magazine elaborates on the conduct of Salafis in present violent protests;

“If the Arab Spring uprisings were an earthquake in Middle Eastern politics, last week was a major aftershock. The rumbling began in Cairo, where a satellite TV station run by Salafis played clips of an inflammatory film about the Prophet Muhammad. Soon after, Salafi religious leaders called for protests at the U.S. embassy in Cairo, blaming Washington for not censoring a film made in the United States. The pattern was repeated in Libya, Tunisia, Yemen, and elsewhere. Although much has been made of the riots as a response to the film, they are more fundamentally about the nature of the post-Arab Spring regimes, and specifically about who gets to police public morality. Salafis across the region see themselves as the rightful guardians of the public sphere — and are acting to ensure that others see them that way, too.

Although Salafis do not make up a majority of the population in any of these countries, they were able to set the political agendas there for the past week for several reasons. They punch above their weight because of the vast funding they receive from fellow travelers in the wealthy Gulf monarchies, particularly in Kuwait, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. Each year, millions of dollars flow out of the Gulf and into Salafi charities and satellite channels like the one that touched off the riots. (By comparison, liberal NGOs receive far less support from the wealthy countries in the region.) Salafi leaders spend this money on social programs and proselytizing, handy tools with which to gin up votes or whip up anger at perceived slights to Salafism or Islam.”

Read more;

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/138129/william-mccants/the-sources-of-salafi-conduct

What kind of love is this for Prophet ?

“What kind of a love for the Prophet is this where people are burning and looting?” said Qamar Zaman Kaira, the information minister, in a television interview.

Unfortunately the madness continues. As per NYT 19 people died on Friday in Pakistan in protests over offensive movie. Most of the religious clerks, extreme groups and politicians try to capitalize on this sad saga, took part in these protests and in further fuming this anger. The NYT writes:

Peaceful protests had been approved by Pakistan’s government which declared Friday a national  holiday, the “Day of Love for the Prophet Muhammad,” as part of an effort to either control, or politically capitalize on, rage against the inflammatory video, which depicts the Prophet Muhammad, the founder of Islam, as a sexually perverted buffoon.

By nightfall Geo, the leading television station, was reporting 19 deaths around the country.

Local television networks reported that a mob ransacked and burned an Anglican church in Mardan in northwestern Pakistan. A statement by The Bishop of Peshawar the Rt. Rev. Humphrey Peters said that newly installed computers were stolen before the church was set on fire. There were no reports of killings or injuries to the Christians.

“An attack on the holy prophet is an attack on the core belief of 1.5 billion Muslims. Therefore, this is something that is unacceptable,” said Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf in an address to a religious conference Friday morning in Islamabad.

Mr. Ashraf called on the United Nations and international community to formulate a law outlawing hate speech across the world. “Blasphemy of the kind witnessed in this case is nothing short of hate speech, equal to the worst kind of anti-Semitism or other kind of bigotry,” he said.

Protesters in Karachi burned effigies, stoned a KFC and engaged in armed clashes with the police that left 14 people dead and more than 80 wounded by evening.

“Pakistan is a conservative but not a radicalized society,” said Cyril Almeida, a writer with the English-language Dawn newspaper. “But when the radical fringe is bold enough, it can hold society hostage. And that’s what happened today.”

Imran Khan, the cricket hero turned conservative politician, addressed one of the Islamabad protest rallies, and used to occasion to condemn American drone strikes in the northwestern tribal belt.“There is no end to this war,” he said. Click link below to read more;

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/22/world/asia/protests-in-pakistan-over-anti-islam-film.html?pagewanted=1&_r=moc.semityn.www