Category Archives: Sociology

FBI CONCLUDES 15 YEARS INVESTIGATION OF ISLAM

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FBI CONCLUDES 15 YEARS INVESTIGATION OF ISLAM

Thinkers Forum USA Editors received this info from Firoz Kamal

Washington Post.

After 15 years of broadly targeting the 3.3-million-member community and extensively monitoring its activities, the FBI declared an end Friday to its surveillance of Muslim Americans, saying its exhaustive study of their beautiful culture was finally complete.

Officials confirmed that the program was started in the fall of 2001 when federal agents, captivated by Islam’s complex history and rich spiritual traditions, redirected the full force of the bureau’s intelligence-gathering apparatus toward developing a more thoughtful, nuanced appreciation of the Muslim-American way of life.

“We’d always known Islam was one of the great world religions, but it wasn’t until we recruited a network of 15,000 informants and infiltrated mosques all over the country that we came to understand just how magnificent and fascinating it truly is,” said FBI director James B. Comey, who noted that agents gained a valuable and eye-opening understanding of Islam—while also learning a lot about themselves and their own faith in the process—after entering the Muslim places of worship to collect as much information as they could on the intriguing personal beliefs of the religion’s followers.

“After analyzing the transcripts of thousands of phone calls and intercepting the communications of prominent Muslim-American leaders and academics, we’ve really come to admire their vibrant culture.”

“The considerable amount of intel we’ve gathered and carefully pored over for the past 15 years has shown us that their faith and customs are really quite inspiring,” Comey added.

“If there’s one thing we’ve taken away from all our surveillance, it’s what a glorious and enriching part of our world Islam is.”

According to sources within the bureau, the harvesting of internet data, widespread racial profiling, and the nationwide mapping of Muslim communities have allowed agents to closely observe the followers of Islam on an extremely personal level, thereby allowing them to develop a deep respect for the amazing ethnic and cultural diversity of the faith’s 1.6 billion believers, as well as the striking distinctions between the religion’s various sects, which, they stressed, went far beyond just Sunni and Shiite.

Remarking on all the information they had gathered, FBI officials emphasized that adherents of Islam speak dozens of beautiful languages—Arabic, but also Urdu, Pashto, Farsi, Bengali, Javanese, and many others—and noted that agents came to treasure this linguistic richness after installing recording devices throughout Muslim-American communities and then surreptitiously listening in on Quranic study groups, prayer sessions, and social events.

“Thanks to advances in video surveillance, we’ve been able to look inside Muslims’ homes and view some breathtaking calligraphy prints and handwoven tapestries,” said former agent Casey Hanna, who fondly recalled assignments that allowed him to overhear moving recitations of the Hadith, which he was fascinated to learn come from an oral tradition and are considered to be the direct word of the Prophet Muhammad.

“I went undercover in hundreds of Muslim-owned businesses and residences across the nation and was lucky enough to sample many variations on the aromatic stews and delectable desserts that serve as staples of halal cuisine—Arabian, North African, Indonesian. They were all delicious, and unlike anything I’d ever tasted.”

“I’ll never forget this one instance when I closely trailed a New York shop owner for three straight years—his coffee was just spectacular,” Hanna added. “Muslims were the first people to drink coffee, you know.”

After realizing they could not fully nurture their curiosity by limiting their study to Muslims in the United States, the FBI reportedly enlisted the help of the NSA to find out more about the incredible religion. Between 2002 and 2008, the bureau is known to have monitored 7,485 email addresses around the globe in order to learn answers to their many questions about Muslims’ compelling lives and rituals, from why they don’t eat pork, to what Muslim holidays are like, to why some Muslim women wear garments that cover their heads while others don’t.

Comey told reporters the FBI also received information from the CIA, whose enhanced interrogation techniques and clandestine intelligence-gathering methods yielded many interesting revelations from Muslim sources around the world, such as the fact that Arabs make up only 15 percent of the global Muslim population, and that through most of history, women in Islamic societies actually had more property rights than women in the West.

Saying they thoroughly enjoyed studying “such a lovely people and such a lovely faith,” Comey explained that agents would often remove a Muslim citizen from their community and keep them detained for days, weeks, or even months on end to learn everything they could from them about Islam.

“There’s no way I could remember the names of all the Muslim citizens that our agents brought in to discuss the beauty of Islam with one-on-one, but rest assured that with their help, the FBI has gained a deep and illuminating understanding of Islamic culture,” said Comey, who noted that by combing through thousands upon thousands of citizens’ banking records, agents discovered with astonishment how some observant Muslims set up special loan payment plans to avoid paying interest, as they consider it usury, which is forbidden under Sharia law.

“It’s crazy to think about, but until little more than a decade ago, I had no idea there were Five Pillars of Islam that guided all Muslims’ spiritual lives. I also didn’t know anything about the multitude of Muslim contributions to mathematics and science that have been absolutely vital to the world.

But that’s not to say they don’t value art, though. Poets like Rumi and Hafez drew upon mystical Sufist interpretations of the Quran to write verse that is every bit as sublime as, say, Keats or Coleridge. And don’t even get me started on the architecture.”

“As this program sadly comes to an end, I just want to thank Muslim Americans from the bottom of my heart for teaching us all about your faith and your culture,” he continued.

“We’ve learned so much about you over the years. More than you could possibly imagine.”

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Raising a Humanist: Conscious Parenting in an Increasingly Fragmented World

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Raising a Humanist: Conscious Parenting in an Increasingly Fragmented World

It gives us pleasure to share with you that our book Raising a Humanist: Conscious Parenting in an Increasingly Fragmented World from Sage Publications is out. It is available on Sage, Amazon, as well as Flipkart.

I hope you will read it with interest and share the information in your networks.

Thanks,

Manisha with Kiran

Manisha Pathak-Shelat

Ph.D. (Mass Communication), University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA

Ph.D. (Education), The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, India

Professor, Communication & Digital Platforms and Strategies 

Chair, Center for Development Management & Communication (CDMC)

Editor, Journal of Creative Communications– a Sage journal

MICA 
Shela, Ahmedabad – 380 058 
Gujarat, India 

www.mica.ac.in 

M         +91 9909291629
T          +91 2717 308301
F          +91 2717 308349

Leaping from Despair into Hope: The Lesson of Rembrandt’s Resurrection for Today’s Troubled World

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Leaping from Despair into Hope: The Lesson of Rembrandt’s Resurrection for Today’s Troubled World

Matthew Ehret
Matthew Ehret is the Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Patriot Review , a BRI Expert on Tactical talk, and Senior Fellow at the American University in Moscow. He is author of the‘Untold History of Canada’ book series and in 2019 he co-founded the Montreal-based Rising Tide Foundation . Consider helping this process by making a donation to the RTF or becoming a Patreon supporter to the Canadian Patriot Review.

Today, the world finds itself moving through a turbulent transformation between two systems. Collapsing at a faster rate every day are the foundations of a failed imperial world order defined by zero-sum thinking, consumerism and materialism which has defined our existence for decades. The question is now: will the new world system take the form of a new era of global empire, unmitigated war between faiths and a prolonged dark age OR might it take the form of the beautiful multi-polar world order defined by win-win cooperation between all of the nations, faiths and cultures of the world?

Throughout his life, Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669) continuously returned to the axiom-breaking theme of the famous biblical story of the ‘Supper at Emmaus’ in order to convey the powerful transformative “moment” of discovery in between the two states of mind of 1) the belief in the death of Christ and the end to his life’s mission and 2) the state of renewed faith in the immortal hope represented by the image of the resurrection. While this lesson is taken from the Christian matrix, it’s universal characteristic provides a lesson for people of all cultures who seek to bring a better world into being.

Before jumping to an analysis of some beautiful paintings, it would be necessary to summarize ever so briefly the story of the Dinner at Emmaus.

The Dinner at Emmaus and The Importance of Christianity in World History

Featured in the New Testament Gospels of Luke and Mark, Jesus is invited to eat with two of his disciples (Luke and Cleopas) in the town of Emmaus. This wouldn’t be anything exceptional, except for the fact that Jesus had been violently crucified on the cross and entombed days earlier. Neither Luke nor Cleopas recognize their mentor who has been resurrected after being entombed for three days and it is only upon breaking bread with this stranger that they make their discovery just as Christ vanishes miraculously into light.

Whether you are a Christian, Muslim, Jew, Confucian, Hindu, Buddhist or other, the lesson conveyed by this biblical story and especially Rembrandt’s artistic treatment has a universal value for the simple reason that Christ’s life and mission represented a moral power of change which had the unique capacity to undo the foundations of the Roman Empire. This movement accomplished this miraculous feat not through military force, money or any other Hobbesian notion of power, but merely by tuning the hearts and minds of a suppressed people to the power of forgiveness, loving all including one’s enemies, and adhering to one’s conscience before all “political norms of acceptable behaviour” demanded by the Roman oligarchy.

One can imagine how disheartened Christ’s followers were to see that light of hope snuffed out under the suffocating weight of the world’s largest and most evil of empires whose unchallenged power had extended to Asia, Africa and all Europe. One can easily imagine what an existential crisis overwhelmed the hearts of these early followers of Jesus’ Gospel. Were they just naive fools to believe in a better world and a loving Creator when such evil could dominate the world? How powerful and electrifying was the idea that the sacrificed leader of this movement actually succeeded in defeating the one thing which even the most powerful of emperors and kings could not escape? If this were possible, then perhaps the material power of the Empire could be defeated after all and perhaps the ideals of Christ’s life and mission were worth having faith in too.

Over the coming centuries, the Roman oligarchy slowly learned that regardless of how many Christians it burned alive, or threw into the mouths of wild animals for the entertainment of the mob, the movement only grew in numbers. This continued to the point that the Empire was forced to attempt to co-opt the movement by Romanizing it and infusing imperial, pagan practices into its governing structures slowly suffocating the spirit of Christ’s message in favour of the formal structures of the “word” of the book as interpreted by an approved “priesthood” beholden to an oligarchical class.

Amidst this tendency to corruption and decay, Christ’s spirit was periodically re-awakened from time to time in the form of honest souls who broke from formalization to “walk the walk” and live according to their consciences. These courageous souls who “broke from the mould” include such names as St. Augustine of Hippo, Alcuin, Charlemagne, Dante Alighieri, Nicholas of Cusa, Erasmus, Thomas More, and even Rembrandt van Rijn. Were it not for their efforts to renew the spirit of Christianity by enflaming the kindling for new Renaissances, Europe would likely still be living under the conditions of the medieval dark age, or worse.

One can also argue that were it not for this transformative and miraculous story of reincarnation, then Christianity would have merely been just another one of many Jewish sects that tried nobly to bring substance to the darkness of a war-ridden world… but ultimately failed.

Rembrandt’s Renaissance Challenge

It is no coincidence that Rembrandt’s famous 1648 rendition of the theme of the ‘Dinner at Emmaus’ was painted during the year that the great Peace of Westphalia was finalised in Europe. This Treaty not only ended the 30 Years War that destroyed generations of Europeans in an endless revengist bloodbath of Protestantism vs Catholicism, but also created a new basis of international law by establishing the system of modern nation states premised around the principles of forgiveness, and the agapic principle of the “Benefit of the Other”. In the modern age, a correlate to this principle is found beautifully in the policy of “win-win cooperation” expressed in China’s New Silk Road which itself emanates from Confucian principles of “Tianxia”.

1648 rendition of Rembrandt’s ‘Supper at Emmaus;

Rembrandt’s 1628 rendition of ‘Supper at Emmaus’ is featured below with an incredible use of chiaroscuro to convey the divinity of Christ and also the motion from the darkness of ignorance to the light of knowledge. Rembrandt’s choice to place the central focus on the un-named disciple rather than on Christ whom he places in a foreground silhouette is not an accident and neither is the choice to place the maid working in the kitchen covered in shadow and oblivious to the miracle behind her. This central focus on the discovery process occurring in the mind of the disciple creates an opportunity for a cathartic experience with the viewer who is invited to share in the co-discovery occurring before their eyes.

The ethereal divine light emanating from Christ’s figure just before he disappears casts a divine glow upon his surprised associate which is very different from the candle casting artificial light upon the maid in the kitchen. This metaphorical use of light is another device used by all great Platonic humanists to convey the image of different grades of knowledge as outlined in the famous Allegory of the Cave in Plato’s Republic.

Rembrandt’s 1628 rendition of “Supper at Emmaus” 

Another rendition of Rembrandt’s ‘Supper at Emmaus’ was painted in 1648 featuring the artist’s struggle to convey the transformative change. In the version below, Rembrandt placed the light source not in Christ but rather hidden from view covered by one of his disciples. In this rendition, Rembrandt chose to place the event on a theatrical stage (a device he used in several biblical themes). The great master understood painting as a performative principle akin to acting and not as some mere presentation of pretty objects on canvas and as such he wished the audience to imagine reliving the experience fully as good actors should rather than merely admire a show as voyeurs.

Looking through his surviving thumbnail sketches, we see that Rembrandt considered rendering the scene in a very different manner wherein Christ would be depicted a split second later as pure light. It is worth taking the opportunity to think to yourself: Why did the painter decide not to take this route? Why was the path he chose deemed wiser to the master? What idea is missing from the sketch?

Velasquez Tackles the Paradox of Spirit and Matter

A contemporary painter and kindred spirit to Rembrandt was the Spanish painter Diego Velasquez (1599-1660) who also took on the challenge of capturing the important “in between” moment conveyed in the biblical story. Many contemporary art critics who lack the sensitivity to art’s higher power to convey transformative discoveries often miss the principled intention of both Rembrandt and Velasquez’s moral choice to convey this subject matter (and all their works) as they do. Below we can see Velasquez’s 1623 rendition of the “eureka moment” forever unfolding before the eyes of all future generations.

The hand of one disciple strikes back towards the viewer which also has the brilliant technical effect of immersing the audience into the living experience of discovery and further abolishing the false “wall” separating the “subjective” viewer from the “objective” art being viewed.

A few years before this painting, Velasquez tackled the same theme from the unique standpoint of the servant girl fixing a meal in the kitchen and placing the divine transformative scene in the background… not to downplay the importance of the event but to give the viewer a chance to breath, and ponder the co-existence of the divine and the ordinary world in which we all exist which are too often fragmented and divided by an unbridgeable gulf between “abstract” spiritual concepts and “real” material facts.

We hope that during this Easter Sunday and all of the days to follow, you dear reader, take the time to seek the power of creative love and faith in a better world within yourself while sharing the fruits of that search with others. Perhaps, in so doing the lives of such great souls as Velasquez, Rembrandt, Confucius, Socrates, and Christ may come alive once more.

Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section below!

Matthew Ehret is the Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Patriot Review , a BRI Expert on Tactical talk, and Senior Fellow at the American University in Moscow. He is author of the‘Untold History of Canada’ book series and in 2019 he co-founded the Montreal-based Rising Tide Foundation . Consider helping this process by making a donation to the RTF or becoming a Patreon supporter to the Canadian Patriot Review.

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Social Media & Women by Nilofar Suhrawardy

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social Media & Women!

The following article is written by Nilofar Suhrawardy

Social Media & Women! | Countercurrents

Nilofar Suhrawardy is based in Delhi. Nilofar Suhrawardy is a senior journalist and writer with specialization in communication studies and nuclear diplomacy. She has come out with several books. These include:– Modi’s Victory, A Lesson for the Congress…? (2019); Arab Spring, Not Just a Mirage! (2019), Image and Substance, Modi’s First Year in Office (2015) and Ayodhya Without the Communal Stamp, In the Name of Indian Secularism (2006)

Of late, a new importance is being accorded to “social media.” The so-called “social media” is allegedly playing an extremely negative role in spread of “socially-approved” abuses targeting weaker sections, particularly minorities and women. Now, is there really such a “social media” or this is just a hype? And aren’t we erring in according it a little too much importance?

Let us accept it, just as Covid-19 knows no socio-cultural lines, Indian women of all religions face similar problems. Marriage seems to be a must for all. Divorce is still viewed as a stigma. Widow-remarriage is hardly given any importance. And practically all face dowry problems and so forth. In Indian society, these may be viewed intrinsically as part of country’s culture, supposed to be legally unacceptable but yet viewed as socially pertinent.

Paradoxically, as communication boom is increasing at an accelerating pace, so are certain chains trying to act as restrictions on people’s life, freedom as well as peace of mind. What else can one say about the increasingly negative role being played by some means of “social media”? These include attempts to poison people’s minds against one another on account of social – particularly religious and caste-based – differences. Continuance of gang-rapes is suggestive of the fairer gender being viewed as easy targets as well as being looked down upon as commodities to be exploited and then discarded.

Of course, the trend to give religious clerics more importance than required in deliberating over controversial issues cannot be ignored. Equally significant is politicization of these irrespective of whether the needed solution is arrived at. Politicians have gone over-board on triple-talaq issue but have remained practically silent on dowry problems. Why?

At this point, it may be pertinent to analyze speculations aired recently about Muslim women. With due to respect to views expressed that, “Muslim Women Can think,” of course an attempt has been made in favor of fairer gender of this community. Nevertheless, the headline does raise apprehensions. What does it suggest? Is an attempt being made to convince others that Muslim women can think? In this case, clearly notions entertained about women at large, including Muslims cannot be ignored. If stereotyped impressions were not held about women in general in most parts of world, this subject would not have been deliberated upon.

The fact that women continue to be discriminated against, are viewed as secondary to males to degree of even being looked down upon cannot be ignored. The most high-ranking jobs in majority of institutions are rarely given to women, irrespective of what their qualifications are. This stands true in political arena too. Limited representation of women in democratically elected bodies, including Parliament, state assemblies and so forth are just a mild illustration of this stark reality. When their vote is as important as that of men, why isn’t their representation in these bodies given much importance? Clearly, once women surge forth as their population demands, Indian political scenario may take a totally different form.

But in all probability, nobody is likely to think or even dream along these lines. There apparently prevails apprehension of men losing their command over politics and in other fields too.

Essentially, it is erroneous to label discrimination faced by women and also sideline their achievements exclusively along religious lines. Nevertheless, speculation raised as well as defended that Muslim can think women needs to be deliberated upon from other angles too. The instant glance at headline clearly raises speculation about negative, primarily stereotyped approach held towards Muslims as a whole and fairer gender of this community. As mentioned earlier, the fact that this approach is held towards women in general only raises questions on why have Muslim women been selected in particular? Why? Should it be assumed a means of gaining greater attention for the subject? Perhaps.

There is no denying, when negative “news” focusing on Muslims is circulated, it is noticed. In fact, it may not be wrong to state; there prevails the trend of according greater attention to “negative” aspects of certain issues than to positive. As for instance, the general tendency is to assume Muslim women in general as fairly conservative, illiterate/semi-literate, dressed from head to toe. The same can be said about most women in the sub-continent, irrespective of their religion, caste, class and other ethnic divisions. Against this backdrop, prospects of Indian community progressing as a whole may be viewed as fairly limited by focusing only on Muslim women.

Besides, how much importance has really been given to factors responsible for backwardness of majority in the country, particularly those residing in rural India? Give a thought; is there a decent school available within a range of few kilometers making it possible for each child, girl and boy, to gain some basic, elementary education? In this context, the fact that Muslims in rural as well as urban areas give at least some importance to ensure that their children acquire some elementary as well as religious education from nearby madarsas cannot be ignored. Those who can afford to, invite a tutor to teach basic principles to their children. Children, include both girls and boys.

It may be noted, the practice of Muslim women being invited to teach children in various Muslim dominated areas is fairly strong, particularly in urban parts. Besides, quite a few women hold classes at their own homes. Apart from this, the fact that Muslim women give considerable importance to engaging in ventures to increase their income cannot be ignored. These include running or assisting in beauty parlors, stitching clothes and/or being linked with tailors in demand from their homes and numerous such means which help in adding to family income. A considerable number of Muslim women engaged in professions such as these belong to weak economic sections. They are not economically privileged and yet are smart enough to try and wriggle out of their economic crises.

So, does this imply that Muslim women cannot think? Or are examples of celebrities needed to defy this claim? No. In fact, in light of examples cited, ordinary Muslim women have been moving along the path of spelling a better future for their families for decades. That the elderly Muslim ladies decided to assemble at Shaheen Bagh in protest against Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) is a marked reflection of their stepping forward as strong personalities. Had they been weak individuals, who did not think and act on their own, history would not have witnessed their gathering at Shaheen Bagh and numerous other places.

Against this backdrop, importance of communication demands that prior to stating – Muslim women can think- some relevance needs to be accorded to role being played by ordinary Muslim ladies at large. And this holds true for women of all religious communities. Rather than label spread of negative “abuses” as “socially approved,” it may be more pertinent to view them as agenda of some extremists. Certain individuals/groups may be aiding them in return of some gains.

Importance gained by ladies participating in farmers’ protest and earlier at Shaheen Bagh is a strong slap on those who view the fairer gender as weaklings, who can’t think and act on their own strength. The fact that these ladies have gained attention globally and nationally cannot be undermined. What does this suggest about the so-called spread of “socially approved abuses” targeting minorities and women? If abuses spread through “social media” were really “socially approved,” the role played by ladies belonging to minorities would not have been hailed. Besides, the message, conveyed strongly by ladies in farmers’ protest and at Shaheen Bagh, has not been undermined by so-called “socially approved” “social media.” Their lives and moves may hardly be viewed as at mercy of the so-called “social media!”