the Fort Hood tragedy

On November 5, Major Malik Nadal Hasan opened fire at Fort Hood at 1:30pm and killed 13 servicemen, wounding 38 others.  It was a shocking tragedy.  After the initial moment of shock wore off, my first thought was that this would be called either “homicide” or “terrorism,” and the decision lay entirely in what we discovered the religion of the assailant to be.

Malik Nadal Hasan

Once again as a nation, we are thrown into this question of what we are to think of Islam.  Eboo Patel, a Muslim leader deeply engaged in interfaith dialogue, tells his story here as he learned of the attack midway through a conference for Muslim/Jewish dialogue.  Patel tells of the immediate fear the Muslim community faces in light of such an attack, as recent history teaches such an event incurs violent backlash against Muslims in America.  Patel tells of the Muslim organizations denouncing this jihad as in direct opposition to the teachings of the Qur’an, even as he knows these denouncements will go unnoticed.

Before the sun set, we learned his name was Hasan, knew he was Muslim, and saw the anger against Muslims pour in over facebook and media et al.  The event, the murder, was without excuse.  Hasan’s actions were despicable, let me be clear, and it would have been better if he had never been born.  But there is so much to learn about ourselves amidst such a tradgedy.

First, evil people are the Other in our eyes:

Hasan was a member of a military, very well educated, murdering with a legally purchased weapon, and a Muslim.  Which of those four facts are we quickest to jump to as explanation for the unexplainable?  The one most different from ourselves.

Second, we will close off our ability to see through the eyes of the other:

If Hasan had been a “Smith,” and had in fact been a Christian, would we have seen headlines about a “Christian terrorist” attacking our troops?  When George Tiller, an abortion provider in Kansas, was murdered by a Christian this summer, did we say “Surprise, surprise… the attacker was a Christian”?  Would we protest they misunderstood our religion if Mideast militants looked at our armies and said “Surprise, surprise… Christians crusading again”?  We are outraged that Hasan considered himself a radical Muslim first, and an American second.  Yet how many of us would show concern if a Christian or Jew said the same?  How many Christians want to be stereotyped in with the Westboro Baptist crowd (who protest soldiers funerals with “God hates America, fags, fill-in-the-blank”), and yet we nevertheless jump at the chance to compare our best to the Other’s worst?

Third, my enemies are always men like me:

As Islam has said throughout the ages, and I agree, to take one life is like taking all lives.  The taking of life is never a good action.  Taking life is a great way to solve problems quickly… at least in the short run of things.  In every war, skirmish, in every argument, there are two sides.  There are the good guys (the defense) and the bad guys, who see themselves as good guys too (the preemptive defense, if you will).  We are all on the side of righteousness in our own eyes.  No man thinks himself a murderer.  Every shot we take is “just.”  God is always on my side, guiding my leaders, supporting my cause.

Fourth, sin goes back to a moment in a garden long ago:

Under the right circumstances, I could be convinced that killing was the only option, that it was an excusable thing to do.  It is the way that we have evolved; we lie and cheat and kill because it seems good for our survival.  The fact that violence inevitably leads to more violence, not peace, is lost in the chaos.  In truth, I want to believe that “bad people” are very different from myself, that they have no excuse and cannot be reasoned with, that they are very different from me, and that God thinks they suck too.  We are all so alike.

—-

Let us learn and befriend the Other with respect and love.  Let us not give into the temptation to dehumanize, stereotype, give up on, hate, or justify any of the aforementioned against the other.  We must confront religious ignorance and bigotry, and not give into the type of fear of the Other that a Fort Hood, or even a 9/11, can create about the Other.  Instead, let us talk to the Other, read their stories, read their religious texts, try to understand them, and in so doing, see the reflection of ourselves and of the Divine.

I finished reading the Qur’an. Now for my thoughts…

I finally finished reading through the Qur’an. It was a pretty trendy thing to read right after 9/11 and the media obsession with Islam. It seemed that every politician and social leader out there claimed to have read the book, although I suspect there may have been a few fibbers in there. I’ve wanted to read it for years, but only began six months ago during my last university semester for a class on that very topic. All that to say, I am not trendy. I’m actually a geek about these things.

And a quick disclaimer: I’m no Islamic scholar, and I understand there are legions of sharp Islamic theologians/apologists who could blow my reading out of the water. Take this for what it’s worth.

Reading the Qur’an, what stands out is that there is a lot of theological carry over into Islam from Judaism and Christianity. Muhammad was an Arabian trader, and came into contact with the Abrahamic monotheists, the “People of the Book.” Concerning them (I mean, me), the Qur’an seems to oscillate between generally saying Christians and Jews can inherit eternal life, but sometimes also going off on hell-fire rants against them. If there is consistency in Muhammad’s view of Christian/Jewish place in heaven, I can’t figure it out. But the best I can tell, if I am sincerely following God in my context, and not blaspheming God or the message, then I get eternal life. Which interestingly, I’m not sure is in heaven…

In classic Judaism, as in early Christianity, heaven was not a (meta/)physical place somewhere else in the way most Christians believe today, looming invisibly on the edge of the cosmos. Heaven, paradise, was a renewed earth. The classic belief seemed to be that God would come here to reign, and that man would be resurrected on earth, rather than floating off to heaven somewhere else. I cannot be sure, but Muhammad’s rhetoric seems consistent with the ancient Jewish/Christian doctrine of resurrection on earth.

The ancient Israelite concept of elohim also finds its way into the Qur’an, which is interesting, given the Qur’an’s proclivity to rant against polytheism. Calling God elohim does not denote polytheism explicitly, but it flirts with it. Elohim is common name for God, second to YHWH in Jewish scripture. Genesis 1 reads: “Bereshit elohim bara…” (In the Beginning, God created…) Only, Jewish words ending in -im are plural. And as el was a ubiquitous term for “god” in ancient Canaan (notice the etymological relation to the god Ba’al), the Israelites adopted the term. In similar fashion, Lah was the common name for “god” in 7^th century Arabia, and was even used by Christians. But God was pictured back then (and all too commonly and reductionistically today) as a King, complete with his royal posse. So, Genesis 1 could just as easily read, “In the beginning, the court of God created…” or, “…the gods created…” It’s not quite polytheistic, but it flirts with the plurality of God commanding not only his strength, but also that of a royal cohort. In similar fashion, Islam adopts this view of a kingly God, and when God speaks, it is a “We” rather than an “I” who commands.

Another similarity is found in how we are judged at the Last Day. In Islam, as with Judasim and Christianity, we are saved by grace, but judged by works (a la Revelation 20). The chief sins that send one to hell are a failure to care for the poor, the orphan, the oppressed. Second to that are sins of impiety or blaspheme. This, in fact, has remarkably similar correlates to Christian theology (James 1 comes to mind), being that the people of God, if they are acting as the people of God, must be good news to the poor and the oppressed. If the three Abrahamic faiths could all just practice together what their texts preach independently, we would have a beautiful thing on our hands.

The thing that struck me most was the constant juxtapositioning of the amiable “In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Mercyful” at the beginning of every chapter with the faithfully ensuing threats of retributive hell-fire. It contrasts starkly with the Bible, in which “hell” is found anywhere from 0 to about 15 times, depending on accuracy (with lower counts being more true to original text). Al’Lah (lit. The God) is portrayed as a sovereign deity, who stays his hand at punishment as he sees fit to grant mercy. So, we deserve hell, but he can show grace. What ended up occurring to me was how similar this view of God has in common with the Christian fundamentalist view of God, being one who consigns all to the hell they deserve, save those he chooses to show mercy and salvation. Live in conformity to God’s will, and you will go to heaven. Step out of God’s will, and Islamic/Christian fundamentalist God will toast you. He seems almost eager, really. I recall youthful debates over whether al’Lah and God were the same person, complete with 20 verses shown with no context. I don’t know if they are the same guy, but if your faith in either tradition is fundamentalist, then… it’s a pretty close call.

I read, in context, many verses that I’d only heard before via the diatribe of radio and TV pundits. Take this common verse from Surah 2: “Slay them wherever you find them. Drive them out of the places from which they drove you.” Never in my life have I heard that verse with the preceding verse used as context: “Fight for the sake of God those that fight against you, but do not attack them first. God does not love aggressors.” It’s the beginning of a just war doctrine! Slay the infidel, but only when he’s baring down on you with the sword. So this verse is ubiquitous in Islam-smearing media, but is it ever pointed out that this is “Just War”? Now, I happen to think Just War doctrines are suicidal short-sighted and immature, but most Christians and Muslim’s take pretty much the same view. Again, we should really just get together all the fundamentalist Muslims and the fundamentalist Christians, who all think they have no option but to kill each other, and let them figure out how much their god-concepts have in common. In addition, this verse should give us pause when fundamentalists Muslims brutally attack us; I’m no apologist for them, but we should consider what men, who are very much aware of this verse, feel we have done first to warrant surprising violence. Ignorance is suicidal.

Muhammad clearly shows familiarity with many Biblical stories, but they alter significantly from Biblical accounts. For instance, the Story of Noah has him heartbroken as he stares out the window of the ark in sorrow for a son who stayed behind on the earth and drowned. At first, I assumed these differences were because Muhammad was working off rough oral accounts rather than copying a Torah scroll. But another thought occurred to me in that the telling of the Qur’anic stories so often puts a different theme on the story, I have to wonder if Muhammad was hearing midrashim. The Jewish tradition of midrash had rabbis intentionally altering stories to explore an issue from a different angle (how’s that for Biblical literalism?) Could it be that Muhammad was in such close contact with the Jews in the trade routes that he was acquiring Jewish theology refined by hundreds of years of midrashim and commentary?

The thing I felt most uncomfortable with in the Qur’an was the explicit denial of the Christ as diety. Second only to Muhammad in reverance and prophetic status, Jesus is nonetheless sharply denied to be god. And I think I can understand why; with Muhammad struggling to differential from a dogmatically polytheistic culture, he needed to remove any possible connection to another god’s existence (and hey, he was pushing it to even include demi-gods like devils and demons, not to mention the aforementioned plural god-term). I’m aware that there is a growing body of Muslim Christians in the world today. Following Isa (Arabic for “Jesus”), they place a renewed reverence for the Christ, whom they already hold in such veneration, but seek to remain in their Muslim contexts. This is a provocative, but very interesting, concept to me (I, mean… Muslim Christians?). But if, as we say, “Jesus didn’t come to start a religion,” then this probably shouldn’t be so surprising. So, I would be very interested to hear how they reconcile Muhammad’s shots against Jesus’ deity with their belief in his place in Trinity. Perhaps it is similar to many messianic Jews, who follow Jesus as the anointed One, but play down his deity to a degree.

I’ve got so much more to say than one can surmise in a blog post. My Qur’an is scribbled with notes and underlinings. It challenged my view of, not only of Islam and Muslims, but God. You can’t really wrestle with a religious text without seeing its similarities and differences to your own understanding, and the experience should challenge you. Hopefully, I’m a bit better student of beliefs as a result. Because, as I said earlier, ignorance is suicidal.

From the AP on the last interview with Saddam Hussein

Pamela Hess has posted a story with the Associated Press on interviews done with Saddam Hussein during his last days in custody. Particularly illuminating to me was the discussion on the nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, and why he allowed the international community to believe he had them.

Leading up the invasion, the Bush administration used WMDs as the driving reason for toppling Hussein in 2003. At the time, I believed along with the rest of America that Hussein had WMDs, was a threat to the US (particularly with alleged connections to al Qaeda), and should be removed. Accounts from within the Bush administration have long insisted that the decision to invade Iraq had been made sans WMD evidence for the purposes of asserting US dominance in the region, but WMDs were nonetheless the driving reason that Bush used to gather public opinion for the war. Bush made a show of the potentiality of staying the invasion if only Hussein would allow weapons inspectors to view the alleged chemical and nuke sites. I assume I was believing the same as most people, when I felt at the time that Hussein had to have those weapons. I mean, if all he has to do to remain in power is allow weapons inspectors in (when he claims he has no weapons), then why not let them in and retain his position of power. So it was really confusing to us when he had practically nothing except a few leftover barrels of chemicals from the 90s.

Naturally, this was a big topic for his interrogators. Excerpts from the AP story (note: “Piro” is an FBI agent charged with Hussein’s interrogation):

In a series of interviews between February and June of 2004, Saddam also told Piro that he falsely allowed the world to believe Iraq had weapons of mass destruction because he feared revealing his weakness to Iran, which Iraq fought in a ruinous, eight-year war in the 1980s that involved the use of chemical weapons.

Saddam denied having unconventional weapons before the U.S. invasion but refused to allow U.N. inspectors to search his country from 1998 until 2002. The inspectors returned to the weapons hunt in November 2002 but still complained that Iraq was not cooperating.

“By God, if I had such weapons, I would have used them in the fight against the United States,” he told Piro.

…

Piro had described the discussions with the Iraqi dictator in an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” last year. Saddam told him he had “miscalculated” Bush’s intentions and expected only a limited U.S. attack.

“Hussein stated Iraq could have absorbed another U.S. strike, for he viewed this as less of a threat than exposing themselves to Iran,” according to a June 11, 2004, FBI interview report.

It makes only too much sense in hindsight. The US had been threatening Hussein for over a decade, and only ever tossing a few cruise missiles his way. We had bluffed for a decade, and faced with two countries he had gone to war with in the past (Iran and the US), Hussein miscalculated that Iran was the more pressing threat, and he oriented his international policy accordingly. For me, this is yet another example of how easy it for conflict to erupt from a basic lack of assumption that people generally act as rationally as possible, even those we label “madmen” or “Islamo-facists.” While far from justifying Hussein, he was simply doing the best he could with the information available to him. His miscalculation was in failing to differentiate between the paths the old Clinton administration and the new Bush administration would take.

Regarding his alleged connection to al Qaeda and bin Laden:

In the interviews, Saddam dismissed Osama bin Laden as a “zealot” and said he had never personally met the al-Qaida leader. He said the Iraqi government did not cooperate with the terrorist group against the U.S.…

…

Saddam also stated that the United States used the Sept. 11 terrorist attack as a justification to attack Iraq and said the U.S. had “lost sight of the cause of 9/11.” He claimed that he denounced the attack in a series of editorials.

My opinion of Osama bin Laden is that he is a “true believer,” but I could be wrong. My opinion of Saddam Hussein has always been that he used Islam as a PR front. Apparently, in that part of the world, politicians use religion to manipulate the public support of those in their charge. Thank God it’s not like that here. Nevertheless, this bit on bin Laden points to our failure to differentiate between enemy motivations. We see the common connection of Islam between bin Laden and Hussein, and it’s so easy to jump to concluding both are just motivated by a desire to see the US fall because they are crazy, hell-bent Islamo-fascists or whatnot. I’m anything but an apologist for the two, but with both bin Laden and Hussein, I believe this is a gross misunderstanding of the motives of both. I think we have seen enough sources to say that bin Laden wants Islamic renewal (a taking back of Arabia for God), and Hussein just wanted to keep his niche of power in the desert. Both men miscalculated the US, and we returned the favor of miscalculation.

Oops.

Iran, bloodbaths, martyrs, and two Islams

(Left image: compiled from Tweets from Iran)

I haven’t been online in 24 hours, but apparently Iran went from protest to bloodbath while I was away.

Last Friday, incumbent president Ahmedinejad supposedly won an election against presidential hopeful Mousavi and others.  Even with much bad press as Ahmedinejad gets in the US, it’s not hard to understand why the incumbent hard-liner is popular in Iran.  But he’s not 62% popular (the official tally), and even if he was, the millions of paper ballots all across the country could not have been counted in just a couple of hours.  Whether Ahmedinejad should have won or not, the election was certainly unfair.

A key thing most Americans seem to misunderstand is that the president of Iran is not actually in charge of Iran; the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is.  He is not elected.  The Assembly of Experts arguably is next in line in terms of power, a group of religious clerics responsible for shaping the Iranian theocracy.  President Ahmedinejad can’t do much without the blessing of the Ayatollah and the Assembly- which is odd, given the press that President Ahmedinejad has received.  He’s a powerful figurehead, and an elected official, but most of us in America simply don’t understand that whether Ahmedinejad wants nukes or not, or wants to attack Israel or not, his opinion doesn’t count for much without the consent of the bigger boys.

Nevertheless, much of Iran held out hope in this election for presidential candidate Mousavi, who served as Prime Minister two decades ago until the position was dissolved.  It has been said that Mousavi’s campaign has mirrored that of Barak Obama.  Mousavi has an appeal among the youth, ran his campaign with intense use of social media, and is a moderate calling for peace talks with enemies.  After the election fraud became apparent, Mousavi’s supporters have held rallies and demonstrations every day.  The rumors on Twitter (which has become the most talked about facet of this situation) say that the Iranian Army is refusing to shoot citizens.  But the Revolutionary Guard, which takes its orders separately (and directly from the Supreme Leader) is a different story.  The Guard also directs the Bassij, a volunteer milia with sharp loyalty to the Ayatollah and estimated to include up to 15% of the population in some form or fashion.  The Bassij seem to be doing most of the violence at the moment.  I’m honestly surprised the governement hasn’t wiped out this resistance movement.

I can see this going only one of two ways: revolution or complete defeat.  This will not dissolve quietly or fizzle out.  Mousavi and his supporters do not want revolution (at least they say they don’t) but only a re-election.  It is the nature of people movements to flicker out without a new battle to fight, so after a week of mild protest, Mousavi had no choice but to up the ante if he wanted this to keep going.  Twitterverse reports Mousavi is going through the Muslim rituals to prepare for martyrdom.  But the government cannot afford to look weak, so it will not want to recount (though doing so would stop this unrest effective immediately).  So because neither side will capitulate, the violence will not stop until there is much, much more violence.

Having said that, I don’t feel Mousavi should capitulate, even though it may save lives.  I wouldn’t want his responsibility, but this is about two Irans, and ultimately, two Islams.  There is an Islam and an Iran that controls and forces, and there is another than empowers and transforms.  There is an Islam of violence and an Islam of peace.  There is an Iran whose citizens fear and there could be an Iran by the people, for the people.  Had I grown up nine time zones away in Tehran, I would probably be on the streets too, hoping for a different God and country than what I’m seeing.

And in case you are wondering about the green, it is the color Mousavi’s sympathizers are showing support by.  I’m a fan of fair elections and peace-mongers.

(Right: Mousavi surrounded by supporters at rally)

Islamo-fascism (points for pundits and death knells to critical thought)

You know what term has been getting under my skin recently?  It’s one that I hear flare up as a battering ram every time there is talk of ending the Iraq War or giving some sort of court process to the guys we hold in Gitmo.  And recently, I’ve heard a lot of people locally come out swinging with the term, what with the shooting of the recruiting soldier here in Little Rock last week.

Islamo-Fascism has been that term for me as of late.  Maybe it’s evidence that I’m getting way to hung up on my politics and social justice rants, but nevertheless, someone has to utter that word every time there emerges evidence that some (*gasp*) in the Islamic world are not fans of the US.  You hear it from right-wing pundits nonstop. What does it mean?  If you answer “I don’t really know,” you are pretty close.  If you answer “it actually means nothing,” I say you are right.

I wonder why we don’t hear about Christiano-facists???

I, for one, was hoping this Islamo-fascism term would go out of fashion with the end of the previous administration.  It was probably too much to expect, but the mention of the term has at least subsided significantly.

As far as I can tell, “Islamo-fascism,” a term came onto the scene in force during the Bush era, was a improper and educationally lacking neologism used to sway public opinion.  There is evidence of the word being sparsely used before this point, but it was post-9/11 that it became a media-savvy, household term.  And a compliant media made it oh-so-trendy to talk about.  There are two words run together to create a term synonymous with “terrorism,” but is also used to reductionistically label any possible enemy so long as he is Muslim.

Short history lesson:

If we started popularly using this term “Islamo-fascism” right after the 9/11 attack (when anti-Muslim hysteria was sweeping the media and culture) then it is easy to see that the prefix “Islamo-“ is not at all neutral.  It means “bad” in this case.  The suffix of the term is generally a bit more vague to people.  What is fascism, you may ask?  Well, the truth is that historians have argued about the meaning of the term “fascism” for decades and have reached no conclusion.  It emerged in the early 20^th century Italy to describe a government structure that had no distinguishing feature other than a name.  Italy’s dictatorship was really nothing new.  Italy even used the term for years before she even came up with an actual definition for herself (because then, like today, nobody really knew what the term “fascism” meant).  Mussolini favored keeping the term as vague and open to interpretation as possible in order to encompass as many people as possible.  Actually, when other nations started considering adopting a form of fascism after Italy, the Italians objected saying that it was only an Italian thing.  I write all this just to expose some of the ridiculous nature of the term itself.  We can say that there are some common traits, that sometimes reoccur in nations that called themselves fascists.  But even then, most of these tenants are so vague (suspicion of Marxists, suspicion of liberal democracies, support for the military, vying for national supremacy) that it could just as accurately (which is not much) be said that the average Christian in America is every bit as much fascist as the average al-Qaeda unit.

So if the term “fascism” is fully known to historians and the academia to mean nothing consistent enough to merit it’s vogue usage, why then would an administration or the media latch onto it with such tenacity?  Because it’s a pejorative term that is vague enough to pass for a quick label, I suspect.  At a time when “Islam” meant “bad,” and if a vague term like “fascism” always means bad, and we have historically always tried to kill any fascists, and if we want the public to hop on board with killing any opponents without thinking all that hard first, then let’s run the terms together.  That way, we can label something that we don’t think people need to adequately understand in order to take position on.  It makes sense if you are trying to build a public consensus, doesn’t it?  I think those in media and in popular culture who continue to use the term are sadly buying into an packaged term with an etymology they are ignorant of and with implications they have not really thought out.

But the truth is that it is so poorly reductionistic.  When I hear the term “Islamo-fascist” used over here, it makes me feel the same way I do when I hear a Palestinian refer to Israelis as “Zionists” or when I hear Muslims refer to “militaristic American imperialists.”  When you reduce the Other to a simple term, you dehumanize him in some sense.  It becomes easier to say things like, “Some people can only be dealt with one way.”  And we know what one way means (hint: doesn’t involve civil discourse).  It makes me sad that Palestinians reduce Israelis to mindless “Zionists” who can only be dealt with one way; it makes me sad that several Muslim groups reduce us to “militaristic imperialists” who can only be dealt with one way; and it makes me saddest of all when I hear Americans, specifically Christians (who should know better than to reduce people into easy categories), reduce certain Muslim peoples to “Islamo-fascists” who can only be dealt with one way.

I have no problem with someone labeling me an American.  But if they reduce me and my whole tribe as just a bunch of militaristic imperialists, without considering any of our perspectives or differences among us, then that is immature.  It is the same issue we are guilty of if we were to reduce any militant Islamic group to “Islamo-fascists,” with no consideration that they may have any legitimate grievance at all.  A mark of maturity is being able and willing to see through the eyes of the Other.

It is so, so easy to think that there is only one way to deal with a problem.  It is shockingly easy for us to reduce people to simplistic categories and never even consider that the Other has any legitimate grievance.  And in case we are not clear on this, yes, it’s safe to assume that anyone we can an opponent has at least some legitimate grievance against us.  But we can label them easy, point-scoring terms so that we don’t have to see them as worth speaking with.