Sunday, February 19, 2006

Not Very FAQ


This is a very interesting idea that the team of Bridge the Gap in Blogspace came up with, here's a rundown:

Everything you always wanted to know about Muslims, Christians, Jews or Atheists but were afraid to ask…”
Each week a new question will be mailed to our list of Volunteers. They will be asked to try and answer the question as honest, clear and open-minded as they can. And in a hundred words or less. A digest of the responses will be posted here, waiting for your comments!

We hope to foster a platform where people from all continents, cultures and beliefs can gather to check, cross-check and hopefully dispel cultural stereotypes.

If you have any question you would like asked, please send us an email!
If you would like to be in the panel of Volunteers, who get to see the questions first, please add your name here.

The first question asked in this series was:

As a Westerner, in the light of the latest events concerning the cartoons issue, do you see a difference between a Muslim, Arab, Middle-eastern, and Eastern in general? And if you do, what do you think the difference is?
You can see the question and some answers here.

posted by Omar S @ 4:43 PM   2 comments

2 Comments:

  • At 2/21/2006 4:43 PM, Blogger Prup (aka Jim Benton) said…

    I'll gladly volunteer, but the 100-word limit might be a problem. Iv'e been described as 'the guy who takes two pages to answer a yes or no question.' I'm not sure I could answer 'what time is it' in 100 words. But let me give it a try, telegraphically, with this question.

    Largest Muslim country- Indonesian (not Arab/ME)
    First modern independent Muslim country (not Arab/ME but reigiously somewhat a satellite of Saudi Arabia)
    Other major Muslim countries include Malaysia, Nigeria and Turkey)
    Middle East includes Israel, Turkey (not Arab, secular Muslim) Iraq (Persian, not Arab) Iran
    (Muslim but Shi'ia)
    Arab includes Christians (Coptic and others) and Yemenite Jews
    "Eastern" is meaningless.

    Anyone who doesn't know these differences shouldn't de commenting on the subject.

     

  • At 2/24/2006 7:30 PM, Blogger Prup (aka Jim Benton) said…

    I said I'd 'gladly volunteer' to join you, but that was before I looked at your web site and the posts on it. This isn't a dialogue, it is the same old Muslim apologetics, the same old false parallels, the same lack of self-questioning.

    "Why blame all Muslims for the small minority of terrorists? Aren't there Christian terrorists too?" There ARE a handful of Christian terrorists -- who are a fringe element condemned by every other Christian group and hunted down and prosecuted by governments who are Christian or secular. But the percentage of Muslim terrorists is 1000 times higher, and Muslim governments do not move against them -- and when they try, the clerics condemn them for trying.

    "Sharia law isn't anti-woman." But it is based on the Qur'an, which has not one verse directed to women, and in which women are always 'they,' not 'you.' And which declares a woman's testimony to be the equivalent of half a man's, and which sets down absolute rules for the division of property which discriminate against women. (And in practice, while some women choose freely to wear hijab and even nijab, the basic idea is anti-women. If men are turned into raveningly lustful beasts at the sight of a woman's face or body, control THEM, don't limit the right of women to choose their dress.)

    "It's not Sharia law that is at fault, but the men who implement it." In fact, Sharia law, with its excessive punishments, never gets implemented because there ARE enough sane people to be horrified at the cruelty to soften it. (Still, there are countries who try, and aspects of Sharia that get into Islamic codes. In Pakistan even the religious parties are trying to get rid of the Hudood ordinances after they see them in practice.)

    "Things like honor killings and forced marriages and arranged marriages aren't REALLY Islamic." Yeah, but they only pop up in Islamic countries (and a little in India) and noone can show me examples of Muslims with any actual power acting to supress them. ("They are cultural relics, not Islamic." Fine, but then why hasn't Islam acted successfully to supress them. Suttee was an Indian 'cultural relic' too, and without even converting Hindus to Christianity, the British made a good job of extirpating it -- not perfect, but it is a rarity even now.)

    Were I to take part in this supposed 'bridge-building,' I'd have to see some attempt on one side to build a firmer bridge, one that rests on truth, not statements of ideals that rarely get put into practice. There are plenty of Muslims who ARE questioning and challenging this sort of nonsense, I tend to spend more time on their sites than I do on any other type of site because they are also interesting writers. But this is nothing but apologetics, and I don't have the time it would take to be the 'devil's advocate I would have to be. I will still check out the sites connected with the group, but as for participating,
    "Include me out."

     

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