Correction to the Previous Article on Pope's Speech

A reader of my blog commented (offline) that I had misunderstood parts of the Pope’s speech.

I had written:

What he says on this is profound: “The subject then decides, on the basis of his experiences, what he considers tenable in matters of religion, and the subjective "conscience" becomes the sole arbiter of what is ethical. In this way, though, ethics and religion lose their power to create a community and become a completely personal matter. This is a dangerous state of affairs for humanity, as we see from the disturbing pathologies of religion and reason which necessarily erupt when reason is so reduced that questions of religion and ethics no longer concern it. Attempts to construct an ethic from the rules of evolution or from psychology and sociology, end up being simply inadequate”.

I would agree with him; he is absolutely right that man-made constructs cannot frame a reasonable, ethical and moral society. And Christianity, as he himself has defined, is a combination of Jesus’ teachings and man-made constructs and elements, such as the Greek thought. It is a modified, man-made religion.

The reader said that the Pope actually is in disagreement with me in regards to the above. The reader said that the Pope was making a plea to the Christian world to not exclude theology from the study of science. I agree with that. The reader also said that the Pope was encouraging the study of theology as a science, so that man can come up with man-made constructs that involve religious ethics.

Well, on that point, I stand corrected.

The Pope's Speech is Not All About Violence in Islam

What the Pope Meant

The recent controversy over Pope Benedict XVI’s comments on Islam in a major lecture at Regensburg University in Germany last week has once again showed that there is little religious commonality between the Christian and Muslim worlds, and for reasons mostly unstated in the mainstream media. There is no commonality between the two religions not because Islam is inherently a violent religion, and Christianity is a peaceful one. Instead, there is no commonality because the underlying basis of what religion actually is differs in both groups. The Pope, in his speech, illustrated that he believed that reason is something exogenous to religion (faith). He states in his speech that Christianity gained reason during its early days because of the beneficial input of Greek philosophical thought. With this premise, the Pope believes that the Christian religion has reason. And Islam, which did not experience a similar input, has no reason. The crux of his message was the since Christianity is a reasonable religion, then the increasingly secular Western world should embrace it within the purview of science, instead of rejecting Christianity as is happening in Europe.

Pope’s Views on Islam

The Pope, who is the highest religious leader in the Christian world, has decided to emphasize on the difference between Islam and Christianity by claiming that the roots of Christianity is reason while the roots of Islam is not. He has chosen to do this at this particular time for a reason. His quote from a Byzantine emperor, “Show me just what Muhammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached”, is yet another Western attempt to draw a link between acts of terrorism in the world today to Islam, the religion.

If the Pope were any other person, it would not have mattered so much. That he is the representative face of the Christian world; it forces one to pay close attention to what actually was said. The Pope would not be as bold as to state something that the Christian (or Western) world does not already believe in. Therefore, it makes absolutely no sense for the Muslim world to demand an apology from the Pope. Such a demand is demeaning to Muslims because it is akin to forcing someone to declare something aloud while retaining something else in the heart.

Muslims Should Not Ask for An Apology

The Muslim demand for an apology has resulted in a non-apology. The Pope has said: “At this time, I wish also to add that I am deeply sorry for the reactions in some countries to a few passages of my address at the University of Regensburg, which were considered offensive to the sensibility of Muslims. These in fact were a quotation from a medieval text, which do not in any way express my personal thought”.

The Pope is a thinking man, and a man of his age and wisdom, does not lightly pick quotations for a speech randomly. The quotation was picked because it expressed the Pope’s own thoughts on the topic of his speech that day “Faith is Reason” – Christianity is a reasonable and non-violent religion and Islam is not.

Pope’s Speech is Not about Violence in Religion

But it is in my opinion that a careful reading of the Pope’s words shows that the difference between Christianity and Islam is NOT in its attitude towards violence (one only has to look at Europe’s bloody history to dismiss the notion of Christianity as a peaceful religion), but rather in its conception and understanding of faith. The Pope very carefully explains in his speech how the early Christians incorporated Greek philosophical thought into Christianity. The Christian conception of reason in faith stems from the Greek tradition of philosophical thought. The Pope admits that the Christian faith benefited from the “mutual enrichment” between Christian thought and Greek thought; that is, the Christian faith benefited positively from the input of a man-made construct. The Pope called this an encounter between “genuine enlightenment and religion”. It is important to note that the Pope views the teachings in Greek philosophical thought as genuine enlightenment, not the teachings of Jesus Christ.

The Pope also mentions in his speech that Islam views God as absolutely transcendent. He says: “His (God) will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality. Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R. Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazn went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God’s will, we would even have to practice idolatry”.

Reason is Endogenous to Islam

The Pope is absolutely right in his reading of Islam’s view of a transcendent God. God indeed cannot be bound by a man-made category, or construct. When the rationality we speak of is a man-made construct, then God cannot be bound up by it. Clearly, God’s will is final, and if he were to even will us to be idol worshippers, that would be the case. But clearly, that is not his will, as evidenced by the multitude of prophets he has sent mankind over time. But, if the rationality we speak of is divine, then that is God’s rationality that we speak of, not a man-made rationality

The Pope spends the rest of his speech on the problem of defining only that which “results from the interplay of mathematical and empirical elements” as scientific. He states that humanity would be reduced when religious and ethical questions are considered as having no place within the collective reason of science.

What he says on this is profound: “The subject then decides, on the basis of his experiences, what he considers tenable in matters of religion, and the subjective "conscience" becomes the sole arbiter of what is ethical. In this way, though, ethics and religion lose their power to create a community and become a completely personal matter. This is a dangerous state of affairs for humanity, as we see from the disturbing pathologies of religion and reason which necessarily erupt when reason is so reduced that questions of religion and ethics no longer concern it. Attempts to construct an ethic from the rules of evolution or from psychology and sociology, end up being simply inadequate”.

I would agree with him; he is absolutely right that man-made constructs cannot frame a reasonable, ethical and moral society. And Christianity, as he himself has defined, is a combination of Jesus’ teachings and man-made constructs and elements, such as the Greek thought. It is a modified, man-made religion.

And Muslims have a revealed religion that is all-encompassing; Islam does not require “genuine enlightenment” from the minds of men because it far surpasses what Man can come up with. There is a difference in a society that depends on the changeable man-made constructs for its ethical and moral foundational structure, and a society that has unchangeable transcendent principles as its foundational structure.

And therein, lays the difference between the two.

Innocent Man Sent to Syria and Tortured

Today's news story of an innocent man sent by US authorities to be tortured in Syria does not surprise me, nor would it surprise most Muslims. The question is, what we do about it? When will we finally realize that this is not something that can only happen to someone else? When it happens to us?

Innocent Man Sent to Syria and Tortured, Probe Finds
Canadian Report Faults Mounties, U.S. for Deportation

By ROB GILLIES, AP

TORONTO (Sept. 19) - The United States "very likely" sent a Canadian software engineer to Syria, where he was tortured, based on the false accusation by Canadian authorities that he was suspected of links to al-Qaida, according to a new government report.

Syrian-born Maher Arar was exonerated of all suspicion of terrorist activity by the 2 1/2-year commission of inquiry into his case, which urged the Canadian government to offer him financial compensation. Arar is perhaps the world's best-known case of extraordinary rendition -- the U.S. transfer of foreign terror suspects to third countries without court approval.

"I am able to say categorically that there is no evidence to indicate that Mr. Arar has committed any offense or that his activities constitute a threat to the security of Canada," Justice Dennis O'Connor said Monday in a three-volume report on the findings of the inquiry, part of which was made public.

Arar was traveling on a Canadian passport when he was detained at New York's Kennedy Airport on Sept. 26, 2002, on his way home from vacation in Tunisia.

Arar said U.S. authorities sent him to Syria for interrogation as a suspected member of al-Qaida, a link he denied.

He spent nearly a year in prison in Syria and made detailed allegations after his release in 2003 about extensive interrogation, beatings and whippings with electrical cables. O'Connor criticized the U.S. and recommended that Ottawa file formal protests with both Washington and the Syrian government over Arar's treatment.

"The American authorities who handled Mr. Arar's case treated Mr. Arar in a most regrettable fashion," O'Connor wrote. "They removed him to Syria against his wishes and in the face of his statements that he would be tortured if sent there. Moreover, they dealt with Canadian officials involved with Mr. Arar's case in a less than forthcoming manner."

The U.S. is already under intense criticism from human rights groups over the practice of sending suspects to countries where they could be tortured.

U.S. and Syrian officials refused to cooperate with the Canadian inquiry.

The commission found the Royal Canadian Mounted Police shared information about Arar with American anti-terrorist agencies both before and after he was detained.

The RCMP asked the U.S. to put Arar on a watch list as an "Islamic extremist individual" suspected of links to the al-Qaida terrorist movement, the report said.

The request was issued after Arar met with another man who was under surveillance, a meeting Arar has said was about how to find inexpensive computer equipment.

"The RCMP had no basis for this description, which had the potential to create serious consequences for Mr. Arar in light of American attitudes and practices," the report said.

The RCMP described Arar as the "target" of a domestic anti-terrorist investigation in Canada when in fact he was a peripheral figure who had come under suspicion only because he had been seen in the company of the man who was under surveillance, the report found.

O'Connor said that much of the material shared with U.S. authorities had not been double-checked to ensure its accuracy and reliability -- a violation of the RCMP's usual rules for divulging information to foreign agencies.

O'Connor concluded that the inaccurate information passed by Canadian police to U.S. authorities "very likely" led to their decision to send Arar to Syria.

"It's quite clear that the RCMP sent inaccurate information to U.S. officials," Arar said at a news conference in Ottawa. "I would have not have even been sent to Syria had this information not been given to them."

"I have waited a long time to have my name cleared. I was tortured and lost a year of my life. I will never be the same," Arar said. "The United States must take responsibility for what it did to me and must stop destroying more innocent lives with its unlawful actions."

The commission concluded there was no evidence Canadian officials participated in or agreed to the decision to send Arar to Syria. But O'Connor recommended that in the future, information should never be provided to a foreign country where there is a credible risk that it will cause or contribute to the use of torture.

Most of the judge's 23 policy recommendations centered on the RCMP and emphasized the need to improve the force's internal policies for national security investigations and the sharing of information with other countries.

Arar's case has been regularly featured on the front pages of Canadian newspapers and public outcry led to the government calling an inquiry. Canada's federal government established the inquiry in 2004 to determine the role Canadian officials played.

O'Connor also found "troubling questions" about the role played by Canadian officials in the cases of three other Canadians of Arab descent -- Ahmad El Maati, Abdullah Almalki and Muayyed Nureddin. All claim they were tortured in Syria after traveling there on personal business, and all suspect that the RCMP, Canadian intelligence or both collaborated with their captors.

O'Connor said he could not get to the bottom of those cases because of the limited nature of his mandate. But he urged the government to appoint an independent investigator -- something short of a full-fledged public inquiry -- to look into those cases.

O'Connor sifted through thousands of pages of documents and sat through testimony from more than 40 witnesses. He delivered two versions of his report to the government: one classified, the other public. But portions of even the public edition of the long-awaited document were withheld due to security concerns.

9/19/2006 06:23:35

Text of Pope's Speech

I came across this comment from a Muslim reader in response to the Pope's recent speech, which I found interesting. Let me know what you all think of it. I will comment on this recent controversy in a bit.

"The text of the pope's speech confirms what is written in the Koran : the Church changed the words of the book of genesis to adopt the "reason" as was then championed by the Greeks who were pagans. The church's faith is then not following the first book of genesis, but is pagan at its foundation, and considers reason as something outside of God's message. The Old Testament, the New Testament (the non-modified version), and the Koran are the only true texts from God. Koran is the only text from God still unchanged and practiced today on earth. Reason is something internal to the Islamic faith as opposed to being external to the church's faith, an aspect explained by the pope himself. Therefore, from the point of view who anyone who is following the words of God and not modifications of these words, the pope is a pagan, the church is pagan, its followers are pagans, and it is rightly for Muslims to defend God's words against the pagans and dis-believers. The Pope well explained how and why John changed even God's words to suit the reason of the ancient Greeks. The pope will find peace by converting to Islam, and performing shaddah and the sallat if he wants to go to heaven. Pagans have always been big mouths throughout history, because inside themselves they feel empty and they know that they changed the words of God. We Muslims are at peace with ourselves and with God, and we are right and the only non-pagans on earth today".

Read the pope in his own words at:

http://www.singahut.com/PopeSpeech.html

Manliness

Men acting manly, says Harvard University professor Harvey Mansfield, are what this world needs more of. In his latest book, Manliness, Mansfield argues that men and women have been hurt by the notion of a gender-neutral society; a notion that was dreamt of by feminists. His overarching point is that men should be allowed to be men. And just what are men? He writes that men and women are innately different, and the stereotypical image we have of men has been proven by science. Men are aggressive and assertive, aren’t afraid to fight or kill, especially to protect the weak, they are determined, and they get things done. Most importantly, manly men have confidence in situations of risk. Situations of risk can be a question of impending danger, and it can also be a question where authority is contested. Manly confidence and manliness entails an ability to take charge or to be authoritative in that situation. Mansfield claims that while women also have confidence, they do not seek out situations of risk in the way manly men do, and therein lays the difference.

With this definition of manly men, Mansfield is not telling us anything new about men. His treatise on feminism and the disempowerment of manly men while intriguing is also nothing new. What Mansfield does say that is new (and controversial) is that there is a danger in the growing lack of manliness in the Western society. Boys in schools are not being taught to be men, and that is a danger for the Western political world because manly heroes are needed in the world of politics. He further states that manliness is at odds with modernity because the basic idea of modernism is the rational control of things. Mansfield says that modernism is the reduction of risk for the sake of greater security while manly men like risk, seek risk out, and they do not care for security. Manly men consider security “boring” (Harvey Mansfield Talks Manliness, Human Events: The National Conservative Weekly, Aug. 31, 2006).

He also suggests that the decline in manliness in Western political culture impairs the West’s understanding of the Middle East and the Arab world, where there is an excess of manly men abound. These manly Muslim men suffer because they lose out compared to the rest of the world, resulting in the extremist policies that Mansfield claims Muslims have enacted for over half a century. Therefore, efforts to democratize the Middle East will encounter obstacles because Islam with its consequent of manly men is contrary to democratic ideals. Not unlike what was claimed by Tocqueville.

Even the terrorists fit into Mansfield’s definition of manliness because terrorists are not afraid of death, seek out risk, and are unconcerned about the insecurity of their situation. Consequently, they are powerful manly men because they fear not what others do.

Mansfield’s argument on manly men is one that is convoluted and logically flawed. He states that manliness (by his definition) is contradictory to modernism because manly men are not about rational control. And yet, he advocates that there be more of manly men in society. That is akin to advocating that the West need to have more of uncontrolled men. The manly men that fit into his definition – i.e. manly men like risk, seek risk out, and they do not care for security – include men presently involved in the various bloody battles being waged in the world today. It would include men involved in The War on Terror, The War in Iraq, The War that was in Lebanon, The War Against Islamo-Facists and so on. There is no virtue in being one of Mansfield’s manly men – for even terrorists fit into his manly man criteria. Is that not reason enough to limit Mansfield enough of uncontrolled and irrational manly men in the world.

It is a far stretch to go from men being confident and authoritative in situations of risk to men actually seeking out and in thriving risky situations. It is almost as if Mansfield decided that his manly men should be those with the “thrill-seeker” personality type. The thrill-seeker seeks out situations of risk without a care for security, the aim being experiencing the thrill of the situation. The thrill seeker’s aim is not to reduce or eliminate risk or danger because that would mean the end of what he thrives on. When the aim is not the cessation of risk, rather to experience risk, then Mansfield’s man is not being manly. Instead, Mansfield’s man is just a thrill-seeker, an atypical type of man. Check out "Behavioral Expression and Biosocial Bases of Sensation Seeking" by Marvin Zuckerman (Cambridge University Press, 1994) for more on this personality type. Would it be rational to have thrill-seeking men in politics?

Clearly it is not rational. Mansfield himself acknowledges that his manly men and modernism are at odds, which suggests that he is advocating the dismantling of modern society as we know it. In its place, he would have his Western manly men who are ready to do battle with the other manly (and threatening) men.

In Mansfield’s world, it is the Muslim manly men that “threaten” the Western world because the democratization attempts in the Mid-east will face obstacles. Mansfield is advocating that in order to face up to the so-called threat of Muslim manly men, the West should prepare the ground for its own manly men. This sort of thinking leads to nothing, but a repeat of humanity’s bloody history in the Crusades. Have we not learnt anything?

The issue Western society faces is not a lack of readiness to face danger, or experience risky situations (that is clearly not evident in today’s political climate). There is a real and observable decline in the role of masculinity in society. But Mansfield’s definition of manly men is so flawed that he fails to go to the heart of the real issue, which is this declining role of Western masculinity AND the subsequent increase in societal ills, like divorce. His attempt to counter the observable trend of the declining role of masculinity in Western society by advocating that boys be encouraged to be risk-taking thrill-seekers is juvenile.

Mansfield is also painfully wrong on there being a surfeit of Muslim manly men (by his definition). He is right that there are Muslim manly men who have words like honour, respect, principled, and righteousness in their cultural lexicon. However, what he observes, but fails to understand is that they are manly men not because they are inclined to “extremist policies” but rather they are manly because they respect their women as wives, daughters, sisters, and mothers. Muslim men are manly because they place family and society above the self. They are manly because they detest risk, and avoid risk when they can, but they do act to decrease risk when they have to. Finally, they are manly men because they choose to be obedient to God. These attributes are not unique only to Muslims, of course. There are other Eastern cultures that place emphasis on the above manly attributes.

And when men do not fit into the above definition of manly men, then they would fit into Mansfield’s definition, which is that of the risk-taking thrill seeker without a care for security and peace. But for humanity’s sake, let us leave such men to the fringes of society where they belong. manly men? Surely, we have more than

Snakes on a Plane: Racialization of Muslims

When I received an email recently with a link to a trailer for the new movie Snakes on a Plane, I thought instantly that this was yet another movie about Islamic terrorists striking planes with planted bombs. Given the current climate, where traveling Muslims on planes are harassed by vigilante passengers keen on identifying potential terrorists, I am sure I was not the only one who thought the way I did.

In actuality, the movie is about someone who deposits a boxful of dangerous snakes into the plane in an attempt to kill off a crucial witness about to testify in a high-profile case. The hero in the film, who does battle with the snakes, happens to be a passenger on the plane.

But however laughable this film is, it happens to be an apt metaphor for the events in recent past. The little elderly white woman who refused to allow the Malaga-Manchester plane to depart on schedule and caused the detainment of two British students because she was afraid of being “killed” by dangerous snakes (i.e. the two students who had brown skin) was an example of passenger vigilantism ala Samuel L. Jackson. She had succeeded to rally several other passengers to her cause. Just like Samuel apparently does in the movie: “Enough is enough. I have had it with these **#$@ snakes on this **#$@ plane”.

If you look like a snake, you must be a snake. If you slither like a snake, you must be a snake. If only it were that easy, when it comes to identifying terrorists on a plane. It is well-known that Hindus, Sikhs and Mexicans, or anyone else that fit the stereotypical physical image of Muslims (brown skinned, beards or head scarves) have been subject to violence, harassment and racial slurs. Today, we can also add that rifling through plastic bags, if you fit the above image, is a trigger for getting arrested under suspicion of performing terrorist-like behaviour. So much for behavioural profiling, as well!

I came across an interesting article today that illustrated one of the implications of racial profiling. The article suggested that law enforcement measures, politicians, religious leaders and the media have contributed to stereotyping Muslims as a race. The point of the article was that it is problematic to portray a faith as a race because there is no set of shared physical characteristics. Yet, the article suggests that the intensified US law enforcement scrutiny, especially at airports, has played a large part in creating a new racial identity. The article also warns of the danger of racializing Muslims, pointing to the rejection of French-born Muslims of French identity that resulted in violence earlier this year (9/11: Five years later typecasting Muslims as a race, Sept. 3, 2006, San Francisco Chronicle).

If America does what France has done, that is, oppose their citizens’ right to be French Muslims citizens as opposed to French citizens, then there may be danger of alienating American Muslims. However, contrary to what the article suggests about racialization process, I actually can see a silver lining in this process. If this process can help break down the existing racial and cultural barriers between the varied American Muslim ethnic groups, then it will strengthen and solidify the community. To date, American Muslims are divided by racial bigotry that differentiates between Arab Muslim, African Muslim and South Asian Muslim and so on. This has weakened Muslims as a lobbying group. If this racialization process moves towards this positive light, American Muslims will be the first in the world to represent a truly ideal multi-ethnic Muslim community.

ps:
If you have been detained without explanation while traveling, please report the incident to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in New York at (212) 870-2002. At least, the data of such incidents collected by CAIR would be proof of the invalidity of the Justice Department and Homeland Security’s assertions that racial profiling is not in place at US airports.