I don't like the Hare Krishna religion; it enshrines homophobia (like Islam, incidentally). Am I (dun dun dun) HARE KRISHNA-PHOBIC?
I've mentioned before that I have actually read the Qur'an, unlike lots of folks with strong opinions on Islam -- the Abdullah Yusuf Ali translation, on the recommendation of a Sunni Egyptian friend, in fact -- and a lot of the same guff that's in the Bible is also in there. This was striking to me as a youngster WASP who always thought of Islam as somehow exotic and "Eastern," when on paper it isn't at all. As I've mentioned, many Comparative Religions classes teach Islam as a Western religion; it bills itself as the last, conclusive culmination of the Abrahamic tradition that began with Judaism. It's the final successor.
So, what am I getting at? Doug strikes me as trying to be more consistently anti-theistic, especially when it comes to potential undemocratic theocracies, than just finding alls orts of reasons to oppose anything having to do with Islam. He's not an Islamophobic rube for fuck's sake.
Which is another thing -- Islam as "culture," which could mean anything from dervishes in Turkey, to peasant lifestyles in Bosnia, to beautiful architecture, to marketplaces in Indonesia? Or Islam as pure theology? A theology which does, in fact, like the Bible, refer to Jesus as the messiah ("masih" in Arabic), says he'll have a 2nd coming, and will also inaugurate the End Days ("Quiyamah"). And lots of other supernatural hooey. A lot of it is millenarian in the sense Chip Berlet discusses when it comes to Christianity. I can't get behind anyone motivated witht hat sort of stuff floating in their heads as a motivating force.
Muslim folks oppressed in the US, because they're Muslim, deserve our solidarity. They should not be denied equal rights because of that religious preference or because of whatever ethnicity they happen to be. By the same token, no country that is primarily Muslim gets a blank check, either. We're part of an international citizenry, like Foucault said -- and like organizations like Amnesty International imply. If gays or Marxists are killed in Iran, that's something we should be concerned about, too. Ahmedinijad is someone for whom I have zero admiration. I don't feel the need to throw my weight behind the power unit of "Iran" simply because it might pose a counter-force to another, larger power unit I despise.
Whatever happened to all of us supporting the Green Party, anyway? Remember that? Did it go the same place the executed Marxists in Iran went? WHat will it be next week -- maybe we'll hope Kim il-Sung's inner libertarian socialist will come out, and we should "critically support" him in the meantime?
>From Nader to Ahmedinijad. Good grief.
-B.
Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> On 11/29/06, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
wrote:
>> But I could never find any
>> kind words to utter about the regime's domestic
policies, which are
>> profoundly reactionary and pretty much the absolute
inversion of my
>> utopia.
>
> Isn't that because of your profound Islamophobia,
common among
> leftists in the West?