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From: zama@midway.uchicago.edu (iftikhar uz zaman)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.islam
Subject: Re: "Not Without My Daughter"
Message-ID: <1991Feb12.061001.25319@nntp-server.caltech.edu>
Date: 12 Feb 91 06:10:01 GMT
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In article <1991Feb8.081248.25183@nntp-server.caltech.edu> jlodman@cs.ucsd.edu (Michael Lodman) makes a number of points of which I would like to pick up
on a single thread.

>>The crimes that have been committed in the Islamic World are no greater
>>than the ones committed by Western powers.  As a matter of fact, Western
>>governments are more criminal. 

>I quite agree! However, it has been quite some time since the Western powers
>committed crimes while invoking the Christian faith, perhaps 300 or
>400 years."Crimes" committed in the Islamic world are still regularly
>claimed to have been done in the name of Allah. Do you see the
>difference? 

Certainly. It has been some time since Christianity has been invoked as
an ideal by which some self-serving individual has chosen to justify his
crimes.  On the other hand, "spreading the light to the savage races,"
"defending the (hidden/innate) aspirations of people for democracy,"
"fighting the spread of Communism," and other such ideals *are* still
used by politicians to commit various crimes.  In other words, the use
of ideals to justify a goal is a common denominator--whether the ideal
is a "religious" one or a non-religious one doesn't really affect the
argument, does it?

>I would have a no more positive attitude towards
>Christianity if  it was still standard practice to invoke Christ while
>killing someone than I do for Moslems invoking Allah while doing so.
>In part, the repudiation of the Catholic church by protest(ants)
>during the reformation was in response to crimes of this sort.

No. But if you change things around a bit and suggest that we should
have a negative attitude towards the Enlightenment ideals since the
British used these ideals as a justification of much injustice I would
not go along with you.  The value of Enlightenment ideals is not to be
measured in the light of the actions of people who used them opportunistically
as a slogan.  Or, consider, for a moment, the position of an Iraqi who
thinks that the reason people are fighting Saddam Hussein is that he had
become dangerously strong--perhaps a proto-Hitler.  The justification
for the bombing of Baghdad, he thinks, was provided by the ideal of
"liberating Kuwait" from the clutches of a dictator.  Whether this person
is right or wrong--if, given all that he believes, he were to argue
that "liberation from dictatorship" is a terrible thing, since it led
to the bombing of his homeland I would try to correct him.  I would say,
assuming all that you believe is true, it still does not follow that 
dictatorship is good.  Bush, according to you, has misused the notion of
the undesirability of dictatorship to justify this war, nevertheless,
the undesirability of dictatorship is something which should be evaluated
on its own merits.

>I told
>you what I saw - people claiming to be Moslems committing acts 
>of terror and war, and doing so in the name of Islam. This is what
>I'm TELLING YOU AFFECTS MY JUDGEMENT OF ISLAM. Not cartoons, not
>stereotypes, not "propaganda", SIMPLY world events, and the behavior
>of Moslems I meet in everyday life. 

I think I have a real-world analogy here.  In Pakistan people believe
that Americans are an immoral, licentious group of people who, in the
name of "freedom," "liberalism," and "individualism" (FLI) go around
having sex on the streets and shooting up on drugs.  Now if I were to
sit someone down and try to explain to him that as a matter of fact
there is a lot to be said for FLI he might very well respond by saying
"Yeah, right!  The FLI which leads these Americans to encourage their
children to "try out" their prospective spouses before getting
married, right?  The FLI which leads them to act is if they own the
world invading whichever country they feel "needs" their tutelage..."
Etc.  I would tell this person that the ideals of FLI which Americans
cultivate have nothing to do with much of the stuff done in its name,
though you may see people claiming to be committed to FLI and doing things
in its name...


I know some of these examples could be worked out better -- but if
the point is clear I hope you will not take me to task for this..

>Michael Lodman	Department of Computer Science Engineering

Iftikhar