Nice lines from Tagore sent by my Pen-friend, Taherali

I recently received an email from Taherali on a discussion of what religion is about and he included this beautiful, simple poem which is so clear and refreshing. 

My response:

Nice lines from Tagore.  I learned my Islam in a Christian school and may well have learned it in Tagore's Ashram and been better equipped to address the problems surrounding me today. 

My problems today are nothing to do with Islam. Mostly they are to do with inhumanity and inhumanity caused by the brainwashing by the media.

Most if not all of my problems are political.  If I look in Kenya, I find that my progress is stymied by tribalism, corruption and deception by the ruling classes who have given a new definition to the word, 'class'. 

What has Islam got to do with the root of the problem, the cause of the Westgate debacle?  Any terrorist from any persuasion might have achieved a similar effect, the way the Israelis can do it to the Palestinians, or Modi's followers did to Muslims in India or, indeed, what the Shabab did to us here without discrimination.  Yes, without discrimination.  They also killed Muslims after which the KDF is now being accused of having razed the place like safari ants.  If this report turns out to be true as it probably will, if it is not covered up, I would ask, what has the sequence of events to do with Islam?

If you look in your own country you will find that these are the real problems:  Class definition by those who occupy the highest classes, rule by an establishment that keeps a government in place as an agency, corruption in high places that is not easy to stop (see what is happening in India), deception by the rulers who have their own culture and way of life, anger in sectors of the population who have reached a point of exasperation and about to go over the brink and take the law into their own hands (anarchy), the definition of one's own set of beliefs hijacked and broadcasted by ignorants in the media, (the way Fox News will broadcast, "Islam is a terrorist religion.", which is, if you ask opinion leaders of an Islam that is being practiced to the benefit of all communities around, like Yusuf Islam, Aga Khan, scholars like Reza Shah Kazemi and hundreds of others, just not true.)  The moment you turn to means that are beyond intellectual and peaceful to solve problems, you are crossing the bounds of what Islam is, and now working from outside its ethic. Period.  It is true of any faith.

No, Islam is not about going to the mosques and doing namaaz. That is a personal routine that affects individuals and, in some respects, congregations, in a manner that no one else can judge.  It might be just knee-bends to some and to others a deep expression of adoration and worship and submission to a recognisable power that is conceivable.

I would say that media is a diabolical instrument of brainwashing populations and providing definitions that are tempting to swallow, for the express purpose of the furtherance of war and diversion of resources into the hands of the banksters and their agents, like politicians and country leaders.  There is very little that is nationalistic or patriotic about the rulers today.

Peace

Mohamed Jiwa

 

 

 

In parentheses...

 

The question that Taherali brought up was whether we should be worried about how the world looks today.  Pictures are shown under the introduction, "Makes you think!" of people living in Iran, Afghanistan, Egypt and Netherlands in the 1960's and 80s, juxtaposed against the way people are dressed there today, focusing on women being covered from head to toe, in 2012.  In the early days everyone simply looked relaxed and open, dressed in western clothes.  The pictures of today show everyone (women, mostly) in burkha, and all covered up.  This was followed by the question, "...and some people still do not see reason to worry?" 

 

Here are the pictures:

 

8 Pictures = 1000 Words

 

 

Iran 1970

Imitation westerners?

 

Iran 2012

(Not a very fair example of Iranians as it shows them not having fun, which they do)

 

Afghanistan - Is this a fair picture, then?

 

Egypt:  Cairo University 1959

 

Cairo University 2012

 

Amsterdam 1980

 

Amsterdam 2012

 

 

The pictures say a lot, yes, when put together in this way:  They suggest that the world was once a beautiful, relaxed place when not many people were concerned about whether there was a killing to be made in oil, or not.  This is, of course, entirely untrue.  The only people who were happy with the world the way they found it were the affluent and the middle class.

 

While there may not have been much in the back of the mind of the children of affluent families in these countries there is no image of what the poor and the village people were doing at the time.  What was their lifestyle?  Were people being oppressed in the background?  Was Israel not being established as the ruler of the Middle East?  Who was making most of the money from the oil in Iran?  What were the reasons that the Taliban erupted?  Who was ruling Egypt before Nasser and what was he doing?  How did the world emerge as a playground for puppet royalty into an environment that has been destroyed?  What have we left for our children?  Are these people in the burkhas to blame then?

 

Was not the SAVAK all over the place when Iran was like this? Where is their picture?

 

The argument is worth taking on in full.  I hope I get the time to do it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

My asking to talk about Islam and extremism: A correspondence with my old school

2nd October, 2013
ITC notes for this page:  I am working on ridding my website of that bug where the text has been hijacked and words have been converted into links by some organization that calls itself, "Discount Buddy".  Don't bother to waste your time clicking on these linked words.  There is a virus removal tool that I have to find time to download for this dudu (parasite) riding on my shoulder. 

Secondly I gave away the name of my old school on this page :-{ and I apologise to anyone affected by that slip.  I have removed all sensitive references, now.

​​

Me to ERS:
It would certainly be nice to share sentiments from my point of view about the state of affairs vis a vis terrorism and the conflating it with Islam with teachers, pupils and Old Dellians.  I am not sure that such an opportunity could be created?

 

On 1 October 2013 17:44, ERS/DO wrote:

Hello Mohamed,

 

Thank you for your email and your offer to share your thoughts with the community.

 

The pupils have a wide range of lectures throughout the year and of course most of the lectures tie into the curriculum. The opportunities for lectures are tight due to pupil/staff commitments so it really depends on what you would like to talk/lecture about? The lectures for the winter term may already be allocated but perhaps if you let me know your topic (specifically) I can see if it might be relevant to our politics pupils.

 

Let me know what you would like to discuss and I’ll get in touch with our politics teacher to see if there is room this term.

 

Many thanks and best of luck!
ERS

​​

Copyright (c) 2013, by Mohamed Jiwa, Nairobi, All Rights Reserved
 

ERS, thanks for that response:

This triggers me to give thought to the sorts of questions and approaches that would engage the audience and I am really enjoying that exercise because it even helps me to ponder over the sorts of things one would raise in a text book for that very purpose.

 

Depending on whom I'd be addressing and assuming that the main audience would be pupils, my interest would have to do with taking a cursory look at both (or the various) sides of the question that concerns Great Britain, and the implications for the students themselves.  I am really good with interactive discussions and this subject may more likely be tackled successfully in smaller groups of 30 to 40 (than in large ones the like of which I recall we used to have in Big School at the end of the week).  Introducing a point of view may be easier and more useful than to end up doing a general or a more academic talk, leading to the fielding of some pretty cantankerous questions that could turn the session into a debate which should be avoided.  The purpose of my wanting to share is to bring the two worlds closer and to bridge them, where possible.

 

If one were restricted to say, one session in a classroom, then there would be a handout that would introduce some basic common religious or social questions the students could choose from.  It would be up to the person leading the class to assemble some material that would inspire individual engagement to follow up the limited amount of class time. 

It could also be structured as a Close Encounter of the Qur'anic/ Shi'i/Fatimid Kind too.  This could draw on a period in Islamic history when interaction between the three Abrahaminic faiths were inevitable, on readings or comparative readings of their texts. I could, actually, use a reading assignment and, depending on the age group, share a personal experience as a Muslim in completely Christian environment in 1965 - since I was a St A's boy as well, and a proud owner of my own Crusader bible. Certainly, not only reading but any medium that the class would like to use to engage the problem would be a point of access. 

In a course - to differentiate this from a class - there would be several wonderful options which, for me, would be very exciting.

Suppose pupils chose to engage Islam in an art class then there are several expressions we'd look at including iconoclasm, calligraphy and even things like tattoos or the destruction of the giant Buddhas in Afghanistan  (which could take a historical question about Buddhism forward to the present day practices of the Taliban).  In music (as I am also a musician) I should look at, for example, Sufism and bring some materials with me that may... blow their minds (ie help them feel a sense of wonder for the subject) for a few minutes for, Sufism is quite amenable to comparison with Hinduism (perceived by some Muslim groups as idolatry) and atheism.  A list of important authors who have contributed to the study of Islam, Near and Middle Eastern, Asian and South Asian cultures in the contemporary context would be de rigueur.

I would first be interested to see the curriculum for the relevant Divinity, RE, PoliSci or other subjects that are offered in IGCSE, or IB, if they are applicable, to make the class even more specific, and to know in which way to limit and develop the lesson plan in a manner that serves to increase the pupils' confidence in their preparatory study of comparative religion and Islam in particular.

Does Dells offer IB and what are the reasons?

Looking at Islam through the lens of Christianity is also very interesting and there would be much to gain from the perspective of the students with their varied backgrounds.   I had the opportunity to do that myself in practical terms and my experience was unique.

Anything is possible actually:  but, obviously, I'd have to restrict minimum time given to me to, say, one medium (like a poem or a treatise or a historical event)  In preparatory consultations it may help to decide to what degree it would behoove the students to delve into radical anti-Islamic literature that attempts to understand the current crisis and why terrorism is being conflating with Islam as a whole.  What are the political forces at play?


My work would be to sift through the material and to find something relevant to the time and place in which I would bring it.


This last thread - extremism - has got to be addressed at some point to give as much information about both positions as possible, as the two extremes are about to get at each other's throats which is of serious concern to a lot of people in the middle.  The children do not want to inherit the risks we have put them in by our parochial, isolationist or insular lifestyles as parents, and we have no right to bequeath such risks in daily life to them.  I think we can all see that the problem has to be faced and lanced.  But the lancing, if it is to be approached with preventing violence in mind, may turn out to be an endeavour of generations.

 

Did you know that it is being said that 40% of Britons today are preparing for civil war because of the rise of Islam in Europe?  Crikey.  One of the most important questions that needs to be looked at and simplified is, "What, then, is Islam, and why does it ring of terror in the hearts of peace-loving people who come from idyllic antecedents? What's going on?"  To simplify an understanding of the forces at play would be my job.
 

Thanks for provoking my response!
Mohamed

A Spiritual Journey in a Volatile World

I wrote this article in 2002 for Wajibu which is no longer publishing to the best of my knowledge.

An Academic article on Westgate refers to who wants to sedate the place

About the need to take a critical view of our politicians here is an article by and academic where in his perspective on Westgate he reports at
http://pambazuka.org/en/catego...
on:
"THE FUTURE OIL BONANZA IN SOMALIA...
"British politicians
and British oil companies have been the most active in seeking to corner
the future exploration of this oil and it is not by accident that the
most recent conferences on the future of Somalia has been held in London
and hosted by David Cameron, the Prime Minister and head of the
Conservative Party of Britain. One of the first companies to have signed
a contract with the Government of Somalia is the front for British
petroleum interests that is now registered as Soma Oil & Gas
Exploration Ltd. This company was recently founded in the United Kingdom
and its chairman is Michael Howard, a former leader of the Conservative
Party. We are also informed that CEO Robert Sheppard has experience as
an adviser for the U.K. oil company BP PLC (LON: BP) in Russia."

I received this from a friend associated with the politics of hegemony.

My response to this thought-provoking article by Douglas K Murray in The Spectator who says,

No, Mr Cameron. The Kenyan massacre is all about Islamism

Copyright (c) 2013 by Mohamed Jiwa, Nairobi, All Rights Reserved.

They're not Muslims, Doug. Neither you nor Cameron seem to see that.
These killers are just like you and me: products of a world - a world that was created by people in power which has included us and excluded them, if you insist on drawing the picture in terms of we and them. Like impoverished Victorian children in the slums in the East End emboldened and confounded by the added ingredient of that heady mystery known as faith.

That world is our world, and it's degenerating, as the neurotic comments herein are, into a psychosis, whose products are increasingly being thrown into the reject basket because the widgets of humanity are damaged and losing value like the dollar. Face it: These are agents of consummate misdirection, trapped in poverty. In a word - nutters of our making, ill-equipped but (from their own point of view) bravely doing what you and I dare not do with all the 'education' and sophistication at our behest - attempting to survive and make sense - yes, sense even if that amounts to destroying life using means that have been ruled by the powerful as fair game.  They seek to make sense of the effects of a question which permeates the whole planet, let's be honest.


It is an attempt to make sense of a senseless world with the few primitive tools that our history has disposed them with.  They do not have time to conceive of a history. You and I who consider ourselves literate (but are in terms of the dearth of fellowship between human beings miserably illiterate, thanks to 'Enlightenment') the ones who write that history. Somalia was decimated by colonialism to a degree that you would like to forget. So are many other lands and nations.

And they won't let you forget, mate. They don't need to domesticate dogs to take a bite into our legs and never let go. Poverty that is held by the tail has a mean sting to it.

VOA and BBC etc - voices that are overpowering and deafening and that demand your ears - have succeeded in brainwashing most of you into wearing extremely colourful glasses to the point that it may be too late for you to recover, to be able to disabuse yourselves of the disturbing and misleading notions that have driven you into a paranoia and a nostalgia in respect to what the problem could be (in general and not 'Islamic' terms.) Whether used by Muslims, pseudo-Muslims or non-Muslims the word 'Islam' is now being underused, and has become no more than an excuse for lazy platitude and intellectual dishonesty.


The militants, the killers, may have lost it because they have gone over the brink, but we have lost the plot because our intellects have gone into stupefied hibernation, horrified and scared. Yes scared, inspite of the fact that you can walk your streets with complete confidence that the chances of something going unpredictable in daily life are extremely slim; scared to step off the island into the the real and larger environment, which is now a product of a tradition that is inherited, possibly, from the adventures of your 'brave and gallant' antecedants.


I am probably as guilty as you are: We are the cowards, quite unperturbed by the cold that inhabits and characterises our islands, yet unwilling to set out across the planet into the heat and attempt to better understand the effect of the history we are content to have define our planet's psychological and human contours . Our current perceptions, made and defined by the products of the Age of so-called "Enlightenment" are ghoulishly contorted:  Somalis and many others are the peoples against whose minds, bodies, psyches, dignities, communities, lands and cultures our histories have taken a god-awful swipe and scarred permanently. They have inherited the legacy of total destruction.


Perhaps, if we attempt to take a closer look at the problem and dare to embrace it as our own, instead of looking for a way to make it go away, that chilling permanence might freeze in inverse ratio with our ability and courage to face the truth: It will only thaw when we accept that certainly, not only within our shores but also beyond - we face up to it and embrace it with alacrity.

Al-Shabaab's are the extremely mutilated scar-faces but their scarred faces are not visible to the eye of the man in the pub, the squire at a Sunday table of cream teas, or the father and husband of those they have killed with chilling lack of feeling that can only be translated into schizophrenic levels of blind anger.


Without excusing the Indo/ Pak/ Arabo/ Somali/ and " the other's" contempt of the system in the UK where it has, indeed, been abused, and smacks of ingratitude, this mutilation and pain has imploded in face of the peaking cultures of domination and contempt for the weak, consumerism and conspicuous consumption amounting to odious example, to such a degree and in such a manner that, as exploitation for the sake of reckless profligacy bordering on dissipation gets more and more sophisticated, the gap widens between what it means to be rich in contrast to what being 'poor' has come to denote - on what has now become a scale that can no longer be conceived by the poor who are being dispersed, trafficked, abused and exploited with equally chilling lack of humanity.


Mohammed (the Prophet) is said to have declared, "poverty is my glory" and there is coded into this terse statement not only a sentiment about living within ones means whatever that might have meant, even in the two-way street England of old that I once knew, too.  There is bleeding in this sentiment a pulsing value which seems to have been blown to smithereens by historical forces that are beyond the scope of this comment.


It is true to say that Islam is very much about working to bridge the gap between the haves and have-nots, to create a healthy balance that does not undermine the need to respect one's status in terms of wealth. This is true not only between individuals in communities and societies but also between nations. Like healthy politics, a philosophy of Islam, where it is understood to be not only of academic significance, deserves to be more closely studied, if only for the sake of attempting to step out of one's unhealthy and parochial comfort zone.

Thanks for provoking my response.