From: khaled Alkotob (khaledsa@juno.com)
Date: Thu Jul 28 2005 - 06:07:17 BST
Hello Sam and others
Thanks for the feedback
Where to begin?
I was born in Beirut in '63, in a Sunni Muslim family and neighborhood. I
was sent to a Greek orthodox private school till the age of 15. in 1978 I
was sent to relatives in the U.S. for the opportunity to finish my
schooling on the hope that one day I might return.
During school days back then, there would be bible studies once a week,
and of course we stayed in the class ( no Christians were given the
opportunity to leave) and enjoyed the class. Except for one difference
the Koran and Old testament agree 99%. The major difference is whom did
Abraham go to sacrifice on the mountain? Isaac or Ishmael.
As for the new testament teachings, except for the crucifixion, and the
trinity, Islam sees Christ as one of the Prophets born to the virgin
Mary. Mary is mentioned more times by name in the Koran than Mohammed is.
The respect and dignity that was given to ALL religion was amazing. Not
once was i approached by anybody about changing camps. That was the taboo
of all taboos. it was an unsaid, unwritten code: To each his faith, and
that's that.
Beirut was the hub of modernity and we were on the leading edge of so
many things. The first Concorde commercial flights took place on 21
January 1976 when British Airways flew from London Heathrow to Bahrain (
via Beirut). The first 747s were purchased by Middle East Airlines. My
father was there to receive the first one, for he worked for the airline
company.
The Casino was one of a kind. There was the Casino De Monte Carlo in the
west end of the Mediterranean, and the Casino Du Liban in the east.
That's when the cracks began to show.
The question was: How could a God fearing Muslim hotel owner serve
alcohol to his western customers?
Well since religion was unbendable, it was ignored all together.
We threw the baby out with the bath water. The void was beginning to
form.
So when the civil war started, there was a spiritual void, the attic was
empty, and any tenant was welcomed.
After the israeli invasion of 1982, the void was immense, and since south
Lebanon was mostly Shi'ite, they welcomed with open arms their brothers
from Tehran. Gifts they brought, money, schools, hospitals, ideology,
shadors, arms, and mostly brotherly love. See, south Lebanon was always
ignored by the central government, now they were alive.
Let me digress here for a minute. Egypt was going along the same lines as
Lebanon and turkey in their move toward the west. Well I really shouldn't
call it that, it was more like Modernization. Women In Egypt hit the work
force, even the police force, Nasser was looking to the west. He thought
if Turkey can do it so can we. That's when the Muslim brotherhood came to
be. Let by Sayed ( Master) Qutb, he advocated keeping religion more
prominent in daily life, unlike their cousins in Lebanon or Turkey.
Nasser did not like that, he was looking to a secular state, he jailed
Sayed Qutb and company
In jail, that movement became fundamental. Later Sayed Qutb was executed
under order of Nasser.
Here lies an anecdote that I have been unable to confirm, but heard many
a times. Sayed Qutb was well traveled, Europe as well as the southern
parts of the U.S. When asked upon his return to Egypt of what he thought
of his visit to London he said " I SAW ISLAM, BUT SAW NO MUSLIMS."
Meaning, the he saw the Muslim Utopia the Koran asks its followers to
PRACTICE, yet is was practiced by non Muslims. ( or infidels)
There lies the key to this mess. An empire that spread From Spain to
Zanzibar, to Indonesia, was now gone.
A new empire rising in the west to surpass that in the east.
Twenty years later, Anwar Alsadat pardoned the Muslim brotherhood and set
them free. Well, they killed him for signing the peace treaty with
Israel.
Nasser's troubles were not just internal with the Brotherhood but
external too. The biggest slap in the face was when the World bank, under
the recommendation of the US ambassador John Foster Dulles, refused Egypt
the money to build the A swan Dam, driving Egypt ( The largest Arab
country) into the Soviet Camp.
The other slap in the face to Democracy, Westernization, and Secularism
was when the CIA reinstated the Deposed Shah in Iran in 1953. Feeling
bitter for being ousted out of Iran the British asked the US for help.
Led by false information of fledgling communism by the grandson of David
Eisenhower who was CIA operative in that part of the world, the US
toppled the Government and brought the Emperor back.
[[ on that go to Amazon.com and see the book "All the Shah's Men : An
American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror
by Stephen Kinzer ". Just read some the reviews about that book, it will
tell you A LOT.]]
From there on, it has been a slippery slope. The Wahabis in Saudi
.Arabia, the Iranian fundamentalist, coupled with a little imperialism
and colonialism and voila, the ultimate Molotov Cocktail.
Which brings us to your question. Who is fighting who.
Well if Bin Laden had his way, the Shiite will be wiped off. You saw what
the Taliban did in Afghanistan. Back to the 7th century. Shi'ism is
forbidden in a place like Egypt.
The Kurds, who were slaughtered by Hussein and his generals, are now
doing some ethnic cleansing of their own. They are dreaming of their own
statehood but I don't think turkey will let that happen. Since the Kurds
are not Arabs, they are considered the Gypsys of that part of the world.
Iran used to be know as the Persian Empire, well empires come and go and
come again. So who knows.
The Arabs will always have their own little fights, they are too
ambitious and each want his own little kingdom, so that will always go
on.
Religion is the lowest common denominator. It's taken by heart and not
mind. So it's rather easy to feed sandwiched between a layer of
nationalism, and Pan Arab pride.
This mess has been 75 years in the making. Having OIL in that part of the
world doe not help either.
The Economist used the term "one time Democracy", meaning if you hold
true and fair elections in places like Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq, Saudi
Arabia, the Fundementalist will win, then change the laws so there would
be no more elections. Just like what happened in Algier.
Democracy my friend, is not the foundation upon which you build a nation,
but its rather the icing on the cake of a well fed and educated nation
Khaled
On Wed, 27 Jul 2005 20:10:44 +0100 "Sam Norton"
<elizaphanian@kohath.wanadoo.co.uk> writes:
> Hi Khaled,
>
> Thanks for your contribution. Can I say that I really welcome the
> addition of a non-Western voice to the discussion, and if I (for
example) say
>
> something which you think is 'out of order' can I encourage you to
> be as explicit as possible in telling me so?
>
> But one question for you: do you think it is fair to characterise
> what is presently happening (eg 9/11 or the London bombings) as the
> consequence of a civil war within the various Islamic traditions, which
have different
> reactions to the West? As opposed to being a conflict between the
> West and the non-West, which it is often characterised as being in
Western
> media.
>
> Just a thought.
>
> Sam
>
>
>
>
> MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
> Mail Archives:
> Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
> Nov '02 Onward -
> http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
> MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
>
> To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
> http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
>
>
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Thu Jul 28 2005 - 11:34:28 BST