ON UNDERSTANDING
"It's hard for Americans, all of us, including me, to understand what's wrong with these people." -- Sen. Trent Lott (R), of Miss. (emphasis mine). He was talking about Arabs and Muslims. Yes, it is hard, especially if we don't know much about them. (Like our policies make sense to them.)
If we want to understand the Iraqis for instance, a good place to start is by looking up Lawrence of Arabia on your Wikipedia (try it, you'll like it!) Lawrence led the Arab insurgency against the Ottomans during WW I. He promised them that if they helped the Brits, Great Britain, on its word of honor, would guarantee them political freedom and self-dertermination after the war. Instead, the Brits occupied Iraq, and attempted to rule there. They ran into the same problems we have now, and finally gave up, after losing a lot of people, and killing a lot of Iraqis. As they left, they put the better educated Sunni minority in charge of the majority Shia. After a similar failure, as I have said before, we will be leaving the Shia in charge this time.
If we want to understand Muslim cultures, we have to study their religion (along with other cultural features). The best book I've found on the struggle between Shia and Sunnis is the one I've already mentioned in a previous blog: The Shia Revival, by Vali Nasr. It is written clearly, for lay people, and is not technical or complicated. It is expository non-fiction.
Another way to access Muslim culture is by reading the works of their best writers of fiction. Orhan Pamuk is generally recognized in the West as the leading Turkish writer. His recent novel, Snow, is set in eastern Turkey, and depicts, among other things, terrorism by Kurds in that area, and the terribly depressing custom of marrying off idealistic girls in their mid-teens to fat, smelly 50 and 60 year-olds. The girls frequently commit suicide, either before or shortly after, the wedding. It's an
evil system.
Senator Lott should be able to understand an evil system. He grew up in the aftermath of slavery, Jim Crow, the Klan, the Southern Baptists, and s0me 8,000+
lynchings in his region between 1865 and 1965. At a celebration for Strom Thurmond, he longed nostalgically for "the good ole' days" of segregation. Can we
understand what's wrong with those people?
jgoodwin004@centurytel.net
"It's hard for Americans, all of us, including me, to understand what's wrong with these people." -- Sen. Trent Lott (R), of Miss. (emphasis mine). He was talking about Arabs and Muslims. Yes, it is hard, especially if we don't know much about them. (Like our policies make sense to them.)
If we want to understand the Iraqis for instance, a good place to start is by looking up Lawrence of Arabia on your Wikipedia (try it, you'll like it!) Lawrence led the Arab insurgency against the Ottomans during WW I. He promised them that if they helped the Brits, Great Britain, on its word of honor, would guarantee them political freedom and self-dertermination after the war. Instead, the Brits occupied Iraq, and attempted to rule there. They ran into the same problems we have now, and finally gave up, after losing a lot of people, and killing a lot of Iraqis. As they left, they put the better educated Sunni minority in charge of the majority Shia. After a similar failure, as I have said before, we will be leaving the Shia in charge this time.
If we want to understand Muslim cultures, we have to study their religion (along with other cultural features). The best book I've found on the struggle between Shia and Sunnis is the one I've already mentioned in a previous blog: The Shia Revival, by Vali Nasr. It is written clearly, for lay people, and is not technical or complicated. It is expository non-fiction.
Another way to access Muslim culture is by reading the works of their best writers of fiction. Orhan Pamuk is generally recognized in the West as the leading Turkish writer. His recent novel, Snow, is set in eastern Turkey, and depicts, among other things, terrorism by Kurds in that area, and the terribly depressing custom of marrying off idealistic girls in their mid-teens to fat, smelly 50 and 60 year-olds. The girls frequently commit suicide, either before or shortly after, the wedding. It's an
evil system.
Senator Lott should be able to understand an evil system. He grew up in the aftermath of slavery, Jim Crow, the Klan, the Southern Baptists, and s0me 8,000+
lynchings in his region between 1865 and 1965. At a celebration for Strom Thurmond, he longed nostalgically for "the good ole' days" of segregation. Can we
understand what's wrong with those people?
jgoodwin004@centurytel.net
posted by John Goodwin at
11:51 AM
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