The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Would Another GZM Post Draw Vacuum?

Posted on | August 26, 2010 | 12 Comments

by Smitty (h/t Proof Positive)

Not if it’s Andrew Klavan, picking through the cultural, i.e. non-pure-Libertarian, angles.

This blog approves Klavan’s thoughtful, moderate take on the the issue.

Update: the Daley Gator has a Dr. M Zuhdi Jasser, who is a moderate Muslim, anti-GZM post linked. Let’s hear more from Jasser and his crowd.

Category: PJTV, The Flemish Menace

Comments

12 Responses to “Would Another GZM Post Draw Vacuum?”

  1. TR Sterling
    August 27th, 2010 @ 12:53 am

    Sarah Palin looks in at Richard Trumka. Sends down 2 sweet tweets high and tight. Count is 0-2. Then winds and delivers Facebook Knockout
    http://www.conservatives4palin.com/2010/08/governor-palin-union-brothers-and.html

    Trumka swings and falls down in a cloud of dust. Murky your’re still on deck?

    As Michael Jackson said “got to be there in the morning” or something like that, spicoli.

    Stacy, billy-joel would be envious since I too, will be putting bread in your jar!

    Go man go!
    -TR

  2. TR Sterling
    August 26th, 2010 @ 8:53 pm

    Sarah Palin looks in at Richard Trumka. Sends down 2 sweet tweets high and tight. Count is 0-2. Then winds and delivers Facebook Knockout
    http://www.conservatives4palin.com/2010/08/governor-palin-union-brothers-and.html

    Trumka swings and falls down in a cloud of dust. Murky your’re still on deck?

    As Michael Jackson said “got to be there in the morning” or something like that, spicoli.

    Stacy, billy-joel would be envious since I too, will be putting bread in your jar!

    Go man go!
    -TR

  3. TR Sterling
    August 27th, 2010 @ 1:02 am

    Sorry, above comment meant for story below on Alaska.

  4. TR Sterling
    August 26th, 2010 @ 9:02 pm

    Sorry, above comment meant for story below on Alaska.

  5. Joe
    August 27th, 2010 @ 1:26 am

    Klaven did a very good job and did not suck.

  6. Joe
    August 26th, 2010 @ 9:26 pm

    Klaven did a very good job and did not suck.

  7. Guy S
    August 27th, 2010 @ 2:28 am

    He’s bald, he’s baritone, he’s badass!! Indeed, the good “Mr. K does not suck!

  8. Guy S
    August 26th, 2010 @ 10:28 pm

    He’s bald, he’s baritone, he’s badass!! Indeed, the good “Mr. K does not suck!

  9. Red
    August 27th, 2010 @ 3:17 am

    Klaven is the anti-suck.

  10. Red
    August 26th, 2010 @ 11:17 pm

    Klaven is the anti-suck.

  11. Berk
    August 27th, 2010 @ 7:29 am

    Some people have the need to go to temples, some have the need to go to strip clubs. Different subjects worshipped in a different manner by different consumers in a society demanding a different service. As someone who grew up in a muslim country, I know that there’s very little room for tolerance in islam.

    My family was a non-practicing Alevi (Turkish) branch and I grew up hearing insults about Alevi people. We kept our identity secret even though we didn’t practice any religion and we were like most other secular middle-class families whose father worked for the government and minded their own business. I just find it ironic that for a religion that has not gone through a reform and renaissance period, stuck in the middle ages, muslims expect tolerance even though they don’t practice it. I never read or heard any muslim expressing apology for the way they treated Alevi people…ever.

    If it is like this even in (nominally) secular Turkey, what can we expect in more theocratic societies? It’s interesting that sort of secular societies were evolving, (with whatever other, perhaps greater, faults) under Saddam in Iraq and the so-called Shah of Iran there but both got undermined by the USA.

    Dr. M Zuhdi Jasser is indeed a moderate muslim and his vocal opposition to the GZM is not new. From a June 6 Boston Globe op-ed:

    Of particular interest are the views of leading Muslim moderates — Muslims known for their commitment to tolerance and pluralism, and for their opposition to all forms of radical Islam.

    One such individual is Zuhdi Jasser, a physician, US Navy veteran, and founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy.

    [..]

    “For us, a mosque was always a place to pray, to be together on holidays — not a way to make an ostentatious architectural statement,” Jasser said. “Ground zero shouldn’t be about promoting Islam. It’s the place where war was declared on us as Americans.” To use that space for Muslim outreach, he argues, is “the worst form of misjudgment.”

    More interestingly, Imam Rauf claims to be a Sufi mystic and yet…

    Equally opposed is Stephen Suleyman Schwartz, a devout Muslim and director of the Center for Islamic Pluralism in Washington.

    Schwartz notes that the spiritual leader of the Cordoba Initiative, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, describes himself as a Sufi — a Muslim focused on Islamic mysticism and spiritual wisdom. But “building a 15-story Islamic center at ground zero isn’t something a Sufi would do,’’ according to Schwartz, also a practitioner of Sufism. “Sufism is supposed to be based on sensitivity toward others,’’ yet Cordoba House comes across as “grossly insensitive.’’ He rejects Rauf’s stance that a highly visible Muslim presence at ground zero is the way to make a statement opposing what happened on 9/11. Better, in his view, is the approach of many Muslims “who hate terrorism and who have gone privately to the site and recited prayers for the dead silently and unperceived by others.’’

    Here’s an example of imam Rauf’s Friday sermon according to The Daily Beast:

    Given an unofficial two-party system in Sufism between the “sober” Sufis, who observe rules and etiquette in their relations with God, and their “drunken” cousins, who prefer open, swooning union, Rauf definitely seemed on the “sober” side. Yet there was nothing dry or authoritarian in his style.

    You would never imagine for a moment you were listening to a fire- and-brimstone orthodox Muslim exhortation. “We begin, my dear brothers and sisters, by entering into a state of submission before the presence and the throne of Almighty Allah,” he said, holding on to the cherry wood rail of the mihrab and putting space around his words so that he seemed like someone who’d suddenly dropped down an atmosphere underwater.

    “We do this by emptying our hearts of all the distractions, from all the emotional issues which grip us. Empty your minds of all thoughts after a week of work, of issues and debates with other people. Leave that behind you with your shoes. And enter into a space that is sacred.

    Here’s a verrry niiiice roundtable discussion with spiritual leaders from several different traditions. One of the panelists is Imam Feisal (of the proposed Islamic center). The discussion itself is over an hour long, but 2 parts were notewothy.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFMdb8u59Tw

    First, is a short talk given by a Rabbi beginning at 26:00 minutes. (I couldn’t catch the Rabbi’s name, and he appears to be inaccurately cited in the description.)

    The other quite striking thoughts were by the Imam beginning at 36:57 in which he borrows from a Rumi quote to suggest that there are really only two categories of the religious: those who have been touched by the vision of god, and those who haven’t.

    (Of the second category he puts all those who use religion for selfish or political gain.)

    Rumi(aka the western world’s most quoted Sufi mystic): “The lovers of ritual are one group. And those whose hearts and souls are aglow with the love of God are another.”

    I don’t know why in the western world the sufis are often mentioned. True Sufis with universal spiritual/nondual values are as rare and scandalous as say Gnostic Gays in Vatican. Even Rumi whose works are translated in a nondual manner was mostly rooted in dualism. He and his master/lover Shams were very much against some of the famous nondual sufis of their time. In fact in their first encounter this was the topic they discussed. Nondual sufism survived because this was really what made them different from the rest and dualistic sufis never understood or accepted nonduality and they are more like mystical than nondual.

    There’s always a bias in the west to interpret Islam and some of the Islamist sufis as nondual, the religion of peace but this is only a good tactic if one was influencing the other group by redefining them.

    Sufis are a complex structure. In fact being called a sufi is an umbrella term, just like in christian mystical groups… and under the umbrella there are even opposing groups though the diversity is no where as rich as in hindu schools.

    Although my family came from Alevi background, i didn’t practice it and i didn’t even know much about it till i read it about it years later in my 30s…but it was important that when i was growing up even my best sunni friend didn’t know about it. There was nothing to be gained. So in that sense i was not advocating the rights for a large and persecuted ethnic group in Turkey but I’m making a case of how a religion like islam, which was revolutionary for its time, is so outdated nowadays that I’m afraid that in the name of “tolerance” we are giving them a free pass and accommodating them in the west. People in the west who went through the Protestant and other reform movements to liberate themselves from religion should not give in to them. People who demonstrate for the near-the-ground zero mosque are so naive and don’t realize that the literal interpretation of Islam, in fact any organized religion, has no room for liberty and the modern concept of civil rights is a foreign concept. Each religious group believes in its own superiority to others and will use wheatever means to assimilate…like the Borg in the Star Trek Next Generation with the motto that “resistance is futile.”

    Some muslim countries in the middle east like Turkey are secular not because of a ground up organization. It’s because of military. When there are more than one sects in a muslim country, usually military power is needed to keep them together…otherwise they’ll be killing each other (Pakistan, another case in point). Of course military can’t be looked upon as saviors of the secular system because there’s a very high cost of getting saved by military since it’s not an efficient organization designed for civil service. With this logic, one does not have to be a psychic to predict that once the Americans leave Iraq only a military power can keep them together.

    Berk

  12. Berk
    August 27th, 2010 @ 3:29 am

    Some people have the need to go to temples, some have the need to go to strip clubs. Different subjects worshipped in a different manner by different consumers in a society demanding a different service. As someone who grew up in a muslim country, I know that there’s very little room for tolerance in islam.

    My family was a non-practicing Alevi (Turkish) branch and I grew up hearing insults about Alevi people. We kept our identity secret even though we didn’t practice any religion and we were like most other secular middle-class families whose father worked for the government and minded their own business. I just find it ironic that for a religion that has not gone through a reform and renaissance period, stuck in the middle ages, muslims expect tolerance even though they don’t practice it. I never read or heard any muslim expressing apology for the way they treated Alevi people…ever.

    If it is like this even in (nominally) secular Turkey, what can we expect in more theocratic societies? It’s interesting that sort of secular societies were evolving, (with whatever other, perhaps greater, faults) under Saddam in Iraq and the so-called Shah of Iran there but both got undermined by the USA.

    Dr. M Zuhdi Jasser is indeed a moderate muslim and his vocal opposition to the GZM is not new. From a June 6 Boston Globe op-ed:

    Of particular interest are the views of leading Muslim moderates — Muslims known for their commitment to tolerance and pluralism, and for their opposition to all forms of radical Islam.

    One such individual is Zuhdi Jasser, a physician, US Navy veteran, and founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy.

    [..]

    “For us, a mosque was always a place to pray, to be together on holidays — not a way to make an ostentatious architectural statement,” Jasser said. “Ground zero shouldn’t be about promoting Islam. It’s the place where war was declared on us as Americans.” To use that space for Muslim outreach, he argues, is “the worst form of misjudgment.”

    More interestingly, Imam Rauf claims to be a Sufi mystic and yet…

    Equally opposed is Stephen Suleyman Schwartz, a devout Muslim and director of the Center for Islamic Pluralism in Washington.

    Schwartz notes that the spiritual leader of the Cordoba Initiative, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, describes himself as a Sufi — a Muslim focused on Islamic mysticism and spiritual wisdom. But “building a 15-story Islamic center at ground zero isn’t something a Sufi would do,’’ according to Schwartz, also a practitioner of Sufism. “Sufism is supposed to be based on sensitivity toward others,’’ yet Cordoba House comes across as “grossly insensitive.’’ He rejects Rauf’s stance that a highly visible Muslim presence at ground zero is the way to make a statement opposing what happened on 9/11. Better, in his view, is the approach of many Muslims “who hate terrorism and who have gone privately to the site and recited prayers for the dead silently and unperceived by others.’’

    Here’s an example of imam Rauf’s Friday sermon according to The Daily Beast:

    Given an unofficial two-party system in Sufism between the “sober” Sufis, who observe rules and etiquette in their relations with God, and their “drunken” cousins, who prefer open, swooning union, Rauf definitely seemed on the “sober” side. Yet there was nothing dry or authoritarian in his style.

    You would never imagine for a moment you were listening to a fire- and-brimstone orthodox Muslim exhortation. “We begin, my dear brothers and sisters, by entering into a state of submission before the presence and the throne of Almighty Allah,” he said, holding on to the cherry wood rail of the mihrab and putting space around his words so that he seemed like someone who’d suddenly dropped down an atmosphere underwater.

    “We do this by emptying our hearts of all the distractions, from all the emotional issues which grip us. Empty your minds of all thoughts after a week of work, of issues and debates with other people. Leave that behind you with your shoes. And enter into a space that is sacred.

    Here’s a verrry niiiice roundtable discussion with spiritual leaders from several different traditions. One of the panelists is Imam Feisal (of the proposed Islamic center). The discussion itself is over an hour long, but 2 parts were notewothy.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFMdb8u59Tw

    First, is a short talk given by a Rabbi beginning at 26:00 minutes. (I couldn’t catch the Rabbi’s name, and he appears to be inaccurately cited in the description.)

    The other quite striking thoughts were by the Imam beginning at 36:57 in which he borrows from a Rumi quote to suggest that there are really only two categories of the religious: those who have been touched by the vision of god, and those who haven’t.

    (Of the second category he puts all those who use religion for selfish or political gain.)

    Rumi(aka the western world’s most quoted Sufi mystic): “The lovers of ritual are one group. And those whose hearts and souls are aglow with the love of God are another.”

    I don’t know why in the western world the sufis are often mentioned. True Sufis with universal spiritual/nondual values are as rare and scandalous as say Gnostic Gays in Vatican. Even Rumi whose works are translated in a nondual manner was mostly rooted in dualism. He and his master/lover Shams were very much against some of the famous nondual sufis of their time. In fact in their first encounter this was the topic they discussed. Nondual sufism survived because this was really what made them different from the rest and dualistic sufis never understood or accepted nonduality and they are more like mystical than nondual.

    There’s always a bias in the west to interpret Islam and some of the Islamist sufis as nondual, the religion of peace but this is only a good tactic if one was influencing the other group by redefining them.

    Sufis are a complex structure. In fact being called a sufi is an umbrella term, just like in christian mystical groups… and under the umbrella there are even opposing groups though the diversity is no where as rich as in hindu schools.

    Although my family came from Alevi background, i didn’t practice it and i didn’t even know much about it till i read it about it years later in my 30s…but it was important that when i was growing up even my best sunni friend didn’t know about it. There was nothing to be gained. So in that sense i was not advocating the rights for a large and persecuted ethnic group in Turkey but I’m making a case of how a religion like islam, which was revolutionary for its time, is so outdated nowadays that I’m afraid that in the name of “tolerance” we are giving them a free pass and accommodating them in the west. People in the west who went through the Protestant and other reform movements to liberate themselves from religion should not give in to them. People who demonstrate for the near-the-ground zero mosque are so naive and don’t realize that the literal interpretation of Islam, in fact any organized religion, has no room for liberty and the modern concept of civil rights is a foreign concept. Each religious group believes in its own superiority to others and will use wheatever means to assimilate…like the Borg in the Star Trek Next Generation with the motto that “resistance is futile.”

    Some muslim countries in the middle east like Turkey are secular not because of a ground up organization. It’s because of military. When there are more than one sects in a muslim country, usually military power is needed to keep them together…otherwise they’ll be killing each other (Pakistan, another case in point). Of course military can’t be looked upon as saviors of the secular system because there’s a very high cost of getting saved by military since it’s not an efficient organization designed for civil service. With this logic, one does not have to be a psychic to predict that once the Americans leave Iraq only a military power can keep them together.

    Berk