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Sunday, August 26, 2007

Sunday Journal--Amanpour's presentations

Frankly I was disappointed to some extent .
Well, from the name I knew she was Iranian and I was expecting a heavy dose of Shia philosophy in her 'Islam' presentation but repeated exhibit of "matam" which only Muslims understand (Probably only Shias) started to cause irritation and when I saw the 'acts of Imam Husain's shahadah' being played it really exasperated me. (Really reminding me of RamLeela) I had not seen these things before though some of my Iranian friends had told me some things not necessarily mentionable regarding this 'Ashura'. She was obviously prejudiced in presentation.
Secondly the oft-repeated Hijab and its relationship with oppression of women made me say, "Oh! not again". The injustices done against women and such aspects are frequent subjects that the non-Muslims 'relish' in depicting and the four wives and women shut back at home, beating or forcing the weaker sex trying to show the patriarchical societies being clearly oppessive---- nothing new and on top of that whenever the late Karen Armstrong would make a sensible judgement (in this presentation), she would be cut off so as not to injure the purported portrayal. That having said I too would hasten to add that injustices to the women in the Muslim countries are not hidden and have been going on more so in less educated areas of each Muslim country, there being no doubt about it. Yes we as Muslims are responsible for erroneous depiction of Islam and should be ashamed of these things.
Would some Ulama take this up seriously in order to correct the situation and campaign against such un Islamic activities. Otherwise more "Nobel prizes" would be distributed in this direction for Muslim women, educated or uneducated
Whereas merciless killing of 'an artist' in a European country by a 'Jihadist' was connected with Islam's 'warriors, but a similar merciless killing right here in the USA a few months back was not mentioned when a "Christian Jihadist" shot a middle aged woman walking her very young daughter home from school.
On the whole my guess is that the pictures that have been painted about Islam and terrorism and Jihadi movements Muslim fundamentalists etc. in the media, have to remain un-modified we are not to see rational or balanced presentations. Objectivity in media has suffered a lot with recent trends to show "our way is high way" and that oft-repeated menaingless quote that I have heard from presidents and primeministers, "They hate our way of life" and then show the half naked women (Bikini, strictly speaking is almost naked rather than halfnaked) on one side and a fully covered woman on the other. Are we to consider a society with half naked women and approving gay marriages or openly painting sexually explicit scenes in the movies and advertisements etc. to be "advanced civilization" worthy of pride? I am not quite sure if this is what is meant because the Christian warriors do not favor that either. I'll leave that question open for others to comment
There were very revealing statements about Jewish "God's warriors". When she asked President Carter why cant the US government ask Israel to stop new constructions in Gaza and such areas because you say this is in the way of developing the peace process. His answer was (terrifying to me) "Nobody in the congress will vote for such thing" Then President Bush (the elder) ordered, "Aid to Israel will be dependent on their compliance to stop constructions". That was really met with a strong Jewish lobby so much so he had to withdraw from such 'order'. Has Israel hijacked the "One nation under God" to their fullest advantage?

I cant make comments about all three (not educated enough) presentations of Christiane Amanpour but one thing is clearly different about Muslim 'God's warriors' that I have seen and needs to be brought out for serious consideration. Whereas the Jewish and the Christian warriors have done lot of academic teaching and litereary attempts at advancing their causes, Muslims have not been shown to do the same. In this sphere Muslims are far behind---education.
Muslims need to address that question seriously. Recent statistics of education in Pakistan for example a deplorably depressing and for women even more so.
The sun of knowledge needs to rise from the East so to say, it is still in the West's hands. (Considering East as Muslim and West as the non-Muslim).

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have not seen that series , so can't comment but I agree - muslims have to fix their own house first..

Hamare apne hi sikke khote hain !

Mystic

bsc said...

Yes, Mystic, Ulama I must take them to task because they are the ones who have the RESPONSIBILITY on their shoulders and in the Muslim history they discharged their duties to preserve the teachings of Islam (and the image). I am not referring to ordinary Imams less educated or even uneducated.(Allama Iqbal calls them "do rak'at kay imam") I am talking about those who really know their stuff. They suffered lots of harms during the Muslim rulers (I dont like to call them Khalifahs, as the real khalifas were the Rashidoon only) days which did not deter them from sticking to the right way.

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