Ahmadinejad's U.S. visit was a missed opportunity for us
Print Friendly Version| From Where I Stand by Joan Chittister, OSB | Oct 2, 2007 |
| Vol. 5, No. 14 |
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of Iran, part of President George Bush's "Evil Empire" came to town last week. The question is who knows and who cares and who knows enough to care anything rational about it anyway? Good questions.
According to the latest Pew Research Center Survey on Religion and Public Life, 58 percent of the more than 3,000 respondents said they knew little or nothing about Islamic practices, but 70 percent of non Muslims said they did know that Islam was very different from their own religious beliefs. (Los Angeles Times, Wed., Sept 26, 2007) At the same time, the numbers of U.S. citizens whose attitudes toward Muslims are unfavorable are rising. What's even more disconcerting is that few Americans even know a Muslim personally. Those who do, the survey found, were more likely to be positive about Islam than those who did not.
The problem is clear: If feelings between the two groups harden -- one fearing violence, the other fearing prejudice -- the mercury of animosity on both sides rises, too. And with it the potential for civic polarization and, eventually, global warfare.
Clearly, then, we each have a personal stake in peace, a responsibility to see that our governments are not permitted to choose our enemies for us. Clearly, prejudice is the foundation of war, the ground upon which warring governments stand for support, the strategy of national threat that governments use to seduce a people away from peace. And we have all heard it used. It is "the weapon of mass destruction" that was, according to President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair, only "12 minutes away from our shores."
We know the strategy works. We've been there. And thousands are now paying the price of the subterfuge.
But all the while we talk about "freedom of speech." It is the banner under which we stand, the Americanism of which we are most proud.
For years, U.S. diplomats stayed in touch with Soviet officials during years of the worst threat the world had ever known. In the crosshairs of one another's nuclear weapons daily, a red phone sat on a desk in the Kremlin and in the Oval Office in the United States to make sure that no lower-level accident, miscalculation, over-reaction, prejudice, fear began the end of the world.
In our own time, we were told that a nation ravaged for a decade by sanctions was poised to destroy the West in one fell swoop. And we believed it despite the educated skepticism of most of the rest of the world. Now we are being told that another country, one other man, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad himself, has the power -- has the intention -- to destroy us, as well. Like cats sniffing around cheese in a trap, we are being prepared, some think, for another invasion. This time Iran.
At the center of the issue, surely, lies both understanding and freedom of speech. Understanding, survey participants say, we lack. Free speech we say we have. But one depends on the other. In which case, forget Iran's weaknesses, we may just have failed our own principles badly.
In Iran's present government structure, according to the Iran Chamber Society, a decision -- every decision -- is legal and effective only after the approval of the Supreme Leader, a cleric. In this case, that is Ayatollah Ali Khameini. Even national elections are lawful only when the Supreme Leader signs his approval.
The Supreme Leader also controls the armed forces and all intelligence and security operations. Only the Supreme Leader can declare either war or peace. He appoints the entire judiciary, the radio and TV networks and the Council of Guardians.
The President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has a high public profile but is subordinate to the Supreme Leader in all things. According to the Iran Chamber Society, "Iran is the only state in which the executive branch does not control the armed forces." Point: If we have someone to fear in Iran, Ahmadinejad is not the one. No matter how bizarre, unpredictable, erratic or threatening he may seem to the Western mind, he can't push any buttons, send any troops, or build any bombs. We have made him out to be a great deal more than he is.
That may be the first thing we ought to understand.
Then, maybe we ought to look at our own past history and present use of "freedom of speech." This is a country that greeted Nikita Khrushchev in 1960 with a 21-gun salute at Andrews Air Force Base in Washington, drove him and President Eisenhower by presidential cavalcade 13 miles through Washington to his residence, treated him to conversations with a host of the highest officials in the country, toured him through Manhattan, San Francisco and Los Angeles and ended his stay with a visit to Camp David. This is the country that met its counterparts with courtesy and, after almost 30 years, finally talked and listened its way, one Soviet leader at a time, to the end of the Cold War.
That was freedom of speech. For us and for them.
In this era, our administration will not talk to those they call our enemies. A president of one of our most illustrious universities, President Lee Bollinger of Columbia, introduces Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a foreign dignitary, on camera with a rant of insulting diatribes, and the city police refuse to allow him, a foreign figurehead -- someone, it is said, who has less power than the Prince of Wales -- to visit Ground Zero with a wreath.
You have to wonder what we might have learned by allowing him to present himself without our labeling him first. You have to think about whether or not he might really have been trying to reach out a bit and what happened when we refused the handshake. You have to contemplate what might have happened if we had taken the opportunity to talk with him decently. What if we could both have come to see the human in one another? And more than all of that, what if we had been true to ourselves?
You have to question what we really mean by "freedom of speech." And for whom?
There was one bright spot in the debacle, however. One group of U.S. citizens trusted that the process of freedom of speech was still worth risking. In a chapel across the street from the United Nations, in a meeting conducted without advance publicity, a panel of Christian leaders from the U.S. and Canada -- a Quaker, a Catholic, an Anglican, a Baptist and a representative from the World Council of Churches -- before an audience of 140 other religious leaders held a two hour question and answer period with President Ahmadinejad that was low-key, respectful, and honest. No topics were ruled out. No questions were denied. No insults were traded. (The New York Times, Goodstein, "Ahmadinejad Meets Clerics," September 27, 2007 )*
Did it do anything? In the realm of immediate political postures, probably not. But it did signal to both sides that it was possible to step back from the brink -- if you really believe in freedom of speech. And it may have signaled to the world that there is such a thing as "being Christian."
From where I stand, the moment was a call to both spiritual and political maturity. We missed on one. Thanks to the courage of a few, we may have managed to salvage the other.
[*Editor's Note: NCR editor at large Tom Roberts attended the meeting between Ahmadinejad and Christian leaders. Read his account in the Oct. 12 issue of National Catholic Reporter.]
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Dear Dwyers: So, “Don’t
Dear Dwyers:
So, “Don’t fall for Ken’s ... fear mongering” is where your argument lays at this moment?
Hey, you’ve made me feel like the title character in that 1969 short cartoon "Lambsy Divey in Winter Blunder Land". When the insanely questing Mildew Wolf was on his tail, cutsey-poo Lambsy was wont to yelp, “It’s the wool-uff! It’s the wool-uff!”
I’d say it’s more likely you’re mongering fear-mongering than I’m mongering fear.
Ponder this spoof of the nursery rhyme verse in “Mairzy Doats and Dozy Doats”:
If the words sound queer and funny to your ear,
A little bit jumbled and jivey.
Say, “Mares eat oats and does eat oats
and little lambs eat ivy.”
Always the original is better reading than misreading.
Ken
Drs. John & Karen Dwyer Pax
Drs. John & Karen Dwyer
Pax Christi Naples
In defense of homosexuals everywhere:
"The testimony of Iranian homosexuals who escaped to America shows that they are hanged in public after being tortured into submission, treated even worse than Iranian women accused of adultery, who are stoned to death, if they survive being killed by their own family members in brutal "honor" killings."
Middle Easterners who "escape to America" are the least to be trusted reporters of reality. Like tortured enemy combatants, they are subjected to heavy psychological pressures to say what the FOX news audience requires. Do I need to mention the names of those whom the Bush administration trusted for information about Iraq?
Homosexuals are everywhere. The denial that there are homosexuals in any nation is ridiculous. Is the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, so stupid as to believe there are WMD's in America? Can he believe that homosexuality is completely eradicated in Iran because of the above reported murders and torture? What are we dealing with here?
Might it be the American predilection for puritan sexual ethics? Reverend Dimmesdale didn't have sex with Hester Prynne? Isn't this whole issue basically a demonization of Mr. Ahmadinejad? Are there practicing homosexuals in Iran? You betcha. Nukes in the USA? You betcha.
What difference does it make? Is Ahmadinejad worse than Saddham? Clinton? We Americans should not nuke Iran. Period. There's absolutely no threat. There's absolutely no justification. War is worth absolutely nothing.
Sister Joan's article is a superb performance. Don't fall for Ken's or Mario's fear mongering. Homosexuals have very little to do with peace or war. Iran does not deserve to be attacked. We've had enough of a President who's for perpetual war; reelect Gore.
There is no reason
There is no reason whatsoever to destroy one of the functioning democracies of the Middle East just because it has elected a President who makes up facts to support what he wants to believe. If there is actually any serious consideration being given to doing such a thing (by the Administration, not FOX News), it would be wise of the Congress to begin impeachment despite the short time left before the election to replace our President who makes up facts to support what he wants to believe.
Dear Mario: Where there’s
Dear Mario:
Where there’s a lot of group-think, a gadfly can do a lot of good. Keep it up!
I recommend to you (and to others) a very special book. It’s but a tad over 100 pages and a fast go-through, although it’s best to take it slow so you think as you go. It’s also well written.
That book is "Prophetic Untimeliness; A Challenge to the Idol of Relevance" (2003) by Os Guinness (yes, a member of the beer family). He embraces Christianity’s "timely untimeliness" and "relevant irrelevance" and argues for "resistance thinking" as the only way to be a Christian speaking with integrity and wisdom:
“Emphasize only the natural fit between the gospel and the spirit of the age and we will have an easy, comfortable gospel that is closer to our age than to the gospel—all answers to human aspirations, for example, and no mention of self-denial and sacrifice. But emphasize the difficult, the obscure, and even the repellent themes of the gospel, certain that they too are relevant even though we don’t know how, and we will remain true to the full gospel. And surprisingly, we will be relevant not only to our own generation but also to the next, and the next, and the next.”
There’s more than a little of the gadfly in Guinness.
Ken
I have been told by people
I have been told by people from Iran that the election of Ahmadinejad was an embarrassment and only happened because he was the less bad choice.
Came out of Iran yesterday
Came out of Iran yesterday news of students standing up to their President Ahmadinejad, chanting “death to the dictator” and “fascist president, the university is no place for you” and waving a banner asking “Why only Columbia? We have questions for you too”. The purpose of his visit was to open the academic year.
It’s certainly looking like confronting the man in New York City wasn’t such a bad idea after all. Not when Iranian students themselves think that their doing so is their own right answer to the “call to spiritual and political maturity”. Tehran University imitating Columbia University is the sincerest form of flattery.
Then why are too many Americans ready to fault ourselves for (as it turns out) the very things about us foreigners appreciate to a fault?
Ken
Dear Ken, > I appreciate
Dear Ken,
>
I appreciate comments like yours that put a far more plausible perspective on Iran and provide a refreshing point of view that challenges the blind pacifist orthodoxy that we see all too often in the NCR Cafe.
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I respect those who have an opinion different from mine, misguided as I may think them to be, as long as they use recognizable facts. I have a huge problem with those who dismiss known facts, believe anything our enemies say, incredible and contradictory as those statements may be, while sneering at anything that puts America in a good light. I have little or no respect for those who are all too quick to criticize America for intervening on behalf of the oppressed while turning a blind eye towards the heinous and barbaric actions of our mortal enemies, actions that consistently and uniformly suppress freedom and democracy by brutal force.
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Can there be anything worse, for example, than the relentless 60 year attempt to eliminate Israel from existence? We can argue about the partition of Galilee. However, India was also partitioned in 1947, by the same Britain and UN. Both were as fair or unfair to millions of individuals depending on whose ox was gored. However, in India, the decision by the world body was accepted and everyone went on with their lives. In Palestine, rather than accept the partition or negotiate their grieviances through the UN, five Arab armies attacked Israel with the now infamous goal of "pushing the Jews into the sea." They failed, but have still not given up the goal, according to the violent radicals who control Gaza and the West Bank. No other country in history has been under such a sustained attack on their very existence for such a long period of time than Israel.
>
Dr. Dwyer is correct that Ahmadinejad's original comment about wiping Israel off the map was mis-reported. Juan Cole, a professor of Middle Eastern studies at University of Michigan who reads Persian, explains that he was actually quoting the late Ayatollah Khomeini: "The Imam said that this regime occupying Jerusalem (een rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods) must [vanish from] from the page of time (bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad)."
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OK. So, is saying that Israel "...must vanish from the page of time" versus the reported "wipe Israel off the map" a distinction without a difference? Make up your own minds. Besides, since that original speech quoting Khomenei, Ahmadinejad has repeated his dire threats against Israel on an almost weekly basis, without mentioning Khomenei.
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Curiously, Dr. Dwyer also says that Ahmadinejad's comments that Iran does not experience the "phenomenon" of homosexuality was misrepresented. Unfortunately, and sadly, this may be because those suspected of being homosexuals in Iran have either been executed or have escaped to another country. The testimony of Iranian homosexuals who escaped to America shows that they are hanged in public after being tortured into submission, treated even worse than Iranian women accused of adultery, who are stoned to death, if they survive being killed by their own family members in brutal "honor" killings.
>
Lee Bollinger at Columbia University gave Ahmadinejad a huge propaganda victory on a silver platter. Why? Because none of Bollinger's brutally honest analysis - which raises a separate question as to why he has hidden these opinions lo these many years - was not reported in the middle-eastern media except to say that his comments were rude and disrespectful. Neither were any of the protests in NY reported. What was reported was that he had bearded the American lion in its den. Thank you, Dr. Bollinger. Your Persian rug is in the mail.
>
Given that the rationale for inviting Ahmadinejad to speak at Columbia University was some misguided notion of "free speech" - which the record shows has been selectively applied at Columbia - can one then deny Bollinger HIS right of free speech? Besides, can one be rude and disrespectful enough towards a man who heads a regime that has encouraged and funded lethal attacks on Americans for decades using proxies like Hezbollah and the renegade Shia militias in Iraq today? Why are they so desperate to encourage sectarian violence in Iraq? Does anyone doubt that, had Iraq not descended into sectarian violence after their brutal dictator was deposed, that this sountry would today have been well on the way towards reconstruction, peace and prosperity?
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My evidence is a free Kuwait, a free Bosnia, a free S. Korea, the free countries that were part of the old Soviet Union, and free and democratic Germany, Japan and Italy, all of whom Americans helped to liberate. In none of these countries did the citizens turn on each other when their oppressors were removed.
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Among all the Biblical passages that have been used to "educate" an apparent barbarian like me, the one that was missing was the one that exemplifies the spirit of America. No greater authority than our Lord Jesus identified the highest form of love in this often quoted passage: “No greater love has a person, than to give up his or her life for another”
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That's the bottom line, folks. All the rest about US hegemony, "its all about oil" etc. is pure cynicism that does not stand up to closer scrutiny. If it did, all of Europe and the middle-east would be American colonies today.
>
Dear Dwyers: It’s too bad,
Dear Dwyers:
It’s too bad, then, you weren’t present in NYC to give Ahmadinejad your views on "mercy, forgiveness, hope, charity, faith, justice, temperance, prudence, and fortitude" when, in answer to Columbia President Lee C. Bollinger, he said,
“In Iran, we don’t have homosexuals like in your country. In Iran, we don’t have this phenomenon. I don’t know who told you this.”
The evidence, as it happened, surrounded him in the form of picture posters and hand-carried photos of the 2005 hanging (by slow strangulation) in Mashad, Iran, of Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni. Both youngsters were age 17 at the time of their deaths and 15 or 16 at the time of the (alleged) gay rape of which they were jointly convicted, sentenced, and executed. Iran is a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child prohibiting the execution of juveniles.
Anyway, Ahmadinejad denies the presence of homosexuals in Iran. Once his state killing machine lays hands on the very last of them I guess what he says will finally be true.
One those executed was said to have been from Iran’s Arab minority. And it’s also said the 13 year-old rape victim’s father, a senior Revolutionary Guard, pressured his son to charge the Arab and his companion with rape rather than admit to consensual sex with them, so protecting family honor. Thus, there’s a strong whiff of racism in all this.
If your theory of Rupert Murdoch is correct, he must have enormous influence on the Iranian government to have induced it to release photos of the two teenagers anguishing in prison, being walked to the gallows, blindfolded, fitted with nooses, and loosed to die with sandals dangling from their feet. That is, if your theory’s correct.
It’s customary at executions for Muslim onlookers to shout,
“The criminal is dead! Justice is done! Allahu Akhbar!”
Mention this to your Muslim friends at an Iftar this Ramadhan. That knowledge of yours should wow 'em.
Ken
In thinking about how we
In thinking about how we responded and how we could have responded to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit, here's some food for thought.
The realization of the world-wide brotherhood and sisterhood of humankind is not an easy accomplishment. On a confused and disordered planet like Earth such an achievement requires a much longer time and necessitates far greater effort. Unaided social evolution can hardly achieve such happy results on a spiritually impoverished world. Religious revelation is essential to the realization of brotherhood and sisterhood on Earth. While Jesus has shown the way to the immediate attainment of spiritual brotherhood and sisterhood, the realization of social brotherhood and sisterhood on our world depends much on the achievement of the following personal transformations and planetary adjustments:
1. Social fraternity. Multiplication of international and interracial social contacts and fraternal and maternal associations through travel, commerce, and competitive play. Development of a common language and the multiplication of multilinguists. The racial and national interchange of students, teachers, industrialists, and religious philosophers.
2. Intellectual cross-fertilization. Brotherhood and sisterhood is impossible on a world whose inhabitants are so primitive that they fail to recognize the folly of unmitigated selfishness. There must occur an exchange of national and racial literature. Each race must become familiar with the thought of all races; each nation must know the feelings of all nations. Ignorance breeds suspicion, and suspicion is incompatible with the essential attitude of sympathy and love.
3. Ethical awakening. Only ethical consciousness can unmask the immorality of human intolerance and the sinfulness of fratricidal strife. Only a moral conscience can condemn the evils of national envy and racial jealousy. Only moral beings will ever seek for that spiritual insight which is essential to living the golden rule.
4. Political wisdom. Emotional maturity is essential to self-control. Only emotional maturity will insure the substitution of international techniques of civilized adjudication for the barbarous arbitrament of war. Wise statesmen will sometime work for the welfare of humanity even while they strive to promote the interest of their national or racial groups. Selfish political sagacity is ultimately suicidal—destructive of all those enduring qualities which insure planetary group survival.
5. Spiritual insight. The brotherhood and sisterhood of humankind is, after all, predicated on the recognition of the fatherhood and motherhood of God. The quickest way to realize the brotherhood and sisterhood of humankind on Earth is to effect the spiritual transformation of present-day humanity. The only technique for accelerating the natural trend of social evolution is that of applying spiritual pressure from above, thus augmenting moral insight while enhancing the soul capacity of every mortal to understand and love every other mortal. Mutual understanding and fraternal and maternal love are transcendent civilizers and mighty factors in the world-wide realization of the brotherhood and sisterhood of humankind.
The more we discover how much we are Loved by God, the more we want to do God's Will
As an Australian I was
As an Australian I was appalled at the inhospitable attituted of Americans to Mr. Ahmadinejad. I am no lover of radical Islam, but anyone who is a guest in your house deserves better treatment. I hope if he arrives at our door we will be be able to rise to the situation with a little dignity.
I agree Jenny. We get a
I agree Jenny. We get a chance at some diplomacy, a chance at working on a political solution and we blow a golden opportunity. I thank Mr. Ahmadinejad for the grace and courage to enter into a hostile environment at make an attempt at furthering understanding between our two countries and cultures.
God Bless you Jenny! :-) and all who visit this site. :-)
The more we discover how much we are Loved by God, the more we want to do God's Will
Dear Acoolcom007: Lucky then
Dear Acoolcom007:
Lucky then for Ahmadinejad he didn’t meet up with Sisters Annamaria and Gianbattista of the Santa Clara Convent near Bari, Italy. They beat up Sister Liliana, scratching her face and throwing her to the ground after Mass one Sunday, because they got sick and tired of her “authoritarian ways”.
Word leaked out only days ago that both Vatican and local bishop have decided a permanent separation is best for all concerned.
While there are times “the Spirit blows” cold, there are other times “the Spirit blows” hot.
And this means there are times “Christian love of neighbor” simply has to manage something above “a quiet whisper”.
Ken
> Which planet do you folks
>
Which planet do you folks live on that you have so much sympathy for this state-sponsor of world terrorism, who is actively engaged in killing Americans through their proxies? Iran terrorizes its own citizens, who have no freedom of speech. Iran has been responsible for funding Hezbollah for years which has cost hundreds of American lives. Iran is sending weapons and personnel into Iraq in order to take more American and Iraqi lives. Iran threatens to wipe Israel off the map on an almost weekly basis. There is no freedom of speech in Iran.
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Is Sr. Joan aware that there is little or no "freedom of speech" on most American university campuses any more - including Columbia University? The US ROTC is not allowed any freedom of speech at Columbia. Neither is the founder of the Minutemen organization, Jim Gilchrist, whose volunteers observe and report illegal aliens crossing the southern border. Last year Jim Gilchrist was shouted down by Columbia students and physically prevented from speaking. This year he was initially invited to speak, then dis-invited because of protests by left wing students. So much for freedom of speech at Columbia University.
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Is Sr. Joan aware that neither Lee Bollinger's comments nor any of those who protested Ahmadinajad's presence at Columbia was reported in the government controlled Iranian media, which reported his speeches as a victory for Iran, that he had bearded the American lion in its den? What Lee Bollinger achieved was a propaganda coup for Ahmadinejad in Iran and the middle east, at America's expense.
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Did Sr. Joan and some of you other commentators really want Ahmadinejad to have another propaganda coup at the hallowed site of the 9/11 attack? Did you really think a state sponsor of terrorism wanted to pay his respects to innocent, martyred Americans, killed by terrorists he supports and harbors and finances? Apparently you hate our country so much that the unfortunate answer is, yes.
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While Ahmadinejad may not have the last word on any subject in Iran, is Sr. Joan aware that those who do have the last word are far worse than him, and encourage and tolerate and support his aggressive approach, especially towards the US and Israel?
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Is anyone reading this aware that he started his speech at Columbia with a prayer for the coming of the Mahdi, which is something he usually does at the end of his speeches? Do any of you have any idea what the coming of the Mahdi means?
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Why are Drs. John and Karen Dwyer Pax embarrassed by Lee Bollinger's comments? Why would the truth embarrass anyone? How can they sneer that Ahmadinejad's comments about homosexuals were improperly translated, when the translation was done by an Iranian woman? Do the good Drs. have any idea what happens to those suspected of homosexual acts in Iran - the public beatings followed by public hangings? Why are these Drs. deliberately falsifying the truth about what goes on in Iran? Why are they saying that our government "chokes to death individual expressions of cynical disbelief", a comment that is patently false, as their own unfortunate comments prove.
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What atrocities have we committed against poorly armed enemies, as the Drs. claim? We deposed brutal and misogynist totalitarian regimes in both Afghanistan and Iraq, regimes that were oppressing their own Muslim citizens, especially women. Has it occurred to any of you America-haters that Iraq would have been well on the way to reconstruction, peace and prosperity had it not been for the wanton and mindless sectarian killings, of Iraqis, by Iraqis, aided and abetted by Syria, Iran and Al Qaeda? Have you no idea that our young American heroes are trying to STOP the violence and the killings, offering their own lives in order to do so?
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Finally, did the good Drs. protest when the Taliban and Saddam Hussein were terrorizing their own citizens? Did they protest when Saddam invaded Iran and Kuwait, looted his oil-for-food program, paid the families of suicide bombers in Israel, filled mass graves with the bodies of his political opponents and hid the WMDs he used against Iran and his own citizens, violating 17 UN resolutions while doing so?
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You America-haters should all be ashamed of yourselves.
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Just because I refuse to buy
Just because I refuse to buy into the notion that the United States of America is somehow the victim of petty tyrants doesn't mean I hate the US. It means I hate the concept of the US as victim, because too often that sense of 'victimization' is used to fuel the use of excessive force so we can all feel less victimized.
This 'abused victim' defense doesn't fly very well in our own court system, so why should I buy into it on the global stage? It was our own policies of destabilizing Middle Eastern countries which brought the petty tyrants to power, in other words our past history 'enabled' this present history. It's amazing how abuse victims can't or won't see the underlying enabling behavior, because gosh, if they did, they might actually have to take some responsibility for helping to create the very situation from which they feel victimized.
So are you saying that the
So are you saying that the problems in the Middle Eastern countries are a result of our somewhat new,(1776-2007)Country enabling this present History and not a continuation of internal fighting that has been going on for centuries? Are you saying that the fact that there exists a large,(large enough to have a huge impact on the stability of the entire world large)Group of people who call themselves Muslim and are allowed to identify themselves as such,who speak nothing but hatred and want to force their idiology by threat of death,is not the problem.How does this distortion of the Muslim Religion affect the Peaceful Muslims that are everywhere in this World?
Today's world problems can
Today's world problems can be directly connected to the Western desire for oil and what was done in order to make it possible for Western nations to acquire it in accordance with Western notions of fairness. That is, the idea of nationhood was imposed upon the region that was largely inhabited by nomadic tribes so that deals could be made to acquire oil. This was followed not long after with the imposition of nation of Israel, again according to a Western notion of fairness (to compensate Jews for WWII), though in apparently deliberate ignorance that the land was no longer undivided and ungoverned.
It is argued that the structure of governance that was imposed combined with the sudden wealth it generated for those who had been given power undermined the culture to the degree that the resulting unhappiness was clearly seen as being the fault of the West. In other words, the hatred is not because Muslims are inherently hatefilled, but because they are inherently human. So, no, this is not simply the continuation of internal fighting that has been going on for centuries.
The enabling behavior to
The enabling behavior to which I am referring are actions like the overthrow of the democratically elected Iranian presidency in the early 1950's and the installation of the Shah of Iran in his place. This was accomplished by our CIA. I am referring to our use of the Taliban, and our training of Taliban military figures, such as Osama Bin Laden, when we used them as our proxies during the Afghan war against the Soviet Union. I am referring to our military aid given to Saddam Hussein during his war with Iran in which he did use weapons of mass destruction. I am basically referring to a consistent policy in which we have enabled our current enemies because we used them as proxies to fight our past enemies.
Apparently we don't like to reap what we've sown.
Mario Goveia wrote:
Mario Goveia wrote:
“Which planet do you folks live on that you have so much sympathy for this state-sponsor of world terrorism, who is actively engaged in killing Americans through their proxies?”
Mario peace be with you my brother. We live on the planet that was blessed because God came to visit in the form of a man named Jesus and he taught us saying:
Matthew 5:43-48
43 27 "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'
44 But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you,
45 that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.
46 For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same?
47 And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same?
48 So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Luke 6:27-32
27 12"But to you who hear I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,
28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.
29 To the person who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other one as well, and from the person who takes your cloak, do not withhold even your tunic.
30 Give to everyone who asks of you, and from the one who takes what is yours do not demand it back.
31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.
32 For if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them.
So why wouldn’t we want to do what God taught us? Do you live on a part of the planet that didn’t get God’s message? Well now you have it Mario. And you can see Sister Chittister is doing nothing more and nothing LESS than what God asks from us. Would you have us disobey God's Will?
Don’t’ be afraid Mario. Remember and gain spiritual strength from the words of Peter:
1 Peter 3:13-17
13 Now who is going to harm you if you are enthusiastic for what is good?
14 But even if you should suffer because of righteousness, blessed are you. Do not be afraid or terrified with fear of them,
15 but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts. Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope,
16 but do it with gentleness and reverence, keeping your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who defame your good conduct in Christ may themselves be put to shame.
17 For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that be the will of God, than for doing evil.
The Peace of the Lord be with you Mario. :-)
The more we discover how much we are Loved by God, the more we want to do God's Will
Dear Sr. Joan: You
Dear Sr. Joan:
You write:
“You have to wonder what we might have learned by allowing [Ahmadinejad] to present himself [at the Columbia University meeting] without our labeling him first. You have to think about whether or not he might really have been trying to reach out a bit and what happened when we refused the handshake. You have to contemplate what might have happened if we had taken the opportunity to talk with him decently. What if we could both have come to see the human in one another? And more than all of that, what if we had been true to ourselves?”
“You have to question what we really mean by ‘freedom of speech.’ And for whom?
“There was one bright spot in the debacle, however. One group of U.S. citizens trusted that the process of freedom of speech was still worth risking. In a chapel across the street from the United Nations, in a meeting conducted without advance publicity, a panel of Christian leaders from the U.S. and Canada—a Quaker, a Catholic, an Anglican, a Baptist and a representative from the World Council of Churches—before an audience of 140 other religious leaders held a two hour question and answer period with President Ahmadinejad that was low-key, respectful, and honest. No topics were ruled out. No questions were denied. No insults were traded.”
Yes, Ahmadinejad faced a hostile crowd at Columbia and, then later, an audience of 140 religious leaders holding their emotions in check, and yet his remarks about the Holocaust, homosexuals, and more were the same. So, what’s “to wonder” and “to think about” and “to contemplate”? He was treated no better and no worse than we Americans regularly treat each other. Isn’t that how we are when we are “true to ourselves”? So, why do we “have to question what we really mean by ‘freedom of speech’” when we saw it fully on display?
By the by, I figure Ahmadinejad treated us during his visit to America the way he regularly treats his own people back home, but that’s another story.
Ken
Dear Joan, as always I love
Dear Joan, as always I love what you say and what you write. I also enjoyed listening to Mr Ahmadinejad as he made a whole lot more sense than your current president. What I want to know is how your current leadership is able to continue when it has the mind of a child in the body of a great big lumbering giant. Aren't many if not most of the American people tired of such arrogance and selfishness. Is there any move in your country to bring your leadership before the International court for crimes against humanity. Or do your letters and people who write like you just fall on deaf ears! Human beings are capable of such great love and creativity, which I am sure much is going on at ground level but those who have no love or creativity seem to survive at the top - How does 'he' and his administration sleep at night when all those Iraqis and American soldiers have been blown to bits and for what? Bush did not sit down with Mr Ahmedinehad because with Bush - 'the lights are on but nobody's home' and to miss the opportunity for negotiation, to create new ways of getting along and to allow thousands to die is what constitutes real sin.
Drs. John & Karen Dwyer Pax
Drs. John & Karen Dwyer
Pax Christi Naples
Dear Mr. Govela (member for 8 hours):
The planet we live on may, indeed, be different than the one you think you do. Ours is uninfluenced by the spirit of Rupert Murdoch's selected and refined versions of "reality." Let me speak for myself. The Spirit that Matthew articulates especially in his version of the Sermon on the Mount pervades my planet.
I simply do not believe that Iran is a "state-sponsor of world terrorism." For example, the blaming of Iranians for manufacturing, selling, and supplying "insurgents" with IEDs that kill our troops in their Humvees seems to me to be wholly specious. Our troops have 50mm turret guns mounted on their Humvees. They have Abrams tanks from Lima, OH; they have F-14's from Martin-Lockheed; they have cluster bombs and napalm and satellite-guided smart bombs. What's an IED in comparison? Or what's an RPG in comparison? The most sophisticated and highly-trained army in history attacks Iraq--a country with no air force, no army, no weapons industry, nothing but AK-47's! Is there a bit of a disparity between the official version of reality and what I see?
The mantra of saying that President Ahmadinejad believes in "wiping Israel off the map” has been debunked everywhere except in Rupert Murdoch-owned media.
Freedom of speech? Think of Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu's withdrawn invitation to speak next spring about peace and peacemaking at the University of St. Thomas.
St. Thomas leaders chose not to bring Tutu to campus after hearing concerns about "hurtful" comments he's made about Israel that might offend local Jews, a university official confirmed Wednesday.
St. Thomas, reported on Wednesday in the Minneapolis weekly newspaper City Pages saying that a professor was stripped of her leadership post at St. Thomas' Justice and Peace Studies Program for the way she challenged the administration's decision which was based on a 2002 speech Tutu made in Boston that was pointedly critical of Israel's treatment of Palestinians, including a passage where he referred to a "powerful" Jewish lobby in the U.S., which she said invoked a stereotype of Jewish power, and another where he asked aloud if Jews had forgotten that God cares about the downtrodden.
I am embarrassed that Professor Bollinger was a bad host. He poisoned the well with name-calling and character assassination. The president of Columbia squandered the school's prestige by voicing the political prejudices almost certainly foisted upon him by Washington.
What atrocities? Just one example from the wholly unjustified attack on a sovereign nation: the vindictive attack on and leveling of the entire city of Fallujia, site of Hila and the hanging gardens of Babylon and the Ziggurats, in retribution for the killing and desecration of four Blackwater mercenaries. The internationally condemned cluster bombs and phosphorus bombs still smolder there where our troops surrounded the city with razor wire and refused to allow its citizens to escape before the attack. Look at http://www.albasrah.net/index.php
if you have any doubts about how our forces have committed crimes against humanity in Iraq.
Young American heroes? Sending ill-educated American youths, the new barbarians brought up on paint-ball exercises, into the cradle of a civilization they know absolutely nothing about and consequently are unable to value artifacts over 6,000 years old to depose and kill President Saddham is also a crime against humanity. Murdoch media, retained by Mr. Bush, claimed Saddham's brutality, attacks on Kurds over 20 years in the past and misogyny. None are valid reasons for an invasion and occupation by the United States. Nothing justifies the travesty of Saddham's trial and execution.
The tiny states of Syria and Iran have every right to aid their neighboring state to repel the invasion and occupation by the vastly superior super power bent on an irreligious crusade to destroy a chimera.
Hating America? You don't really want to know about and certainly didn't listen to us when we did protest the United States-sponsored attacks on the Kurds and Kuwait--any more than you did when we protested the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. We marched in the streets and protested against the specious "thousand points of light" as well. If you look at the suicide bombers in Israel as a crude effort to stop a nuclear bomb-equipped air force of F-14s and Apache attack helicopters, an Abrams-tank equipped army from its unjust expansion beyond legitimate boundaries, then the horror is considerably attenuated. It's kids throwing rocks at tanks.
I'm not an America hater nor am I ashamed to count myself a member of the War Resisters League since 1962 when I decided to leave the Air Force Academy. I'm wholly opposed to the obscene horror of the United States spending $2 billion _per day_ on the war in Iraq. I align myself with the pacifist traditions of the Maryknolls, the Benedictines, and the great saints of the past who stood for mercy, forgiveness, hope, charity, faith, justice, temperance, prudence, and fortitude. We cannot make our enemies our friends by killing them.
Dr. Dwyer, > It seems like
Dr. Dwyer,
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It seems like you believe what you want to believe, reject whatever interferes with your preconceived agenda, and are an apologist for America's mortal enemies.
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In a previous era a man named Neville Chamberlain believed the best about the Nazis, just as you believe that America's mortal enemies are as pure as the wind driven snow. Millions of innocent men, women and children paid with their lives for his delusions.
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Your comments about Americans who volunteer to serve to protect your rights have been proven false by independent studies. The majority of our troops today come from middle-income and upper income families, not from the poor or ill-educated as you would like your audience to believe.
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Your comment that Syria and Iran are "helping" Iraq is about as delusional as any I have seen. If so, the Iraqi government would not be asking us to stay and for them to stop what they are doing. Such comments also raise questions about your agenda and your credibility, while you feel free to question that of Rupert Murdoch, who is not a reporter in the field.
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Ahmadinejad's comments about wiping Israel off the map have been verified by reporters around the world. Just this week there were demonstrations in Teheran calling for "Death to Israel". Yet you pretend to believe otherwise. The oppression in Iran of women and those suspected of being homosexual have also been widely documented.
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You call the liberation of Iraq "unjustified". Yet, it was approved by the UNSC resolution 1441 and the 16 previous and related resolutions, most of them unanimous. It was also approved by President Clinton's Iraq Liberation Act and by a joint Congressional resolution in October 2002. Perhaps you preferred Iraq the way it was under Saddam Hussein, all in the name of peace and love, where 80% of the population was brutally repressed by the minority Sunni Baathists.
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Fallujah has never been levelled - I know this from returning troops I have met. However, all of Anbar Province has now turned against Al Qaeda, which is a success for the surge.
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You complain about the cost of the war, but wars are not fought on this basis, but on the basis of right and wrong.
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If you truly believed in peace, you would be in Iraq demanding that the Shia and Sunni rise up and stop the sectarian violence that is going on.
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Had they not engaged in this Iraq would have been well on the way to reconstruction, peace and prosperity - just like Europe after WW-II when we rid them of their brutal oppressors.
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Drs. John & Karen Dwyer Pax
Drs. John & Karen Dwyer
Pax Christi Naples
Rock solid in our faith, my family and I sought out the local Imam, Mohammud. We attended his small flock's worship service in his home, not far from mine. It is a good experience. He has been to my home.
We've attended lectures together and stood together during several street protests against the war. I observed Ramadan with them during the past three years--praying the Liturgy of the Hours during their daily prescribed times while facing Mecca. Their fast is rather more rigorous and more social than our Lent. I've taken the age dispensation this year. Muslims have a problem with our accepting the divinity of Jesus. I have no fear in saying their required formula: There's no God but God and Mohammud is His prophet.
My embarrassed reaction to Professor Lee Bollinger's speech denouncing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as well as my chagrin at the Columbia audience's coarse laughter at the inaccurately translated remark concerning homosexuals cannot counteract the idiotic demonization of the man and his country. Such ad hominum attacks, such irrational jingoism have happened so many times during my 64 years that the pattern is predictable and ridiculous. How can we Americans be so gullible when our government-controlled media and political climate choose to engineer fear and hatred so that we will permit, even support, military aggression against such tiny nations as Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, et. al.?
Our fear cannot excuse the atrocities we commit against our poorly armed enemies. Our technologically efficent death engines cannot allow us to claim bravery in combat. Our volunteer army together with our mercenary army cannot conquer our enemies "over there." Our real enemy is inside our fearful hearts, in our perverse rationalizations that dehumanize whole peoples.
Worst of all for me is this response to Deborah Mayer's appeal to the Supreme Court concerning her objection to being fired from her teaching position in Indiana's public schools for telling her students that she "honks for peace": "public education is inherently a situation where the government is the speaker, and ... its employees are the mouthpieces of the government," said Vikram Amar, a professor at UC's Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco. And,
"Teachers hire out their own speech and must provide the service for which employers are willing to pay," a three-judge panel of the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Jan. 24. "The Constitution does not entitle teachers to present personal views to captive audiences against the instructions of elected officials." What about principals' views? Superintendents' views. Jena-six's district attorney's views?
Is it any wonder that our government chokes to death individual expressions of cynical disbelief in the official version of reality? We've trained our population much too well.
In Florida I have to swear every five years to "uphold the United States Constitution." I did not know that I was taking an oath to be the mouthpiece for government propaganda formulated by ill-educated leaders. And they are dumb! One of my school board members has only a G.E.D.
What a sad end to the Great Experiment. Ahmadinejad joins with Chavez and others to stand and watch us self-destruct.
Thank you Sr. Joan. It gives
Thank you Sr. Joan.
It gives me hope that in all the noise of battle preparations a quiet whisper of Christian love of neighbor managed to happen. Not from the top of Church or State to be sure, but the Spirit blows where she will.
Sr. Joan – I want to
Sr. Joan –
I want to express to you how grateful I am for your columns, which I read every week. It is so refreshing to hear a voice of reason, common sense and most of all compassion in a society increasingly losing its grip on all three. And I think you are quite right – yet another opportunity to advance peace, understanding and tolerance, was missed. I was appalled by the decision of the present Administration to deny Mr. Ahmadinejad the gesture of laying a wreath at the NY site of the 9/11 tragedy. It seems to me it was a carefully crafted decision designed solely to prevent Mr. Ahmadinejad from seeming too sympathetic…too human. We might listen to him, then. We might start to think he actually has something valid to say.
The darkest lessons in history have shown us the best way to confer and maintain “bogeyman” status for anyone, is to keep them far removed from their innate humanity. The Nazi’s understood this well. I suppose the present Administration will use the ploy, “Mr. Ahmadinejad only wanted to do it for political purposes” – which, hypocritically enough, is the reason he was refused. I cannot help but wonder – and sometimes fear – which lessons our nation’s leaders are turning to in order to confront the world, and why.
Please continue to be the beacon of light, faith, and reason you have been. I share your columns with my family and friends. Your compassion has touched many lives, and opened many hearts. You do more good than you know.
Sincerely,
Joseph Chevé
Seattle, WA
Dear Joseph, > Are you have
Dear Joseph,
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Are you have a problem learning what Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has to say, about anything? Or would you only hear him if he spoke at the site of 9/11, an atrocity against innocent Americans which was perpetrated by the terrorists he harbors and finances and encourages? How gullible can you be when you cannot read the reports coming out of Iran and compare these with what this tyrant says for your consumption? That women are respected in Iran and they do not have the "phenomenon" of homosexuality? Blatant falsehoods.
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Since he denies the Holocaust took place and is threatening to wipe Israel off the map don't you think he is even worse than the Nazis? From your comments I am wondering whether you have any idea what the Nazis were all about.
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It is intellectually perverse as to sympathize with a state-sponsor of terrorism, responsible for the targeted killings of innocent men, women and children, the President of a brutal Islamic dictatorship, where no citizen has any freedom of speech, and then couch it in the most delusional context of peace and love and God's will?
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It is not surprising that
It is not surprising that Joan calls us to live the Christianity many of espouse. Loving one's "enemies" and doing good to those who hate us seem like necessary behaviors clearly demanded from the Jesus I know in the Gospels. Espousing to be Chrisitan and "being Christian" are not one and the same. Thanks, Joan for putting out the prophetic word again.
With all due respect Sister
With all due respect Sister Joan, If what you have stated regarding the leadership of Iran is true than where is the voice of the supreme leader,Ayatollah Ali Khameini?Would it not be beneficial,for the sake of Peace,if he spoke out in support of Peace rather than remain silent?