Giving Equality to Women - The Muslim Canadian Way

Let’s recap. The Supreme Council of Al Azhar in Egypt approved a ban on wearing the niqab in their schools. A few days later, the Muslim Canadian Congress made a call to the federal government to prohibit women from wearing niqabs and burkas in public. Ironically the reasoning for their call is “covering one’s face has no place in a society that supports gender equality.” Because as we all know, a bunch of men deciding what a woman is allowed and not allowed to wear is a sure way of creating equality.

Now I’m not sure what the real motive was behind their idiotic call. Maybe it was an attempt at disassociating themselves from the extremist image that the media has so cleverly imprinted in our minds. Perhaps it was the other reason they stated for their call: the Quran doesn’t call for a woman to dress in a niqab or burka. But why should a woman dress according to the Quran anyway? I’m not an expert on the Quran, but I don’t think the holy book calls for men to grow beards, especially long, unkempt ones. If we’re making rules here, then we should keep the ball rolling and introduce some rules for men, such as trimming their beard every once in a while. Quite frankly I think Bin Ladin style beards are so 2003. Muslim men should project a more modern look.

To be honest, I’m not a big fan of the burka, niqab, or hijab even, in the same way that I don’t like earrings on men. So What? One of the beautiful things about society is that people are different. How dull would the world be if we were al identical. I’m not oblivious to the fact that some women are forced to wear burkas or niqabs, but does enforcing a ban on such things really solve the problem? What about the women who actually like to wear burkas? Why should we have the right to ban them from wearing something that makes them feel comfortable?

Society or government should never enforce rules on what people should dress like. A person should dress and present themselves however they like to. We start with banning the niqab and who knows what comes next. In a country that prides itself in its freedom multiculturalism there is no place for such rules. By expressing such a ridiculous call, the Muslim Canadian Congress has reinforced the same stereotypes they were trying to get rid themselves of.

In Memory of Frank McCourt

I came across his book while searching for a work on poverty for my grade 12 class. At the time I didn't know that I was to embark on reading a book that would have such an impact on me for years to come. Angela's Ashes is the autobiography of Frank McCourt, an Irish boy, born in America to a Protestant father and a Catholic mother. McCourt's book wasn't simply a description of his poor childhood, but rather a brilliant critique of culture and religion and the contradictions they bring about in society. His honesty brought him much criticism and made him an outcast in his own city. McCourt continued his great tale with 'Tis and finally by Teacher Man. I can't say much about his books because whatever I say I won't do them justice. I have re-read his books several times, and enjoyed reading them every single time. Maybe it's his sense of humour mixed in with the tragic moments of his life, or maybe it's his shear honesty. Whatever it was Frank McCourt will be remembered by many, and his story will live on, reminding us of how harsh poverty is and how good we have it.

Rest in peace Frank.

Finally some good rap music

It is not often these days to come across really good music. I’m talking here for both the lyrical sense, and the melody. Every now and then I stumble across a really great artist, and it’s usually through an online search, a reference from a friend or even searching through you tube, and never from watching MTV.

A few months ago while sitting with a bunch friends, one guy got up and played “Tell the Truth.” The song caught my attention and when I went home I searched for it on you tube. From there I searched for Immortal Technique and found a bunch of his songs. It took 30 seconds of listening to “The 4th Branch” and I was sold.

Immortal’s words are stunning. I have never heard rap sung with such passion and with such deep lyrics. I have heard lots of rap and most of it amounts to nothing but a pile of crap about sex, booze, and cars. It’s refreshing to hear some real music after being deprived for so long with the nonsense flooding the air waves.

To give you an example of Immortal Technique’s lyrics, check these excerpts from The “4^th Branch.” (Video Embedded)

The voice of racism preaching the gospel is devilish
A fake church called the prophet Muhammad a terrorist
Forgetting God is not a religion, but a spiritual bond
And Jesus is the most quoted prophet in the Qu'ran
They bombed innocent people, tryin' to murder Saddam
When you gave him those chemical weapons to go to war with Iran
This is the information that they hold back from Peter Jennings
Cause Condoleeza Rice is just a new age Sally Hemmings

….

Embedded correspondents don't tell the source of the tension
And they refuse to even mention, European intervention
Or the massacres in Jenin, the innocent screams
U.S. manufactured missles, and M-16's
Weapon contracts and corrupted American dreams
Media censorship, blocking out the video screens
A continent of oil kingdoms, bought for a bargain
Democracy is just a word, when the people are starvin'
The average citizen, made to be, blind to the reason
A desert full of genocide, where the bodies are freezin'
And the world doesn't believe that you fightin' for freedom
Cause you fucked the Middle East, and gave birth to a demon

The 4^th Branch of government is of course another name for the Media. The song ends with a harsh, but well deserved criticism of Fox News.

In “Leaving the Past” you can gain an appreciation for Technique’s metaphors.

Hell is not a place you go, if you not a Christian
it's the failure of your life's greatest ambition
It's a bad decision to blindly follow any religion
I don't see the difference in between the raw and the wrong
Soldiers emptyin' the clips at little kids and they moms

…

I hate it when they tell us how far we came to be
as if our peoples history started with slavery

…

Try to confuse you, makin' it hard to follow this:
capitalism en democracy are not synonymous
You swallow propaganda like a birth control pill
sellin' your soul to the eye on the back of the dollar bill
But that will never be me, cause I am leavin' the past
like an abused wife with the kids, leavin' your ass
Like a drug addict clean and sober, leavin' the stash
unbreakable Technique leavin' the plane crash
I'm out with the black box and I refuse to return

Many of Immortal’s songs are on You Tube, some of them with the Lyrics as well. So if you’re looking for good music to drive to, listen to, and definitely enjoy, I suggest you buy the album from Immortal Technique’s website.

The Power of Myth

After watching Zeitgeist, I was compelled to do some research into Part One of the documentary, which argues that Jesus is in fact the same god as Horus (the Sun God for Egyptians) and numerous other gods from other religions and myths such as Krishna, Dionysus, Mithra, Orus and Cadmus. While I was researching online I developed an interest in comparative mythology which lead me to a great documentary series called “The Power of Myth.”

In “The Power of Myth,” Joseph Campbell , a leading scholar in mythology is interviewed by Bill Moyer, who discusses deep issues with Campbell concerning the meaning of life, heaven, good, evil, and even god. Campbell draws on his extensive knowledge of mythology to answer these questions, often offering striking similarities between mythology and religion.

During one of the interviews Campbell stresses that we should not take a myth or religion as prose but rather as poetry, and that we often read the metaphors in terms of their “denotations instead of connotation,” leading to many of the issues we have today. He believes that every time has it’s myth or religion which is capable of explaining the universe, and existence in terms of the knowledge available at that specific time.

Later during the interview Campbell emotionally says that “the real horror today is what we’re seeing in Beirut, where the three great western religions (Islam, Judaism and Christianity) who have three different names for the same biblical god can’t get on together. They’re stuck with their metaphor, and don’t realize its reference.”

I truly think that if we all thought like Campbell the world would be a much better place. The first example that comes to mind is the interpretation of the “Promised Land,” which without argument has lead to one of the messiest situations in recent history.

I totally recommend watching “The Power of Myth” if not for Campbell’s deep insight, then for the great myths that he narrates during the documentary.

Jesus Camp and North American Religious Fundamentalism

Every now and then I go on a YouTube rampage, watching one video after another, until I lose count of videos I’ve seen.

Yesterday I was searching for Richard Dawkins’ videos (worthy of a post themselves), and one thing lead to another and I ended up watching the trailer, of Jesus Camp.

According to Wikipedia, Jesus Camp is “about a charismatic Christian summer camp for children who spend their summers learning and practicing their "prophetic gifts" and being taught that they can "take back America for Christ."

The kids in the movie are completely brainwashed . It was surreal watching the way they speak about religion, and just how ignorant they’re taught to be. At one point in the movie all of the kids are gathered in a church and start praying for a cardboard George Bush. In another clip a mom was teaching her home schooled son about the origins of Earth and global warming. They both concluded that a 0.6 C rise in temperature is insignificant, and that the big bang is a hoax. After all we didn’t come from “a glob of goo” as an education film explains. The mom in the documentary proudly says “why would I send my kid to school for 8 hours a day, not knowing what he’s being taught?”

Of course, no documentary on evangelicals goes without scenes of faith healing. Children are shown convulsing on the floor of church, after hearing something along the lines of Harakamasheeka harabasaya, which according to AltaVista’s Bable Fish means “go away devil”. Don’t believe me? Look it up and make sure to select the translation from Bullshit to English.

Watching this kind of crap angers me. Just like watching young kids in a mosque immersed in Quranic verses angers me. It’s not the religion, but it’s fundamentalism that I’m against. Anytime kids are raised to believe that they’re right and everybody else is wrong we’re creating trouble for ourselves. Raising kids not to question, and not to accept others is like stepping back to the middle ages. I’m disspaointed in seeing such things during the age of technology and scientific technology. Women are allowed to vote, slavery is no more, but we still have a long way to go.

Is this procedure 7aram?

Is this 7aram? I honestly would like to know whether a Muslim, or Jewish person is allowed to do this… please read on

Michael Helyer is a diabetic with a difference. Ten years ago he was implanted with pancreatic cells from pigs in the hope that they would restore his insulin production, so helping to control his blood glucose levels. Now, to the surprise of researchers who carried out the trial, not only are those pig cells still alive, but a few continue to produce insulin…

In 1996, LCT injected 1.3 million capsules of alginate, a resin derived from seaweed, into Helyer's peritoneal cavity. Each capsule contained about 500 insulin-producing islet cells isolated from the pancreases of newly born piglets. "The alginate lets insulin out of the capsule and nutrients in, to keep the cells alive," explains Elliott. Importantly, it also hides the "alien" pig cells from the human immune system. [source]

Now that’s a clever idea!

There are two questions that I have about this. First, would religions which prohibit the consumption of pig meat, also prohibit having pig cell transplants? If they do, then why do they allow transplantation of human cells? Wouldn’t that qualify as cannibalism then?

The other question is to the biologically literate. Why were pig cells chosen? Are they closer to human cells than, say, cow cells? Or do pigs have a pancreas that closely resembles humans’?

I’m really curious, so if you know the answers, or would like to hypothesize, then by all means…

Update:

Thanks to Andre I have an answer on why pigs are chosen as donors:

"For pancreas transplants, other animals can be used as well, but pigs have been preferred for purely technical reasons, so nothing to do with similarity with humans in the pancreas case."

see the comments section for the rest of his informative comment

And Dalia turned my attention to this, regarding whether Islam prohibits such a transplant:

"the fatwa issued by the eminent Muslim scholar, Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, who states:

"Basically, transplanting an organ from an impure animal such as a pig to a human body must not be resorted to save in case of necessity. It should be considered that what is rendered permissible due to necessity should be estimated only according to what alleviates the hardship in every case. Also, this should be estimated by reliable and trustworthy Muslim physicians."

technorati tags: diabetic, diabetes, pancreas, pig, muslim, jewish, transplant, medicine

Dialogue between Muslim and Jewish Youth

I received the following email today. It basically talks about a new initiative to link Muslim and Jewish teens between the ages 16-19 to create an interfaith dialogue. The dialogue is all online, combining teens from Tehran, Montreal, Damascus, New York, Dubai, Moscow, Jakarta, Paris, Riyadh, London and Marrakesh. Have a read, and let someone know who you think should join..

Dear Blogger,

I am the Educational Program Director for Children of Abraham, a non-profit, interfaith organization that was founded to encourage dialogue between Muslim and Jewish youth over the internet.

We run a five-month long, on-line interfaith seminar called the Global Discovery Program (GDP) which uses cutting-edge wiki software and digital photography to facilitate Muslim-Jewish dialogue. We select a total of thirty-four Muslim and Jewish students between the ages of sixteen and nineteen from Tehran, Montreal, Damascus, New York, Dubai, Moscow, Jakarta, Paris, Riyadh, London and Marrakech to create a truly international experience for our participants....

Children of Abraham is not a political pressure group or a focus group for Palestine-Israel relations. We are an interfaith organization which realizes that Muslims and Jews have a long and ancient tradition of respect and peaceful coexistence which has only recently been strained by political factors. We hope to build empathetic relationships among our participants based on time honored Islamic and Jewish religious traditions.

As a show of our commitment to equal representation, Children of Abraham receives financial support from a balance of Muslim and Jewish donors.

I encourage you to explore our state of the art website www.childrenofabraham.org and to contact me personally with any questions or concerns you may have.

Thank you very much for your consideration.

My Experience at "Arabic" School

One of the major concerns for many newcomers to Canada is how to maintain their cultural identity, and language not in themselves but in their children. When we first moved here my mom and dad worked very hard at establishing a Saturday class that teaches Arabic to all levels. They called everybody they knew, they worked very hard at convincing the principal that we have the numbers to create and maintain a class. Once the class opened, we called every family on Friday night to remind them to bring their children the next morning. We picked up people from their houses to drive them school. But the number of students wasn’t enough to justify another class, at that time the Arabic community was small. By the end of semester the class was cancelled. During the semester that the class ran, my mom’s focus was on keeping a religion free class. As a result the class was a mixture of Muslims and Christians, Lebanese, Palestinians and Syrian, just the way it was intended to be.

Fast forward a few years and I’m finishing my high school, looking for an easy credit to bump up my average. Out of the 6 courses that determine my average, I had the freedom of choosing only one. So naturally I wanted to take something that I’m good at. At that time someone suggested that I take Arabic on Saturday, and having maintained a decent level of Arabic I thought it was a wonderful idea.

My first day at the school consisted of a morning Arabic lesson class, taught by a very competent languages professor at the University of Waterloo. He spoke 5 languages, and often mixed German, French and English while speaking. His lessons were all over the place, unorganized, and lacked theme. His class lasted for just over an hour, after which we had our break.

After the break came the Arabic teacher’s wife. Having not been to the previous week’s class, I didn’t know what expect for this period. I was shocked to learn that she didn’t actually speak Arabic! She was of Pakistani origin, knew her dua’ very well, probably knew a bunch of “soras” by heart, knew all the buzz words in Islam, but I stress once again, she didn’t speak Arabic. She was able to scribble a bunch of Arabic words on the blackboard with very neatly written letters, but that’s probably because she knew Urdu. In a sense she as good write Arabic as well as I could write Farsi. Her spelling was horrendous. During one boring lesson of hers, I remember clearly that she spelled “Wudu” by writing in Arabic, waw dal waw (so much for ‘lughat iddad’). We (me and a bunch of other students) got into a heated argument with her that her spelling was way off. Being the closed minded person that she was, she persisted that she was right, and kept on teaching us the dua’. Her classes mainly consisted of memorizing dua’, for example what should a Muslim say before he enters a bathroom, and before he eats, and so on. I’m not going to discuss my views on dua’ here but let’s just say it was something that I didn’t expect to learn at Arabic school. But of course being in an Arabic class, we not only had to memorize dua’s in Arabic, but also in English. It was then that I got introduced to translations such as “All praise is due to Allah” and “O Allah, I ask You to grant me beneficial knowledge” and other such phrases that I could not even relate to, just because of the mere fact they were taught to me in English. In this period we also had to go up and recite the dua’s one on one with the teacher. Being the least religious out of the bunch, I was the only one that had to memorize these dua’s five minutes before I had to recite them… So that’s two periods and still no Arabic.

Surely the last period had to offer some Arabic right? No, just like you probably expected it had nothing to do with learning Arabic. The last “lesson” consisted of “assirah annabiwiya” which’s Islam’s equivalent, and in many instances identical, to Biblical stories. Now don’t get me wrong, I always enjoyed hearing about the battles, and legendary stories of the chivalrous men, who shaped our history in many ways. I just didn’t want to be forced to listen to them under the “Arabic class” banner, especially when the stories are told in English (out of respect of the two Urdu speaking students who were there to learn Arabic).

If coordinators of the school were true to their beliefs they would be honest, and at least called the course “Islamic Studies with a bit of Arabic” class. I certainly don’t want to be taught Arabic under the banner of Islam, and I most certainly don’t want to learn Arabic by non-Arabic speakers. It’s a shame that people refer to this school as an Arabic school. Arabic is a language that pre-dated Islam for centuries. Christians spoke Arabic, Jews spoke Arabic, and all Idol worshipers spoke Arabic. By putting all the effort on making this pseudo-Arabic class mainly a religion school, the organizers have alienated many people who want to learn Arabic from other religious backgrounds, including Arabs and non-Arabs.

My final result of the course was a 70 something. I did very well on the Arabic part of exam, but bombed the religion part. That mark was my lowest mark of the year; it stood as a scar on my transcript. That same semester at regular school, my English mark was the second highest in the class.

This post comes in light of a new development in the local Arab community. Recently a new group of people, including an authentic Arabic teacher from Damascus, pooled some money together to make an Arabic class. Today I heard they’re teaching religion as part of the curriculum.

technorati tags: , Arabic, school, canada, langauge, Islam, religion