WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND

by Maliha Masood, Matrix Correspondent


















So here we go again. Salman Rushdie has become a knight and the Islamic world is up in arms. Iran's foreign ministry strongly objects. People are protesting in the streets of Pakistan. Never mind the fact that the very same folks holding banners begrudging Sir Salman have probably never even seen or read Sir Salman's copious novels, let alone be familiar with his notorious Satanic Verses, in which he was a little less than careful in depicting the Prophet Muhammad. The perceived blasphemy earned him a death sentence and caused an international uproar. So what's this got to do with the knighthood?

Everything and nothing

Furious mobs, suicide bombers, saviors of honor. They'll have you believe they're defending Islam but is this really about Islam? No, in the sense that these groups are merely using the pretext of religion to push their own political agendas. Yes, in the sense that any critique of religion, be it in the form of satire or fantasy or outright insult will create a backlash among certain factions. This is not just restricted to the Islamic realm, but public opinion unflailingly assumes that Muslims are the only people on earth who cannot tolerate freedom of speech and expression when it comes to liberals and creative types who want to challenge the status quo.

I beg to differ.

It's hard to imagine that all Christians would take kindly to the image of Jesus peeing on a cross, yet Christians are not labeled fundamentalist to nearly the same extent. Granted there are of late hyper sensitive and ultra orthodox Muslims who need only the slightest excuse to brandish violence or condemn the West, but they do not define Islam as a whole and they certainly do not give license to the media to portray the entire Muslim world as hopelessly backward and anti modern.

If only the clichés would taper down, but they won't and for good reason. Because we are not giving alternative measures, showing different viewpoints other than anger and knee jerk reactions. As for Mr. Rushdie and his knighthood, let's just chalk that up to institutional mumbo jumbo. To recognize a writer for his work is a fine and noble thing. But a name is still a name, whether it precedes with a title or not.

Maliha Masood was born in Karachi, Pakistan. She moved to the States at the age of twelve and grew up in the suburbs of Seattle. Fluent in Urdu and French, Maliha studied International Business at the University of Washington and worked as a research analyst in the IT sector for six years before turning towards writing.

Her book Zaatar Days, Henna Nights recalls her year-long, overland trek through the Arab world -- from the streets of Amman, Beirut, Damascus and Istanbul to Kurdish mountain villages.

FINDING PURPOSE

by Malik Isasis

























Israel and the United States have played Dr. Frankenstein in the Middle East. Gaza, Lebanon and Iraq are a mess. Israel and the United States have collapsed governments and created insurrections to cause civil wars and bloody chaos. To what end Drs. Frankenstein? Is it so that Gaza and the West Bank can always be failed States, so that eventually their hopes are dissolved into a Greater Israel? Iraq is a failed State…is Lebanon on its way?


Israel and the United States have the opposite of the Midas touch in the Middle East, because everything they touch turns into shit. In both their blotted histories of colonization and occupation, they have failed miserably because of the inability to rise above the false sense of superiority and entitlement over Arab and Muslim people. The United States and Israel would like to domesticate Arab and Muslim people as if they were animals, to make them docile even when hostilities against them are committed.

Any Muslim or Arab fighting against Israel’s and the United States’ occupation, and colonization efforts without the machinations of a multibillion-dollar military are labeled a “terrorist.” This narrative only works because the population believes that Arab and Muslims are savages and violent by nature.

Nowhere has a racist narrative been used more ruthlessly than in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The narrative/counter-narrative that Americans understand goes something like this: Israelis are morally superior, religiously observant guiltless victims while the Palestinians are Arabs and therefore guilty of uncivilized extremism. Watch any story about the conflict on network news and you will recognize the skewed coverage. Israel has a moral claim to its existence because of its victim status, and because the Palestinian claims don't really matter. This is so entrenched that people get more upset by verbal criticism of Israel's policies ("it's anti-Semitic") than by well-documented human rights violations perpetrated by the Israelis against the Palestinians. News reports and news programs dare not stray outside of these dual narratives.


The Purpose


All murder is barbaric, not just the violence committed by Arabs and Muslims, but also the incendiary weaponry from multi-million gunships, and warplanes of the United States and Israel. One form of death doesn’t rise above the other. There is nothing brave or democratic about occupation, war and colonization.

But again, Iraq, Gaza and the West Bank or Iran has nothing to do with bravery or democracy. The only purpose is to extend the power of two countries the United States and Israel. Just maybe the Arab and Muslim people are on to this heist.

The sickness of power is that you want more of it, you fear losing it. If this is where America finds itself, its only purpose: to hold onto power at the expense of its existence, we are surely witnessing the death of this superpower.

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