A few notes regarding John Broder's New York Times (hereinafter "the Times") article on the widely shared online footage of the so-called "debate" between Dr. Wafa Sultan and `some other source' on Al Jazeera TV ["For Muslim Who Says Violence Destroys Islam, Violent Threats" - 3-11-06. Direct quotes from the article are in quotations]:
"'I have no choice. I am questioning every single teaching of our holy book.' - Dr. Wafa Sultan".
"In the interview ... Dr. Sultan bitterly criticized the Muslim clerics, holy warriors and political leaders who she believes have distorted the teachings of Muhammad and the Koran for 14 centuries."
Curious: Why does Dr. Wafa Sultan, in "questioning every single teaching of [the Qu'ran]", assume that everything in Islam and the Quran is the work of clerics, warriors and politicians? Does she abstain from affording *any* thoughts in the Quran to the Prophet Muhammed, let alone any semblance of a divine source? Also, for someone who is not a Muslim, how does she claim to have any scriptural or theological background for revealing what she claims to be 'distortions' in the teachings of Islam?
"She said the world's Muslims, whom she compares unfavorably with the Jews, have descended into a vortex of self-pity and violence."
I sense that, if she DIDN'T compare Muslims "unfavorably with the Jews", there would be far, far less of a chance that one would have seen her piece on MEMRI TV specifically, which is an unabashed neoconservative propaganda site, NOT a source of balanced reporting [the sources of praise in the "ABOUT US" segment of MEMRI's website reads like an AIPAC/JINSA cocktail brunch door list].
"But Islamic reformers have praised her for saying out loud, in Arabic and on the most widely seen television network in the world, what few Muslims dare to say even in private."
Which Islamic reformers say this, let alone "out loud"?!? And why aren't any of them quoted in Broder's NY Times piece (even via nameless attribution)?
"Perhaps her most provocative words on Al Jazeera were those comparing how the Jews and Muslims have reacted to adversity. Speaking of the Holocaust, she said, `The Jews have come from tragedy and forced the world to respect them, with their knowledge, not with their terror; with their work, not with their crying and yelling.'"
This is abject, outright propaganda from Dr. Sultan (knowingly or unknowingly, depending on her motivations), from MEMRI TV, and from the Times in how they chose their copy. As if the decades of Israel's existence as a state has been free of stated-inflicted violence upon Arabs, Palestinians and other political enemies. Please.
"We have not seen a single Jew protest by killing people." - Wafa Sultan
Let's see: Tanks rolling into Palestinian lands, displacing their residents; shooting down resisting civilians; starving natives out of subsistence ... she's right - all that the Israelis have offered their `neighbors' in that region since the late 1940s has been incense, murr and economic assistance, whether during the entering of those lands or in living there long-term. How perceptive of her.
"Only the Muslims defend their beliefs by burning down churches, killing people and destroying embassies. This path will not yield any results. The Muslims must ask themselves what they can do for humankind, before they demand that humankind respect them." - Wafa Sultan
Interesting. So, according to her, no other religious group besides Muslims has committed violence? That last sentence is simply Islamophobic and Arabphobic nonsense, and disturbingly assumes that Muslims will continue to be killed, displaced, invaded and belittled based on the pre-set conditions of others, regardless of their past attempts at securing some dignity and more than an ounce of the fruits of `modernity'.
"Her views caught the ear of the American Jewish Congress, which has invited her to speak in May at a conference in Israel."
First, a strategically edited video on MEMRI TV's website; Then, an invitation to speak at the AJC conference; What's next, an honorary seat at the American Enterprise Institute? Plum positioning in the newly installed Syrian government, post Assad?
Another question: How did MEMRI TV arrive at their editing decisions regarding Dr. Sultan's initially taped appearance on Al Jazeera?
"Shortly after the broadcast, clerics in Syria denounced her as an infidel. One said she had done Islam more damage than the Danish cartoons mocking the Prophet Muhammad, a wire service reported."
Again, WHICH SOURCES? Which wire service? Which "Syrian cleric(s)"? No, these aren't superfluous details, as that last quote could very well be an ASSIGNED statement by the Times, which, again, hasn't exactly chosen to `better' MEMRI TV by featuring the full and translated responses of Dr. Sultan's on-air counterpart from that Al Jazeera taping. Also, considering that said cartoons were concocted tactically by neoconservative operatives in order to cause alienation of European Muslims and immigrants, the above comparison of her statements to the cartoons is not surprising, regardless of who ultimately made it.
"Gunman of the Muslim Brotherhood burst into a classroom at the university and killed her professor as she watched, she said."
No doubt a shocking, contemptible, unjust, illegal and plainly horrendous act by anyone's standards. Yet, she can't hold nearly a billion people either responsible for, or reflective of, said act.
Any and all rage, under any circumstances, comes from fear, and underwrites irrationality in one's own future thoughts and actions. That goes for those who inflict violence, as well as those who respond to said violence, in word and deed. E.G. This formula applies to the murderers Dr. Sultan describes, as well as to Dr. Sultan herself.
Yet again, though, neither the long term imbedded trauma of witnessing such a murder, nor the violent acts of desperation by a poverty-stricken, destitute, hopeless and colonized people, warrants Dr. Sultan's sweeping indictment of Islam and all Muslims. What exactly will such an erroneous conclusion achieve aside from further contempt (note -- a contempt by design)? Trying to prudently and sincerely argue such delicate political issues whilst filled with rage for the other party is akin to trying to play the finals of Wimbledon with a paper bag over your head.
Proof: "BUT even as she settled into comfortable middle-class American life, Dr. Sultan's anger burned within."
Elsewhere, the article describes Dr. Sultan as saying: "At that point, I lost my trust in their god and began to question all our [Muslim] teachings. It was the turning point of my life, and it has led me to this present point. I had to leave. I had to look for another god."
?!? Their god? Our? Whose god did she ultimately settle on? Did she even settle on a `god'? I thought Muslims believe in the same `god' as do Jews and Christians. If she was rejecting the Muslim `god', then by default, she would be rejecting the Jewish and Christian `god' as well (unless, of course, she converted to either religion, which she did not claim). Does her current secularism represent a belief in a `god' (with Nietzsche as high prophet, maybe)?
Here, Dr. Sultan resonates what many members of the global Jewish community already admittedly believe (actively or tacitly): Namely, that there cannot exist a torment-inflicting or tragedy-approving `god' who would allow such an event as the Holocaust to happen. Again, all the more understandable why so many presumably secular Jews would embrace Dr. Sultan: A shared sense of grief, let alone chronic, existential-level rage and chronic contempt towards the "other" (any "other"....just get it done).
[Speaking of which, one ultimately wonders sometimes whether, despite the past acts of violence committed in Dr. Sultan's presence, or against Jews as a collective, Muslims even constitute the core point of the matter...]
"...[Dr. Sultan] settled in with friends in Cerritos, Calif., a prosperous bedroom community on the edge of Los Angeles County."
Cerritos? "Prosperous"?!? I've been there, folks. An equivalent of the Cote d'Azur, Brentwood, Midtown Manhattan, Laguna Beach, Australia's Sydney Harbour, London's Kensington, the Hamptons or La Jolla it ain't. Not that Cerritos, CA is a slum, either, yet that's beside the point. It is apparently more convenient for the Times to drive home the perception that Dr. Sultan now lives in lavish environs, which would, of course, further reflect upon her obviously reformed and `progressive' mindset, unlike those of the heathen, backward, presumably ghetto dwelling Muslims she left behind in the old country...
It's more than telling that the sole English language resource for viewing her taped point of view - MEMRI TV - represents a carefully edited piece where Dr. Sultan is primarily speaking, despite an on-air counterpart present. Only one question from that counterpart is selected by MEMRI TV for inclusion in their online piece ... never mind the actual nature of the original on-air exchange on Al Jazeera TV.
The Times piece states how Al Jazeera CHOSE TO HAVE HER on air for a debate, knowing perfectly well that her controversial views would be potentially unpopular amongst their predominantly Muslim audiences. This is much, much more than can be said for MEMRI TV's editorial decisions, let alone that of the Times in covering Dr. Sultan.
"'Why does a young Muslim man, in the prime of life, with a full life ahead, go and blow himself up?' she asked. 'In our countries, religion is the sole source of education and is the only spring from which that terrorist drank until his thirst was quenched.'"
How erudite, let alone historically informed. Well, considering that Western governments, financial institutions and energy interests have systemically denied natural economic, educational and political progress in oil-rich Mid-East, African and Asian states (many of them predominantly Muslim, aside from US/UK ally Israel) through implanting despotic regimes and general divide-and-conquer strategies, for well over one hundred years, she should essentially be answering her own question, if only these critical aforementioned historical factors were included in her reasoning (as well as in the reasoning of neoconservatives in general). Yet again, it is exceedingly difficult to prudently argue such points - by anyone - when blinded by longstanding rage.
"The clash we are witnessing around the world is not a clash of religions or a clash of civilizations." - Dr. Sultan.
She resonates the recent statements of the very people who clandestinely and duplicitously coordinate sabotages such as the bombing of the Samarraha Mosque in Iraq and the publishing of the Danish anti-Islamic cartoons, yet claim not to wish for civil war in Iraq whilst blaming their enemies for any and all unnecessary violence. "By way of deception, thou shalt do war" indeed...
"She said she no longer practiced Islam. `I am a secular human being', she said."
...and, despite her apparently new found enlightenment, Dr. Sultan nonetheless still drowns in a life of unresolved inner rage, torment, anger, presumed chronic physical pains (because mind and body are, of course, connected), and a generally growing sense of nihilism. None of which her current, chosen `god' of secularism, nor her increasingly rewarded yet inadverdent institutional sycophantism, are able to treat successfully. Don't take my partly presumptive word for it -- read the inspiring ideologies of the neoconservatives themselves, who seek to establish a newly energized, non-contraceptivized, paranoid, hyper-armed, rampaging and yet still curiously religious-ized modern Rome. [They tend to label these traits collectively as "virtue"].
The Times also claims that the "other guest on the program" that Dr. Sultan appeared with was "identified as an Egyptian professor of religious studies", only after claiming earlier that said debating counterpart was a "cleric". Whether said guest was either a cleric, or a professor, or both, the reader does not know. Although this isn't the most critical detail in the piece, it is nonetheless to be expected from the unbiased, detail-oriented, prudent and generally outstanding journalistic standards that the Times so consistently embraces in its reporting on delicate Middle Eastern issues. [They're certainly not crude bloggers over there at the New York Times. Hell, they should be CHARGING people for the sheer privilege of reading such probingly non-tabloid-esque news online...]
The Times continues that Dr. Sultan's counterpart on Al Jazeera "then said there was no point in rebuking or debating [Dr. Sultan], because she had blasphemed against Islam, the Prophet Muhammad and the Koran." Neither any viewer of this MEMRI TV video, nor any reader of the Times' article, would know when the cleric/professor/'stock bad guy' made this flippant statement during the original Al Jazeera broadcast. E.G. Was it mentioned at the outset of the debate, in the middle, or near its end? Germane, primarily because, again, there's barely a sight of her debating partner or anyone else on the MEMRI TV piece, leaving one to wonder about the contexts of the exchange and any points that didn't make the video's cut on MEMRI TV. All, again, due to such brilliant, precision editing on the part of MEMRI TV.
All of that said, it is sad and pathetic that Dr. Sultan is receiving death threats from ANYONE [key word here, considering the times we're in and the people that claim to act on our behalf...]. Dr. Sultan should certainly be afforded protection, yet not just from any individual who would physically threaten her, but also from opportunistic "news" sources aiming at exploiting her past pain as well as an apparently skewed and incomplete perspective on global affairs. A skewed perspective that will cause further suspicions of editorial intent, rather than come anywhere near achieving her stated goal: Waking up the Islamic world with a unique perspective from an Arab and former believer who left that religion.
Generally, it is sad that such a skewed and shrewdly edited online video should be used for propaganda, generally stripped of balanced viewpoints, historical perspectives and empathy. MEMRI TV and the Times are essentially exploiting this woman's past and ongoing pain in an example of increasingly commonplace and heightened cynicism, seeking to tactically fan flames of antagonism amongst a concerned, yet still distracted and confused, public, and the large Muslim and Arab worlds.
Through her life and words, Dr. Sultan certainly touches upon the desperation of Arabic and Muslim peoples today, but does so against a technical backdrop of an unprecedented onslaught of tit-for-tat exchanges in the global media. The non-Muslim viewer just assumes that 'Arabs and Muslims are more or less born that way' (a thought which, one would think, some of Dr. Sultan's very newest 'best friends' wouldn't necessarily mind spreading).
The sober, fair and critically thinking lovers of liberty, anywhere and everywhere in the world, would thus best be served by not taking any one constituency's crudely altered and spectacle-ized reporting of such individual or collective pain for granted ... whether said spectacles appear on Al Jazeera, MEMRI TV or even in the pages of our "paper of record".
Ciao, and Peace.
