Zoroastrians
By Mary Boyce
This is a book about what is said to be the forefather of our great religions, founded by the prophet Zoroaster in very early civilized man. It would be commonly associated with fire worshipers as you would find sacred fires as places of worship. In simple form the fire was to the early man where you gathered for warmth, cooking and where humanity came together. While today the fire may be a symbol of the faith, in its beginning it was much more a practice to bring people together. Zoroaster believed there was a separation of good and evil at creation. How subsequent tenants of this concept transitioned from lessons around a fire to a doctrine still practiced 4000 years later begins with song. Have you ever had a song stuck in your head and you couldn’t get it out? Well it was the Prophet Zoroaster who brought what is believed to be the world’s first religion to humanity through song. In a land where writing had yet to be invented, Zoroaster would have his priests commit to memory the Gatha in song, later to be written down.
This book is an academic account of the tenants of Zoroastrianism from is roots through all its evolutionary changes. With a sense of an archeological dig, the reader becomes aware of not only how the world affected Zoroastrianism but also how this ancient faith in turn influenced the Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim religions. This religion is still alive in corners of the world with strong holds in Tehran, Iran and Bombay,India. In a chronological format the author begins with an overview of the tenets of Zoroaster in the beginning and then pulls them through history capturing the ebb and flow of humanity, giving the reader a sense of before, after and most important the present day pictures of life as a Zoroastrian. I found myself focused on the travesty brought on to this religion by Islam and therefore spend a bit of time dwelling on its relevant bearing on us today.
In the early sections of the book the reader will be introduced to many new terms which may slow down the reading process with words that have no resemblance of English. That is because they are not even close to English sounding words. However spending time to get the cadence and meaning fluent in your mind will make the rest of the book more enjoyable and meaningful. Of the many, I’ve included at the end of this review terms that are critical in terms of understanding and enjoying the book.
If one were to distill all the coda into a practical statement on the merits of Zoroastrianism you could say that Wisdom to see things as they actually are, where Justice is the result of making choices in alignment with reality, and Lying being the fraudulent representation of reality. However history and humanity collude to blur this message. The 21st Century view of Zoroaster’s original tenant must be viewed through a kollidescope and thus provides reasons for debate. You could begin with the lack of the written word, using only the treasures of archeology as only clues to the testament of what was preached left in the symbols found in art. You must also contend with the evolving languages brought on by conquest, dominion and merging of one ruler over another. The effects are found in conquest and merging of cultures where a King could impose an interpretation of preceding doctrine thus imposing a schism in Zoroastrianism similar to what is found between Protestants, Catholics, and Lutherans in our western world.
Since Zoroaster came before the split of the Indo-Iranian culture many of the tenants developed in the beginning had a significant influence over the beliefs, doctrine, and practices, of both the Hindu and the Buddhist people. Against the backdrop of geography and time, we all know that within one language the story takes on at least different colors and many times evokes completely new paths of thought. The next few paragraphs are dedicated to the train to modern day Zoroastrianism. Avestan was the language Zoroaster used in the beginning. This is found in his original Gathas as they were written down long after his death. Pahlavi was the language in the time of the Persian Kings. Sanskrit, albeit equally as old as or older than Pahlavi is the language of India, found it was in prominent doctrine through immigration. The Indo-Iranian split occurred well before Islam, however when Islam forced Zoroastrianism to take refuge tin Bombay, translation from both Avestan and Pahlavi to Sanskrit took on a prominent influence in how we see the Zoroastrian Doctrine today.
With regard to critical deviations from its origins one could look at the Zurvanite split as the most prominent. This occurred under the Achaemenians times of Cyrus, Darius, and Xerxes. The Avestan word ‘zurvan’ means ‘time’ and in a few of the younger Avesta it was used as the name of a minor divinity, hypostatizing time. The usage appears to be a very limited concession to Zurvanites who had come to believe that Time, Zurvan, did not merely provide the framework for events but was actually in control of them, hence a sentient being. While this would be considered heresy to Zoroastrians it ended up under the rule of the King of kings as being a sect of Zoroastrianism. Simply stated by Zurvanite’s through the authority of the King of kings, Ahura Mazda created both good and evil, which is contrary to Zoroaster who said he created all things good, and what wasn’t created by Ahura Mazda was evil. One could easily draw the one –v- many parallel story in the division of Eastern Orthodox and Western Christianity.
The Manichaeism deviation took root under the Sasanian kings with the introduction of a man named Mani who was reared under the Semitic influence brought a pessimistic view on life. Since he gained favor of the King of kings he was given license to twist existing Zoroastrian text to give authority to his views. Again the original Zoroaster priest found heresy in his preaching.
The Mazdakite deviation was brought on an ascetic pessimism where the Sasanian kings found common property to include the women of pheasants as slaves for the royalty. This fractured the families practicing the original tenets of Zoroaster as well strained the loyalty the people held towards their king and his religion. As timing would have it, it was against this back drop that Islam raged through Persia.
In 636 (AD) the Muslim Arabs, driven by poverty and religious fervor, had begun to attack the rich lands bordering their deserts. They overran the Byzantine province of Syria, and soon afterwards crossed onto Mesopotamia and met the Iranian imperial Army at Qadisiya. This conquest utterly different from that of Alexander, was carried out in the spirit of Surah 9.29 of the Quran:”Fight those who believe not in God and the Last Day and do not forbid what Allah and his Messengers have forbidden – such men as practice not the religion of truth, being people of the book – until they pay tribute (dhimmi) out of hand and have been humbled” The dhimmi (Zoroastrian who will not convert) has to stand while paying and the officer who receives it sits. The dhimmi has to be made to feel that he is inferior when he pays a strenuous tax.
Against this force of terror the doctrines of Islam in the beginning were attractively simple; and some of the most important – such as belief of heaven and hell, the end of the world, and the Day of Judgment – derived ultimately from Zoroastrianism and were disarmingly familiar. It made the choice of conversion over death or life in oppressed destitute an easy one. At a deeper level conversion meant change from a dualistic faith of justice/injustice and truth, with an accessible to reason, to one which demanded submission to an inscrutable, all-powerful God, whose decrees and purposes were regarded as beyond man’s understanding, rendering one’s access to God dependent on the Umma and a Caliph. Faced with the choice of death or paying tribute or adopting Islam found many adopters yet they had to find a way to make it work for them as Persians which gave birth to Shi ite.
The Shi ite movement grew steadily strong through the eighth century, fostered by propagandists for the house of Abbas, rivals of the Umayyads; and in the end there was open rebellion which led to Abbasid victory in 750. Ex-Zoroastrian converts an generatio once removed denied access to their original faith and language molded Islam to their liking while still being held to the ultimate mandate to convert which helped convert many more people who could now cross over and regain their sense of power. While strains of Zoroaster can be found in Shi ite Islam there exists a fundamental difference in their character, where a Zoroastrian may be found as a person with a positive and constructive outlook on life the opposite may be found in a She ite.
The triumph of Islam over Zoroastrian Persia led to a variation in the Zoroastrian practice where the inhabitants of Pars, thus adopting the name Parsis in Iran sought refuge in what we now know as Bombay. These religious refugees of India thrived in their own right yet still saw minor changes in their doctrine as the result of interpreting Pahlavi to Sanskrit and the comingling of Hidu and Zoroaster people. Over time as the Christians’ encroached on Parsis people prompting more change where as the Irani people stuck under the yoke of Islam in Iran held more closely to the original Avesta in Iran. There are exponentially more Parsis today than there are Iranis.
Today you can find Zoroastrian fires that have been tended for over two thousand years. Many scholars continue to piece the puzzle together causing a continual threat to the original message of Zoroaster. His original simple message was based in reality, “behold the way things are as sacred”. It is founded in truth and justice. It was simple yet humanity, specifically forces beyond themselves, made many attempts to make it dogmatically complicated. By contrast one can observe in Judaism and Christianity went to great length to impose a complicated message of right and wrong. I am no expert on Hindu or Buddhism, however I can say as found in this book more evidence that Islam is a religion of anything but the truth. As a by-standing participant in today’s terroristic acts on free men, I found a very ominous parallel between the times of 636 Persia and today’s western world. Most people are not even aware of Zoroastrianism. Many people think it is now as has always been , a small dark cult lost somewhere in this world. But contrarily it was the religion of the King of kings for over a thousand years for a multitude majority of people, annihilated in the short span of 70 years. Islam’s greed, borne in a sense of superiority equal to that of Hitler’s Aryan Race syndrome, and is now knocking at our door. Former president Bush recognized this. Our current President appears about to let them in.
Terms:
• Ahura Mazda – Ormzad, lord of wisdom who Zoroaster saw as God
• Gathas are the hymns composed by Zoroaster which contain the basic doctrine that was committed to memory by his followers
• Zend Avesta the sacred book of Zoroastrianism
• Vendidad is a book read at night of the Avesta containing the code against demons.
• Dakhma – is the funeral practice of placing the dead body on a high platform for the vultures to eat the flesh. When there were only bones they would be collected and placed in an ossuary. This was out of respect for the earth as they believed the body would contaminate the pure earth.
• Spenta - is an adjective which characterizes the good creation, possessing power to aid.
• The Doctrine of Three Times – Creation, Mixture, Separation – makes history in a sense cyclical, with the world restored in the third time to the perfection it possessed in the first one. Meanwhile all the sorrows and strivings of the present time of Mixture as part of the battle against Angra Mainyu (evil). Thus Zoroaster not only saw a noble purpose for humanity, but also offered men a reasoned explanation for what they have to endure in this life.
• Yasna – is the act of worship. It is the main Zoroastrian service
• 7 Amahragpands – the seven creations are the first being Ahura Mazda and the six lesser beings forming the heptad with Ahura Mazda himself the six are:
o Vohu Manah – Good Purpose
o Asha Vahishta – Best Righteousness
o Spenta Armaitiurvatat - Holy Devotion
o Khshathra Vairya – Desirable Dominion
o Haurvatat – Health
o Ameretat – Long Life
• Saoshyant – is the one who will bring benefit; and it is he who will lead humanity in the last battle against evil. (saviour)
Friday, February 27, 2009
Shahnameh
Shahnameh
By Aboloasem Ferdowsi
This book is about the lineage of Persian Kayanid Kings and the Persian House of Sasson. With that lineage comes an evolving philosophy of man’s thought from the perspective of justice and injustice. It begins in a mythological setting and then over time evolves into a story that may have taken place in the time when Persia was great, concluding with the triumph of Islam over Persia. Through out the mythological portion of the book the author explores the concepts of what is observable reality (good, god) and contrasts that with unobservable conjecture or sorcery magic. While the lineage progresses through many kings, it is when you read of King Ardesher that you sense you are reading ancient history rather than myth. The subtle clue would be when Ferdowsi describes the king writing a letter in Palhavi, an ancient language. It is here that Ferdowsi begins the practice of dedicating whole chapters to one king’s reign. Every king has a vizier and a champion. Through these intermediaries the thought process borne in conversation brings the king to order just or unjust deeds reveals the prevailing philosophy.
The lineage of Kayanid Kings of the House of Sasson begins with quick summaries of names from the family Kayumars beginning with Siamak who is killed by a black demon, and then Hushag’s victory, where the Kayumars pursue and kill the black demon. This fast moving chronology leaves Hushag to inherit the crown, as he is the one with the royal farr and the presence of a tall cypress tree who can think with clarity, all prerequisite to inheriting the throne. The primary way in which the Persian kingdom expanded was through a sitting King doling out frontier land to his sons. In the beginning one son received Yemen, which would be today’s Middle East. Another received land in India, which would be today’s Afghanistan, and Pakistan and the third Turan, which would be today’s Turkmenistan. Feraydun’s reign was the first to go into a bit more detail. The author does this so that he can introduce the concept of a dark magic that clouds the mind of one who feels cheated. A cheated mind draws on vengeance. The brothers that were ruling Turan and India felt they did not get the favored Persia and plotted to and did kill the son who received Yemen. King Feraydon through his champion Zal who is blessed by the Zoroastrian Angel Smiorgh avenges the evil acts of his other two sons.
The early kings of Persia had much in common with early Arab kings and hence the family tree found relatives of mixed royal blood and the two peoples were very close, while rule still came from Persia. As Persia expanded its reach into India, China, and Turkmenistan they too came under the influence of Persia’s King of Kings. All gains of kingdoms came either through war, marriage or the giving of a daughter. As the family cypress tree branched the lineage of kings became difficult to track.
To garner the philosophy conveyed in this book, the reader need only to pay attention to the dialogue between warriors, or between a king and his vizier. In a reign of a king that expands or contracts finds in each battle the combatants making declarations towards the other as to why he shall prevail in the contest. For an example one of the notable champions, Rostam declares to Gorgin ''when passion overcomes wisdom no one escapes its clutches; but the wise man who overcomes passion will be a renowned lion.” A central tenant to the Zoroastrian doctrine is wisdom of which in this context Ferdowsi makes no reference to faith or doctrine as he had already weaved into the message.
In a different battle between Rostam and Esfandyar, later in the book Ferdowsi provides further dialogue that represents the notion that one man is a piece of a puzzle put together by the power of the revolving heavens giving a rationale to the concept of fate. Both Rostam and Esfandyar found honor in death, hence there was no fear, the number one obstacle to learning. Their minds and messages are clear. They were both Persian warriors the former a champion of past kings living in Arab land the latter the champion of the current Persian king. They took a sense of chivalry into every battle. In the parley dialogue you find Rostam saying:
“A noble warrior whose audacity
Lights up the world and brings him victory
Laughs at both good and evil, since he knows
Both come from God, whom no one can oppose.”
With a chapter mixed of prose and verse, which is often the case, at the conclusion of the battle you find Esfandyar’s last words to Rostam were:
All that has happened, happened as Fate willed.
Not you, your arrow, or the Smigorgh killed
Me here: Goshtap’s my father’s, enmity
Made you the means by which to murder me.
He ordered me back to Sistan, to turn
It to a wilderness, to slay and burn,
To suffer war’s travails: while he alone
Enjoyed the glory of his crown and throne.
I ask you to accept my son, to raise
Him in Sistan, to teach him manhood ways:
He is a wise and willing youth: from you
He’ll learn the skills of war, what he must do
At courtly banquets when the wine goes around,
How to negotiate or stand his ground,
Hunting, the game of polo – everything
That suits the education of a king
As for Jamasp*, may his accursed name
Perish, and may he waste away in shame.
*Visiar and astrologer to King Goshtap
In the context of the chapter and the book as a whole the reader comes to appreciate the Zoroastrian religion from a distance, which is woven into the warp of the story without ever introducing it as the overarching religion of influence on Persian’s, binding man to the fate of the revolving heavens. Ferdowsi speaks as this can be the only option, and for the 1,500 years it was apparently so.
Where a king’s rule is passed on through inheritance there is always a lesson the predecessor conveys to his son the new king. With the passing on of authority the young prince is first instructed in the rule of wisdom. The following is an example of the things a king would tell is prince in the passing of the throne:
“Live your life in happiness and consider fate...while one is brought up with luxury and the other is thrown bewildering and despairing into a dark pit, another is lifted from the pit and raised to a throne...The world is has no shame in doing this; it is prompt to hand out both pleasure and pain and has no need for us and our doings. Such is the way of the world that guides us to both good and evil. There are three things that cures all ills; wealth, effort, chivalrous men...the forth is that we praise God.”
It is important that readers of this review appreciate that God is the immeasurable reality of the heavens, that the stars are many but that god is one and that all are powerless beneath this law. God is not rendered a personal identity. He who does not respect this basic tenant is not worthy to be a king. The universe gives and takes equally.
As the book comes closer and closer to the current time, it was written in the 10th century, Fedowsi prepares the reader for the demise of the Sasson Kings by first presenting a king who has turned on his people and second by that king not having a son to inherit the throne. So how the Persians bought the fate through their actions is an important ingredient to their fall. It was left to fate that Islam would take her vengeance on Persia by not just reigning over them, but totally changing their way of life. Rostam, the king’s knight writes a letter to his brother that appears somewhat prophetic, or did Ferdowsi already witness the potential damage of Islam? I close this review with the portions of his letter that describes Ferdowsi’s speculation of what will happen and leave the parts that describe his feelings about his future to readers willing to delve into the book.
My thoughts on the book have me quite curious about the Zoroastrian faith. It is the precursor to our current major religions. Every time Zoroaster is brought up in the book it is a though there were no other faith. What you do read about though is the difference between good and evil or justice and injustice, which is a fundamental tenant of Zoroastrian doctrine. You read that the universe treats all man the same. It also exposes the flaws in man guided by the laws of Zoroaster. Its not the doctrine, but rather the man’s inability to fend off the magical powers of Ahrima*. And finally as Zoroastrians are compared to Muslim’s Ferdowsi casts a dark shadow over the latter and comes relatively close in his predictions as to outcomes of an Islamic Dynasty. Two things compelled me to read this book. First was the August 2008 issue of National Geographic. Second are my good friends during the time I lived in New York, Amir and Mondana who are Iranians in exile. Amir would always say to me. “Paul Iran is not Arab, we are not even Muslim at our roots. All Iran wants is to have their place as a world power at peace in the world.” He said most Iranians feel this way and we should not be misled by the current regime. This book certainly corroborates Amir’s words.
* ahrima is the Zoroastrian corollary to the Christian devil
A wise man will be saddened when he learns
Of how the moving sphere of heavens turns:
Caught in the evil clutch of Ahriman,
I am the time’s most sad and sinful man;
This house will lose all trace of sovereignty
Of royal glory, and of victory.
The sun looks down from its exalted sphere
And sees the day of our defeat draw near:
Both Mars and Venus now oppose our cause
And no man can evade the heaven’s laws.
Saturn and Mercury divide the sky –
Mercury rules the house of Gemini:
Ahead of us lie war and endless strife
Such that my failing heart despairs of life.
I see what has to be, and choose the way
Of silence since there is no more to say:
But for the Persians I will weep, and for
The House of Sasan ruined by this war:
Alas for their great crown and throne, for all
The royal splendor destined now to fall,
To be fragmented be the Arab’s might;
The stars decree for us defeat and flight.
Four hundred years will pass in which our name
Will be forgotten and devoid of fame.
But when the pulpit’s equal to the throne
And Abu Bakr’s and Omar;s names are known
Our long travails will be as naught, and all
The glory we have known will fade and fall.
The stars are with the Arabs, and you’ll see
No crown or throne, no royal sovereignty
Long says will pass, until the worthless fool
Will lead his followers and presume to rule:
They’ll dress in black, their headdress will be made
Of twisted lengths of silk or black brocade.
There’ll be no golden boots or banners then
Our crowns and thrones will not be seen again.
Some will rejoice, while others live in fear
Justice and charity will disappear,
At night , the time to hide away and sleep,
Men’s eyes will glitter to make others weep;
Strangers will rule us then, and with their might
They’ll plunder us and turn our days to night.
They will not care for just or righteous me,
Debit and fraudulence will flourish then.
Warriors will go on foot, while puffed up pride
And empty boasts will arm themselves and ride;
The peasantry will suffer from neglect,
Lineage and skill will garner no respect,
Men will be mutual thieves and have no shame,
Curses and blessings will be thought the same,
What is hidden will be worse than what is known,
And stony-hearted kings will seize the throne.
No man will trust his son, and equally
No son will trust his father’s honesty –
A misbegotten slave will rule the earth,
Greatness and lineage will have no worth,
No one will keep his word, and men will find
The tongue as filled with evil as the mind.
Then Persians, Turks, and Arabs, side by side
Will live together, mingled far and wide –
The three will blur, as if they were the same;
Their languages will be a trivial game.
Men will conceal their wealth, but when they’ve died,
Their foes will pilfer everything they hide.
Men will pretend they’re holy, or they’re wise,
To make a livelihood by telling lies.
Sorrow and anguish, bitterness and pain
Will be as happiness was in the reign
Of Bahram Gur – mankind’s accustomed fate:
There will be no feasts, no festivals of state,
No pleasures, no musicians none of these:
But there’ll be lies and traps and treacheries.
Sour milk will be our food, and course cloth our dress,
And greed for money will breed our bitterness
Between the generations: men will cheat
Each other while they calmly counterfeit
Religious faith. The winter and the spring
Will pass mankind unmarked, no one will bring
The wine to celebrate such moments then
Instead they’ll spill the blood of fellow man,
By Aboloasem Ferdowsi
This book is about the lineage of Persian Kayanid Kings and the Persian House of Sasson. With that lineage comes an evolving philosophy of man’s thought from the perspective of justice and injustice. It begins in a mythological setting and then over time evolves into a story that may have taken place in the time when Persia was great, concluding with the triumph of Islam over Persia. Through out the mythological portion of the book the author explores the concepts of what is observable reality (good, god) and contrasts that with unobservable conjecture or sorcery magic. While the lineage progresses through many kings, it is when you read of King Ardesher that you sense you are reading ancient history rather than myth. The subtle clue would be when Ferdowsi describes the king writing a letter in Palhavi, an ancient language. It is here that Ferdowsi begins the practice of dedicating whole chapters to one king’s reign. Every king has a vizier and a champion. Through these intermediaries the thought process borne in conversation brings the king to order just or unjust deeds reveals the prevailing philosophy.
The lineage of Kayanid Kings of the House of Sasson begins with quick summaries of names from the family Kayumars beginning with Siamak who is killed by a black demon, and then Hushag’s victory, where the Kayumars pursue and kill the black demon. This fast moving chronology leaves Hushag to inherit the crown, as he is the one with the royal farr and the presence of a tall cypress tree who can think with clarity, all prerequisite to inheriting the throne. The primary way in which the Persian kingdom expanded was through a sitting King doling out frontier land to his sons. In the beginning one son received Yemen, which would be today’s Middle East. Another received land in India, which would be today’s Afghanistan, and Pakistan and the third Turan, which would be today’s Turkmenistan. Feraydun’s reign was the first to go into a bit more detail. The author does this so that he can introduce the concept of a dark magic that clouds the mind of one who feels cheated. A cheated mind draws on vengeance. The brothers that were ruling Turan and India felt they did not get the favored Persia and plotted to and did kill the son who received Yemen. King Feraydon through his champion Zal who is blessed by the Zoroastrian Angel Smiorgh avenges the evil acts of his other two sons.
The early kings of Persia had much in common with early Arab kings and hence the family tree found relatives of mixed royal blood and the two peoples were very close, while rule still came from Persia. As Persia expanded its reach into India, China, and Turkmenistan they too came under the influence of Persia’s King of Kings. All gains of kingdoms came either through war, marriage or the giving of a daughter. As the family cypress tree branched the lineage of kings became difficult to track.
To garner the philosophy conveyed in this book, the reader need only to pay attention to the dialogue between warriors, or between a king and his vizier. In a reign of a king that expands or contracts finds in each battle the combatants making declarations towards the other as to why he shall prevail in the contest. For an example one of the notable champions, Rostam declares to Gorgin ''when passion overcomes wisdom no one escapes its clutches; but the wise man who overcomes passion will be a renowned lion.” A central tenant to the Zoroastrian doctrine is wisdom of which in this context Ferdowsi makes no reference to faith or doctrine as he had already weaved into the message.
In a different battle between Rostam and Esfandyar, later in the book Ferdowsi provides further dialogue that represents the notion that one man is a piece of a puzzle put together by the power of the revolving heavens giving a rationale to the concept of fate. Both Rostam and Esfandyar found honor in death, hence there was no fear, the number one obstacle to learning. Their minds and messages are clear. They were both Persian warriors the former a champion of past kings living in Arab land the latter the champion of the current Persian king. They took a sense of chivalry into every battle. In the parley dialogue you find Rostam saying:
“A noble warrior whose audacity
Lights up the world and brings him victory
Laughs at both good and evil, since he knows
Both come from God, whom no one can oppose.”
With a chapter mixed of prose and verse, which is often the case, at the conclusion of the battle you find Esfandyar’s last words to Rostam were:
All that has happened, happened as Fate willed.
Not you, your arrow, or the Smigorgh killed
Me here: Goshtap’s my father’s, enmity
Made you the means by which to murder me.
He ordered me back to Sistan, to turn
It to a wilderness, to slay and burn,
To suffer war’s travails: while he alone
Enjoyed the glory of his crown and throne.
I ask you to accept my son, to raise
Him in Sistan, to teach him manhood ways:
He is a wise and willing youth: from you
He’ll learn the skills of war, what he must do
At courtly banquets when the wine goes around,
How to negotiate or stand his ground,
Hunting, the game of polo – everything
That suits the education of a king
As for Jamasp*, may his accursed name
Perish, and may he waste away in shame.
*Visiar and astrologer to King Goshtap
In the context of the chapter and the book as a whole the reader comes to appreciate the Zoroastrian religion from a distance, which is woven into the warp of the story without ever introducing it as the overarching religion of influence on Persian’s, binding man to the fate of the revolving heavens. Ferdowsi speaks as this can be the only option, and for the 1,500 years it was apparently so.
Where a king’s rule is passed on through inheritance there is always a lesson the predecessor conveys to his son the new king. With the passing on of authority the young prince is first instructed in the rule of wisdom. The following is an example of the things a king would tell is prince in the passing of the throne:
“Live your life in happiness and consider fate...while one is brought up with luxury and the other is thrown bewildering and despairing into a dark pit, another is lifted from the pit and raised to a throne...The world is has no shame in doing this; it is prompt to hand out both pleasure and pain and has no need for us and our doings. Such is the way of the world that guides us to both good and evil. There are three things that cures all ills; wealth, effort, chivalrous men...the forth is that we praise God.”
It is important that readers of this review appreciate that God is the immeasurable reality of the heavens, that the stars are many but that god is one and that all are powerless beneath this law. God is not rendered a personal identity. He who does not respect this basic tenant is not worthy to be a king. The universe gives and takes equally.
As the book comes closer and closer to the current time, it was written in the 10th century, Fedowsi prepares the reader for the demise of the Sasson Kings by first presenting a king who has turned on his people and second by that king not having a son to inherit the throne. So how the Persians bought the fate through their actions is an important ingredient to their fall. It was left to fate that Islam would take her vengeance on Persia by not just reigning over them, but totally changing their way of life. Rostam, the king’s knight writes a letter to his brother that appears somewhat prophetic, or did Ferdowsi already witness the potential damage of Islam? I close this review with the portions of his letter that describes Ferdowsi’s speculation of what will happen and leave the parts that describe his feelings about his future to readers willing to delve into the book.
My thoughts on the book have me quite curious about the Zoroastrian faith. It is the precursor to our current major religions. Every time Zoroaster is brought up in the book it is a though there were no other faith. What you do read about though is the difference between good and evil or justice and injustice, which is a fundamental tenant of Zoroastrian doctrine. You read that the universe treats all man the same. It also exposes the flaws in man guided by the laws of Zoroaster. Its not the doctrine, but rather the man’s inability to fend off the magical powers of Ahrima*. And finally as Zoroastrians are compared to Muslim’s Ferdowsi casts a dark shadow over the latter and comes relatively close in his predictions as to outcomes of an Islamic Dynasty. Two things compelled me to read this book. First was the August 2008 issue of National Geographic. Second are my good friends during the time I lived in New York, Amir and Mondana who are Iranians in exile. Amir would always say to me. “Paul Iran is not Arab, we are not even Muslim at our roots. All Iran wants is to have their place as a world power at peace in the world.” He said most Iranians feel this way and we should not be misled by the current regime. This book certainly corroborates Amir’s words.
* ahrima is the Zoroastrian corollary to the Christian devil
A wise man will be saddened when he learns
Of how the moving sphere of heavens turns:
Caught in the evil clutch of Ahriman,
I am the time’s most sad and sinful man;
This house will lose all trace of sovereignty
Of royal glory, and of victory.
The sun looks down from its exalted sphere
And sees the day of our defeat draw near:
Both Mars and Venus now oppose our cause
And no man can evade the heaven’s laws.
Saturn and Mercury divide the sky –
Mercury rules the house of Gemini:
Ahead of us lie war and endless strife
Such that my failing heart despairs of life.
I see what has to be, and choose the way
Of silence since there is no more to say:
But for the Persians I will weep, and for
The House of Sasan ruined by this war:
Alas for their great crown and throne, for all
The royal splendor destined now to fall,
To be fragmented be the Arab’s might;
The stars decree for us defeat and flight.
Four hundred years will pass in which our name
Will be forgotten and devoid of fame.
But when the pulpit’s equal to the throne
And Abu Bakr’s and Omar;s names are known
Our long travails will be as naught, and all
The glory we have known will fade and fall.
The stars are with the Arabs, and you’ll see
No crown or throne, no royal sovereignty
Long says will pass, until the worthless fool
Will lead his followers and presume to rule:
They’ll dress in black, their headdress will be made
Of twisted lengths of silk or black brocade.
There’ll be no golden boots or banners then
Our crowns and thrones will not be seen again.
Some will rejoice, while others live in fear
Justice and charity will disappear,
At night , the time to hide away and sleep,
Men’s eyes will glitter to make others weep;
Strangers will rule us then, and with their might
They’ll plunder us and turn our days to night.
They will not care for just or righteous me,
Debit and fraudulence will flourish then.
Warriors will go on foot, while puffed up pride
And empty boasts will arm themselves and ride;
The peasantry will suffer from neglect,
Lineage and skill will garner no respect,
Men will be mutual thieves and have no shame,
Curses and blessings will be thought the same,
What is hidden will be worse than what is known,
And stony-hearted kings will seize the throne.
No man will trust his son, and equally
No son will trust his father’s honesty –
A misbegotten slave will rule the earth,
Greatness and lineage will have no worth,
No one will keep his word, and men will find
The tongue as filled with evil as the mind.
Then Persians, Turks, and Arabs, side by side
Will live together, mingled far and wide –
The three will blur, as if they were the same;
Their languages will be a trivial game.
Men will conceal their wealth, but when they’ve died,
Their foes will pilfer everything they hide.
Men will pretend they’re holy, or they’re wise,
To make a livelihood by telling lies.
Sorrow and anguish, bitterness and pain
Will be as happiness was in the reign
Of Bahram Gur – mankind’s accustomed fate:
There will be no feasts, no festivals of state,
No pleasures, no musicians none of these:
But there’ll be lies and traps and treacheries.
Sour milk will be our food, and course cloth our dress,
And greed for money will breed our bitterness
Between the generations: men will cheat
Each other while they calmly counterfeit
Religious faith. The winter and the spring
Will pass mankind unmarked, no one will bring
The wine to celebrate such moments then
Instead they’ll spill the blood of fellow man,
The Battle For God
The Battle For God
by Karen Armstrong
The book takes a historical look at the struggle of three religions to maintain a religious way of life in the modern world beginning in 1492. The author only focuses on Islam, Judaism, and Christianity as they are challenged by modernization, government, and internal conflicts within their own doctrine. The struggle takes the form in a constant conflict between logos and mythos. While science enabled society to come up with life’s explanation beginning with exploration of not only our geography, but all other sciences, religion has always looked to be the anchor in progress by justification with ultimate mythos explanation for that which science has not yet deciphered. Hence there is still today a strong hold on fundamentalism thought within all three groups.
Islam’s roots in the Koran took on many different interpretations within various regions of the Islamic world, basically because of it’s relationships with corresponding government regimes. The primary conflict is to what degree Islamic clergy, the mullah, involved themselves in government. By the Koran government should have it’s roots in the Islamic faith; yet there is constant struggle for just how to influence government. Government, would typically use the sentiment of the mullah and it’s followers to gain rule. Amidst this struggle modernization occurred for which the WEST were first at. Through domination of West over Islam, largely because of the evolution from agriculture to technology, disdain grew out of implementing western practice of science within the thought process of a Muslim mind set. Fundamentalism took the offensive in various countries and different times. They were consistently met with the same challenge: of retaining religious integrity once it entered into the world of the plural, rational and pragmatic thought.
With the exile of Muslims in Spain and the Inquisition, primarily to rid Spain of Muslims, Jews got the boot as well. Again they found themselves as a faith with no home. This time in a world exploding with scientific discovery. As they migrated to different parts of Europe, they story was the same. Typically they found themselves as second class citizens isolated in over crowded sectors of cities with limited rights and relegated to limited professions such as tailors. Again, leaders would rise to somehow rationalize their faith with their rulers in an attempt to integrate and become a part of the dominant culture. This could be achieved through spinning interpretations of the Torah to suite the need of the time. By the time Israel was founded there was also a divide between Fundamentalist and Zionist (spin doctors of the Torah).
Christianity also saw a real move to fundamentalism after the American revolution. The debates between Adams and Jefferson were stirred as well by common folks who saw the elite doctrines to look too much like what they fought against. As such there was an explosion in variation of Christian doctrine from Mormons, to Baptist and many points in between. In the end there were 10 times as many common folks practicing some form of Christianity by 1850. Yet all of these folks as well were met with the challenge of rationalizing their believes to that of scientific fact. The argument about separation of church and state carries on to this day in the likes of Falwell and Robertson. Their basic argument in their contest for power entails bargaining, and giving some ground to opponents which is difficult to square with religious visions which sees certain principals as in violable.
It is interesting that all three religions rejected moderninity, yet they were influenced by modern ideas. Which put them in a position to rationalize their faith to justify their existence. This appears to be an exercise in futility and a self destructing exercise that exposes the proper place for religion. In the end their interpretations of each of their prospective Holy Books not only put them at internal odds with each other, they find themselves in a difficult spot justifying their existence as an influence in government all together. However, fundamentalism is certainly in robust form today. Why is that? Where will it go? In the Fundamentalist quest to re-sacralize society their efforts have become aggressive, distorted, and advocates of hatred and anger. The basic message of this book is that for Fundamentalist to succeed, a more compassionate approach with a bias towards benevolence and tolerance towards their opposition and at the same time to properly address their fears and anxieties of extinction in a way that does not cause adverse movements. There seems to be a place for religion. It does provide the moral compass cardinal headings in life. Yet the means for getting there, where ever there is, appears to now be the purview of science.
by Karen Armstrong
The book takes a historical look at the struggle of three religions to maintain a religious way of life in the modern world beginning in 1492. The author only focuses on Islam, Judaism, and Christianity as they are challenged by modernization, government, and internal conflicts within their own doctrine. The struggle takes the form in a constant conflict between logos and mythos. While science enabled society to come up with life’s explanation beginning with exploration of not only our geography, but all other sciences, religion has always looked to be the anchor in progress by justification with ultimate mythos explanation for that which science has not yet deciphered. Hence there is still today a strong hold on fundamentalism thought within all three groups.
Islam’s roots in the Koran took on many different interpretations within various regions of the Islamic world, basically because of it’s relationships with corresponding government regimes. The primary conflict is to what degree Islamic clergy, the mullah, involved themselves in government. By the Koran government should have it’s roots in the Islamic faith; yet there is constant struggle for just how to influence government. Government, would typically use the sentiment of the mullah and it’s followers to gain rule. Amidst this struggle modernization occurred for which the WEST were first at. Through domination of West over Islam, largely because of the evolution from agriculture to technology, disdain grew out of implementing western practice of science within the thought process of a Muslim mind set. Fundamentalism took the offensive in various countries and different times. They were consistently met with the same challenge: of retaining religious integrity once it entered into the world of the plural, rational and pragmatic thought.
With the exile of Muslims in Spain and the Inquisition, primarily to rid Spain of Muslims, Jews got the boot as well. Again they found themselves as a faith with no home. This time in a world exploding with scientific discovery. As they migrated to different parts of Europe, they story was the same. Typically they found themselves as second class citizens isolated in over crowded sectors of cities with limited rights and relegated to limited professions such as tailors. Again, leaders would rise to somehow rationalize their faith with their rulers in an attempt to integrate and become a part of the dominant culture. This could be achieved through spinning interpretations of the Torah to suite the need of the time. By the time Israel was founded there was also a divide between Fundamentalist and Zionist (spin doctors of the Torah).
Christianity also saw a real move to fundamentalism after the American revolution. The debates between Adams and Jefferson were stirred as well by common folks who saw the elite doctrines to look too much like what they fought against. As such there was an explosion in variation of Christian doctrine from Mormons, to Baptist and many points in between. In the end there were 10 times as many common folks practicing some form of Christianity by 1850. Yet all of these folks as well were met with the challenge of rationalizing their believes to that of scientific fact. The argument about separation of church and state carries on to this day in the likes of Falwell and Robertson. Their basic argument in their contest for power entails bargaining, and giving some ground to opponents which is difficult to square with religious visions which sees certain principals as in violable.
It is interesting that all three religions rejected moderninity, yet they were influenced by modern ideas. Which put them in a position to rationalize their faith to justify their existence. This appears to be an exercise in futility and a self destructing exercise that exposes the proper place for religion. In the end their interpretations of each of their prospective Holy Books not only put them at internal odds with each other, they find themselves in a difficult spot justifying their existence as an influence in government all together. However, fundamentalism is certainly in robust form today. Why is that? Where will it go? In the Fundamentalist quest to re-sacralize society their efforts have become aggressive, distorted, and advocates of hatred and anger. The basic message of this book is that for Fundamentalist to succeed, a more compassionate approach with a bias towards benevolence and tolerance towards their opposition and at the same time to properly address their fears and anxieties of extinction in a way that does not cause adverse movements. There seems to be a place for religion. It does provide the moral compass cardinal headings in life. Yet the means for getting there, where ever there is, appears to now be the purview of science.
Churchill’s Folly
Churchill’s Folly
by Christopher Catherwood
This book is a history book spanning a short three-year period of time in the Middle East following WWI. The title suggests there is an agenda to foil the reputation of Sir Winston Churchill. It suggests that history should blame Winston Churchill for the boarders and subsequent 80 years of turmoil culminating to our situation in Iraq today. As Catherwood lets the pedals of his story unfold, the bloom of his story finds the British Prime minister pulling the strings rendering our poor Churchill a puppet of shortsighted policy. This is not to let Churchill entirely off the hook; as his prime agenda was British centric with sole aim to reduce British financial Mesopotamian exposure. This stands out as his Achilles Heel and there is a corollary lesson to be learned in today’s Iraq. It is a lesson that Senator Barak Obama is blind to and Senator McCain, gives his full appreciation. But let me ask you, which title would sell more books’ Lloyd George’s Folly, or Churchill’s Folly.
Catherwood creates a backdrop to the “folly” first by describing a snap shot of history of the Middle East beginning with the family Ur. I get no further than the 2nd page and I learn the word anachronism and the family Ur, the beginning lineage of Abraham began in Iraq, is in opposition to Michener’s book “The Source” where Ur began in Israel. You also learn that the Fertile Crescent is limited to the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and Israel has nothing to do with Fertile Land. By page 38 the reader is briefed on the history of the Middle East, which I found pretty concise. Added to the backdrop is a brief dossier on Churchill where the reader is then is introduced to Churchill’s fallibility. The son of a politician, he began as a liberal, and switched parties a few times in the early part of his career. Causes were more important to him than party. He is known to have had key failures leading to political exile. The first prominent one was Galapoli, which draws in Lloyd-George and haunts him throughout the book. I found it interesting to read in this book that in 1919 Britain was the largest Muslim power in the world. Finally Catherwood addresses what I call counter history where he disputes other historians including Sir Lawrence of Arabia.
Churchill was basically sent to the Middle East to settle on boarders for the area of land designated to Britain in 1919 as their sphere of influence (see my review on 1919). His mandate was to withdraw from the region with limited exposure. His challenges were first the Sykes-Picot Agreement when exposed appeared colonialist to the Arabs. Second was imperialism, as much with Feisal’s imperialism as British/French. Feisal was in import dictator. A case is made for the British to divert the alleged betrayal of the Arabs by the West on to Kemal Ataturk, who abolished the Caliph rule in the new Turkey. While not the main focus of the book the Greek-Turkey and the Palestine situations were also included as distractions to Churchill’s decisions in Iraq.
The appointment of Feisal as ruler of Iraq set in motion a minority rule of Sunni over Shia. The irony in today’s problems as portrayed in this book is there were ''democratically '' appointed Sunni Caliphs and Shia were not. Catherwood suggests installing a democracy goes against the majority within the boarders yet to be settled on. Outside the book however we find Iran is also ruled from a democratic foundation, albeit heavily influenced by Shia Umma. The reader learns that local leaders Naqib and Sayyid had aspirations to rule Iraq and this would have been in the interest of Iraqi’s. However this would have gone against the promises made to the Arabs that spawned from the British – France Sykes-Picot Agreement and perpetuated through the agenda Sir Lawrence of Arabia.
Pressure on Churchill for withdrawal came from five directions. First was Churchill’s penchant for an appointment to be the Exchequer of Britain, hence his overbearing conservative fiscal focus. Second a case is made for Churchill to appease the people of Mesopotamia as Britain was stretched too thin after the war. This plus the social discord and fighting in Britain was much the same as today. Britain walked away from an unsolved problem that they perpetuated. In 70 years what has changed both internally in any World Power country and internationally amongst the World Powers? Will we ever learn?
The third force in Churchill’s folly was Lloyd George second-guessing the decision to fight Turkey in 1914-1915 in Iraq. Had we left Kurdistan to Turkey, imagine its oil wealth Turkey, a democratically ruled and Western leaning country would hold today. Imagine that oil wealth in a democratic nation striving as hard as they do to be a part of the E U. That is indeed what is hoped for today in Iraq. Forth, in 1914-15 the prevailing world strategy was centered around colonialism, hence the Suez Cannel, hence Egypt. Fifth it was Sir Allenby and Sir Lawrence that pushed Hashemite rule in 1915 and on through this book. These five cards happened to be the only hand Churchill could play. He came to realize he was playing a losing hand while he was playing it. Hence the title of the book, Folly, which is as unfair as conceded in the letter Lloyd-George wrote to Churchill after he dealt the cards.
With Churchill’s dealt hand he formed a commission referred to by historians including Catherwood as Forty Thieves. Catherwood portrays Churchill’s task of bringing a consensus in Cairo in what was cast as a fate accompli as dictated by 10 Downing Street. It was a fate accompli giving Iraqi rule to the Hashimites’, Abdullah and clan. Israel was brought into the mix as well as Kurdistan only to represent distraction to Churchill in this book. At that time there were ''the people'' and a cause, and a rationale in both regions; but their was no leader to take immediate control and provide economic relief to the money thrown at the collapsed Ottoman Empire.
Churchill’s consistent refrain in Cairo was money driven. He had aspirations to head up the Exchequer in London so he sought all ideas that got Britain out of Iraq ASAP. Other factors contributing to the folly of decisions made in Cairo were France’s need for Aslace-Lorainne, a strong consideration for inclusion of Kurds into Iraq was to accelerate a reduction of British forces in lieu of Kurds to fend off Turkey. I have to make a note in the irony of the Kurds being commissioned by Turkey to exterminate Armenia only to be later met with Britain using the Kurds against Turkey and finally the Kurds being left with no sovereignty. I guess crime and violence that comes with being a “hired gun” doesn’t pay.
It was also interesting to read when the Allies liberated Arabs from Turkish rule; they also entitled them to a new rule over Kurds and Mesopotamians. They complied with Wilson’s 14 Points and violated them at the same time. Churchill’s did contemplate but did not execute on withdrawal plans to Basra that would have put in to affect the same partitions in Iraq as what Joe Biden proposes today, excluding a sovereign Kurdistan. Is there a final justice to be found in this equation? Imagine a Western leaning Turkey with expanded boarders to include Iraq’s northern providence, southern Kurdistan. Turkey would have oil wealth, but would they welcome in the large voice of the Kurds? Would the international voice accept this? All of a sudden Biden’s idea, while worth a closer examination, has question marks.
What Catherwood suggests in conclusion is that the job done right would have Churchill looking for a legitimate leader in the eyes of the people with a keen sense for a national identity coalesced around a.) A united international cause, b.) A shared enemy, c.) Separation of church and state, d.) Democratic process, or e.) Revert back to Ottoman style of local government, which is essentially to teach western city government, f.) Teach world humanities, g.) Focus/unite on economy, h.) Re focus on people assets. From 1921 to 1958 the government changed hands 58 times. Today in 2008 we need to be complete and on purpose this time or we may just be that common enemy.
by Christopher Catherwood
This book is a history book spanning a short three-year period of time in the Middle East following WWI. The title suggests there is an agenda to foil the reputation of Sir Winston Churchill. It suggests that history should blame Winston Churchill for the boarders and subsequent 80 years of turmoil culminating to our situation in Iraq today. As Catherwood lets the pedals of his story unfold, the bloom of his story finds the British Prime minister pulling the strings rendering our poor Churchill a puppet of shortsighted policy. This is not to let Churchill entirely off the hook; as his prime agenda was British centric with sole aim to reduce British financial Mesopotamian exposure. This stands out as his Achilles Heel and there is a corollary lesson to be learned in today’s Iraq. It is a lesson that Senator Barak Obama is blind to and Senator McCain, gives his full appreciation. But let me ask you, which title would sell more books’ Lloyd George’s Folly, or Churchill’s Folly.
Catherwood creates a backdrop to the “folly” first by describing a snap shot of history of the Middle East beginning with the family Ur. I get no further than the 2nd page and I learn the word anachronism and the family Ur, the beginning lineage of Abraham began in Iraq, is in opposition to Michener’s book “The Source” where Ur began in Israel. You also learn that the Fertile Crescent is limited to the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and Israel has nothing to do with Fertile Land. By page 38 the reader is briefed on the history of the Middle East, which I found pretty concise. Added to the backdrop is a brief dossier on Churchill where the reader is then is introduced to Churchill’s fallibility. The son of a politician, he began as a liberal, and switched parties a few times in the early part of his career. Causes were more important to him than party. He is known to have had key failures leading to political exile. The first prominent one was Galapoli, which draws in Lloyd-George and haunts him throughout the book. I found it interesting to read in this book that in 1919 Britain was the largest Muslim power in the world. Finally Catherwood addresses what I call counter history where he disputes other historians including Sir Lawrence of Arabia.
Churchill was basically sent to the Middle East to settle on boarders for the area of land designated to Britain in 1919 as their sphere of influence (see my review on 1919). His mandate was to withdraw from the region with limited exposure. His challenges were first the Sykes-Picot Agreement when exposed appeared colonialist to the Arabs. Second was imperialism, as much with Feisal’s imperialism as British/French. Feisal was in import dictator. A case is made for the British to divert the alleged betrayal of the Arabs by the West on to Kemal Ataturk, who abolished the Caliph rule in the new Turkey. While not the main focus of the book the Greek-Turkey and the Palestine situations were also included as distractions to Churchill’s decisions in Iraq.
The appointment of Feisal as ruler of Iraq set in motion a minority rule of Sunni over Shia. The irony in today’s problems as portrayed in this book is there were ''democratically '' appointed Sunni Caliphs and Shia were not. Catherwood suggests installing a democracy goes against the majority within the boarders yet to be settled on. Outside the book however we find Iran is also ruled from a democratic foundation, albeit heavily influenced by Shia Umma. The reader learns that local leaders Naqib and Sayyid had aspirations to rule Iraq and this would have been in the interest of Iraqi’s. However this would have gone against the promises made to the Arabs that spawned from the British – France Sykes-Picot Agreement and perpetuated through the agenda Sir Lawrence of Arabia.
Pressure on Churchill for withdrawal came from five directions. First was Churchill’s penchant for an appointment to be the Exchequer of Britain, hence his overbearing conservative fiscal focus. Second a case is made for Churchill to appease the people of Mesopotamia as Britain was stretched too thin after the war. This plus the social discord and fighting in Britain was much the same as today. Britain walked away from an unsolved problem that they perpetuated. In 70 years what has changed both internally in any World Power country and internationally amongst the World Powers? Will we ever learn?
The third force in Churchill’s folly was Lloyd George second-guessing the decision to fight Turkey in 1914-1915 in Iraq. Had we left Kurdistan to Turkey, imagine its oil wealth Turkey, a democratically ruled and Western leaning country would hold today. Imagine that oil wealth in a democratic nation striving as hard as they do to be a part of the E U. That is indeed what is hoped for today in Iraq. Forth, in 1914-15 the prevailing world strategy was centered around colonialism, hence the Suez Cannel, hence Egypt. Fifth it was Sir Allenby and Sir Lawrence that pushed Hashemite rule in 1915 and on through this book. These five cards happened to be the only hand Churchill could play. He came to realize he was playing a losing hand while he was playing it. Hence the title of the book, Folly, which is as unfair as conceded in the letter Lloyd-George wrote to Churchill after he dealt the cards.
With Churchill’s dealt hand he formed a commission referred to by historians including Catherwood as Forty Thieves. Catherwood portrays Churchill’s task of bringing a consensus in Cairo in what was cast as a fate accompli as dictated by 10 Downing Street. It was a fate accompli giving Iraqi rule to the Hashimites’, Abdullah and clan. Israel was brought into the mix as well as Kurdistan only to represent distraction to Churchill in this book. At that time there were ''the people'' and a cause, and a rationale in both regions; but their was no leader to take immediate control and provide economic relief to the money thrown at the collapsed Ottoman Empire.
Churchill’s consistent refrain in Cairo was money driven. He had aspirations to head up the Exchequer in London so he sought all ideas that got Britain out of Iraq ASAP. Other factors contributing to the folly of decisions made in Cairo were France’s need for Aslace-Lorainne, a strong consideration for inclusion of Kurds into Iraq was to accelerate a reduction of British forces in lieu of Kurds to fend off Turkey. I have to make a note in the irony of the Kurds being commissioned by Turkey to exterminate Armenia only to be later met with Britain using the Kurds against Turkey and finally the Kurds being left with no sovereignty. I guess crime and violence that comes with being a “hired gun” doesn’t pay.
It was also interesting to read when the Allies liberated Arabs from Turkish rule; they also entitled them to a new rule over Kurds and Mesopotamians. They complied with Wilson’s 14 Points and violated them at the same time. Churchill’s did contemplate but did not execute on withdrawal plans to Basra that would have put in to affect the same partitions in Iraq as what Joe Biden proposes today, excluding a sovereign Kurdistan. Is there a final justice to be found in this equation? Imagine a Western leaning Turkey with expanded boarders to include Iraq’s northern providence, southern Kurdistan. Turkey would have oil wealth, but would they welcome in the large voice of the Kurds? Would the international voice accept this? All of a sudden Biden’s idea, while worth a closer examination, has question marks.
What Catherwood suggests in conclusion is that the job done right would have Churchill looking for a legitimate leader in the eyes of the people with a keen sense for a national identity coalesced around a.) A united international cause, b.) A shared enemy, c.) Separation of church and state, d.) Democratic process, or e.) Revert back to Ottoman style of local government, which is essentially to teach western city government, f.) Teach world humanities, g.) Focus/unite on economy, h.) Re focus on people assets. From 1921 to 1958 the government changed hands 58 times. Today in 2008 we need to be complete and on purpose this time or we may just be that common enemy.
The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam
The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam
By Robert Spencer
While I was in an airport traveling from here to there, a destination forgotten, I encountered and Egyptian man who overheard my disgruntled comment on the less than truthful press being blasted over the TV monitor to those waiting for their plane. As we boarded he approached me and said, “my friend I see you are disturbed by the views of your press.” He went on saying “ I am Egyptian and converted from Muslim to Christian, you Americans do not know the whole story of Islam therefore cannot understand the truth.” He recommended this book to me. The following is my review and reaction. I will begin by saying that if you are one to be easily upset by opposing views, this review and the book are not for you. It may be politically incorrect.
I believe the author’s intent was to cause a paradigm shift in the Western readers mind. He strikes an alarm bell as to why one should wake up from a sleepy passive acceptance of a force aimed at ones freedom. Our Western Civilization thrives in a Democracy where elected government and constitutional law prevail. Why do democratic governments not feel threatened by the possibility of actually being subjugated to Sharia Law of Islam? A democracy has the mechanism to institutionalize a separate church and state to a degree the people find acceptable. They secure this with a military that can fend off an invasion of ideals that would oppress their people.
However the political culture Islam proscribes is quite different. In Islam, Sharia Law provides a continuance of Islamic rule and dominance over your free will. The “laws of thought” that serve as the core of this dominance are found written in many places in the Qur’an (Koran). The Hadith (more Islamic documents) interpretations put into law that which is written in the Qu’ran. Why do Muslims insist on Sharia Law? Sharia Law secures a physical disciplinary consequence to those who go against what is written in the Qur’an, thereby providing a legal mechanism of population control that cannot be contested without a fight to the finish.
So you could then respond with the aged old cliché that religion is the root cause of all wars. The paradigm shift nestled in this book is that it is not the religious practices that the West should be concerned but rather the Sharia Law (which really by default is a religious practice) that comes with it. The author sets course on a brief history lesson to put the word Crusades in perspective suitable to allow a paradigm shift to occur. The Crusades: where they religions wars or were they really a fight for individual rights? So lets follow the author’s thinking as he sets the basis for the propagation of Islam and then wraps it in a brief historical review.
Islam’s call to war is quoted over 100 different places in the Qur’an in this book. It is then trumpeted by the modern interpretations taught in four leading schools on Islam where readings from the Hadith and Islam Law books, derivatives of the Koran galvanize a religion founded in war. The Hadith translates the ancient language of the Koran into a context that can be understood today. The book points out that Osama bin Laden’s readings after September 11, were from the Law Books on Islam calling for three options for non-Muslims.
i. Accept Islam (convert)
ii. Pay the jizya, the poll tax on non-Muslims, which is the cornerstone of an entire system of “Dhimmitude” is to humiliate non-Muslims.
iii. War with Muslims
The historical timeline of Islam finds Mohammad warring first with his kin in Arabia and then his successors carried it forward across Northern Africa, Spain and Eastern Europe from 639 through 1100. The Christians began their Crusade Wars, first called for by Pope Urban in the 11th Century and these lasted about 250 years. Yes it is again cliché to indict the Catholic Church for a call to action actions carried out by noble men of realms of the Western World. Not to say that the Church was without it’s own faults, the call for defense of Christianity was championed by noble men, among them from England, Richard the Lionhearted and from France, Godfrey of Bouillon. Not all battles were directly attributed to the Church nor do historians agree upon their descriptions. The Crusade Wars did not result in the colonization of lands or the building of any Empire under the flag of the Catholic Church or any Kingdom’s flag. But rather Muslims were allowed to live freely in the land won back by Christians. This is of course not the case in Muslim territory where Christians were subjected to cruel treatment called Dhimmitude; which for better understanding amongst us modern Westerners could be correlated to Hitler’s treatment of the Jews. The Crusades came to an end when Western Europe became preoccupied with their own battles. The Muslim Turks took advantage of the situation and snatched much of Eastern Europe; we knew that land as the Ottoman Empire until 1918,
The book demonstrates that the Crusades were not a Christian conquest of Islam, but rather they were a series of battles to gain back Europe’s civil rights. And yes it was a brutal fight for freedom. So were our American Revolution and the Civil War. To apologize for this would be like apologizing to Hitler, Genghis Kahn, Sadam Hussein, Milosovich or any other brutal person who led the abuse and oppression of a society. The book indirectly poses this question: if I were put in a position to apologize, would I rather make an apology to this list of men than find myself apologizing to my children and family around me for not standing up to or waking up to the realities of disparate ideologies that could by design deny you the freedoms of choice.
So: to apply the lessons of the past to the modern world, why should the Western World be on guard against Islam? Sharia Law as it is levied by the authority of Mohammed and administered by the practitioners of the Islamic faith.
a. Islam is a religion of war. The Qur’an is a book of war, if a warrior wrote the Qur’an it is likely that his words promote dominance by force. The books sites many verse from the Qur’an as evidence to the affirmative.
b. Mohammad is a Prophet of War, Islam was spread by the sword right from the very beginning.
c. Islam promotes one to lie, steal, and kill. The Qur’an preaches a peaceful society amongst Muslims, but promotes jihad using and tactic of deceit to not just vanquish “non-believers but to mutilate them.” I write this reaction to make a point also made in the book where the Koran is clear that according to their Allah when a Muslim engages in war they don’t just kill their foe, but to mutilate them and parade them around in order to humiliate them. We saw this in Mogadishu and we are now seeing it in Iraq. This is what we in the West should have been prepared for. (example: the female aid worker who’s naked torso (minus limbs and head) was thrown into the street in Iraq)
d. Islam oppresses women
e. Islam is anti-Science
f. Islamic Unity, today’s jihads are orchestrated to return the world to Islamic rule much like the 700+ years they experienced from 600 to 1400
In the face of these realities Islamophobia has become a real word with ominous consequence. As I read the pages of this book and reflected back to the news clips where the visual was always the shot of bin Laden shooting an automatic weapon and the audio was a brief sound byte of a declaration of war on America. It seems the news glossed over the importance of those words and have since buried them. I say this because this book makes it two things clear: first, Islam’s doctrine is to wage war against non-Muslims and that means this doctrine could come from any country that stands fanatically behind the Koran. Second, unlike most Westerners (who are not well-studied on Islam), Muslims are well studied on the West as they view us through their Koran-based paradigm.
The most critical path we are on regarding Islamophobia; the author sites cases now in Western Courts putting freedom of speech is at risk. There are cases abroad where people who have spoken against Islam were tried and convicted for “hate crimes”. This is contrary to Muslim activity where they are allowed to “spin” terrorist activity to find justification. It is also contrary to Muslim activity were they can publicly assemble and shout words in affirmation to the likes of Osama bin Laden as was the case in Dearborn Michigan. Yes, our reaction to the human bombs against innocent people or the hanging of soldiers could always begin with shock of the morbid brutality of their actions. But then the educated mind would react to this not with a call to decease; but rational call to vanquish such hostile behavior. And to be clear I am not promoting killing, I am promoting the abolition of the behavior. When I contrast Abu Garab to the burning and hanging of Americans from a bridge, I peel back to the next layer of the onion to the people’s reaction. Our Christian dominated West reacted with apology and corrective action. The Muslims paraded in the streets. We should expect more of the same from them. And to the next layer this book goes against everything that is politically correct and brings out a comparative analysis of the teachings of each faith to explain why.
The author provides a solution that is spread across our government, the press, and we the people. The government must draw a harder line with other governments who promote Sharia Law, and the oppression of human rights. The author writes “If any moderate Islam project were to succeed, it will do so only by identifying elements in Islam that give rise to violence…” I would start with countries that allow madrassas and terrorist training camps. The press must start telling the whole truth as opposed to reporting only facts that support their views. We the people need to bone up on exactly what this “war on terror” is all about. The author writes, “This is not a war on terror. Terror is a tactic not an opponent. To wage a war on terror is like waging a war on bombs. Refusal to identify the enemy is extremely dangerous: It leaves those who refuse vulnerable to being blind sided.” The enemy is the teaching of Islam. Yes, “fundamentalist” are said to have hijacked a faith. But Islam is a faith where its origin and continued practice is in war. Rather than wage a war on weapons of mass destruction would “we the people” have allowed our current president, actually say it is good enough to wage a war on those countries that hold and promote the ideals of fundamental Islam. Presidents Wilson and Roosevelt could not take the country to war on ideals, so what makes Bush any different. The answer is magically “NO; because that would be intermixing church and state and using our military to do so. Only Lincoln was allowed to wage a war on disparate ideals. But could we rather wage a war on those that promote the ideals of Islam and the subsequent Sharia Law…”we the people” would have to first become as educated about our enemy as they are of us. We would have to learn how to separate Islam from Sharia Law and War.
This war we are currently engaged in that began when? …in 2003, 2001, 1991, 1967, 1943, 1400, it is a war that Mohammad began on the deserts between Mecca and Medina against his own people who at the time were non-Muslims. That conquest left much of Europe in the hands of Muslims, exposed to the brutal consequence of Sharia law. I have been to “Chop-Chop Square” as Westerners call it In Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and yes they still have public stoning and the like. What is driven home in this book is that Islamic way of life well rooted in the bedrock of the Koran and is beyond belief and faith. It is a real call to war against anyone, Muslim or non-Muslim not practicing the words of the Koran
The author’s basic tenant is that the Qur’an and its complimentary Hadith are at the root of much of the dysfunctional social outcomes of Islam. One who is not familiar with these characteristics may find the book to be a militant call to arms. Given that the author dedicates only 270 pages to his two themes, combined with his casual vernacular, makes it a target for criticism. And as such you could say he has fueled the flames of a 1400-year conflict. However, first there is 1400 years of history leaving a trail that while Islamic society may give ground to individual freedom for periods of time, there comes a point that they violently snap back. Second, the doctrine of Islam is destructive to its own well-being. Third, it is Islamic doctrine that Muslims must dominate the world through any means.
Could it have been possible for President Bush or any American President to say in 2001 that this war is not a war on terror but a war on Islamic fundamentalist? Albeit the case, for political correctness he had to spin his call to war on the “Terrorists” “of any ilk” and then on Iraq (one of such ilk) with an eminent threat called weapons of mass destruction. He could have gone in a different direction when he said “you are either with us or your are against us”. That is where he (and we the people) went wrong. However, would history then put Bush along side Pope Urban as starting a religious war that has been in fact on-going, when all he was doing was proactively defending freedom. The author does leave you with a call to action. First, he is prodding you to wake up to reality. Second, whatever we do to defend ourselves, know what we are defending; our free(d) will.
Related web sites:
http://jihadwatch.org/
http://answering-islam.org.uk/
http://answering-islam.org.uk/Authors/Arlandson/top_ten_shar
ia.htm
By Robert Spencer
While I was in an airport traveling from here to there, a destination forgotten, I encountered and Egyptian man who overheard my disgruntled comment on the less than truthful press being blasted over the TV monitor to those waiting for their plane. As we boarded he approached me and said, “my friend I see you are disturbed by the views of your press.” He went on saying “ I am Egyptian and converted from Muslim to Christian, you Americans do not know the whole story of Islam therefore cannot understand the truth.” He recommended this book to me. The following is my review and reaction. I will begin by saying that if you are one to be easily upset by opposing views, this review and the book are not for you. It may be politically incorrect.
I believe the author’s intent was to cause a paradigm shift in the Western readers mind. He strikes an alarm bell as to why one should wake up from a sleepy passive acceptance of a force aimed at ones freedom. Our Western Civilization thrives in a Democracy where elected government and constitutional law prevail. Why do democratic governments not feel threatened by the possibility of actually being subjugated to Sharia Law of Islam? A democracy has the mechanism to institutionalize a separate church and state to a degree the people find acceptable. They secure this with a military that can fend off an invasion of ideals that would oppress their people.
However the political culture Islam proscribes is quite different. In Islam, Sharia Law provides a continuance of Islamic rule and dominance over your free will. The “laws of thought” that serve as the core of this dominance are found written in many places in the Qur’an (Koran). The Hadith (more Islamic documents) interpretations put into law that which is written in the Qu’ran. Why do Muslims insist on Sharia Law? Sharia Law secures a physical disciplinary consequence to those who go against what is written in the Qur’an, thereby providing a legal mechanism of population control that cannot be contested without a fight to the finish.
So you could then respond with the aged old cliché that religion is the root cause of all wars. The paradigm shift nestled in this book is that it is not the religious practices that the West should be concerned but rather the Sharia Law (which really by default is a religious practice) that comes with it. The author sets course on a brief history lesson to put the word Crusades in perspective suitable to allow a paradigm shift to occur. The Crusades: where they religions wars or were they really a fight for individual rights? So lets follow the author’s thinking as he sets the basis for the propagation of Islam and then wraps it in a brief historical review.
Islam’s call to war is quoted over 100 different places in the Qur’an in this book. It is then trumpeted by the modern interpretations taught in four leading schools on Islam where readings from the Hadith and Islam Law books, derivatives of the Koran galvanize a religion founded in war. The Hadith translates the ancient language of the Koran into a context that can be understood today. The book points out that Osama bin Laden’s readings after September 11, were from the Law Books on Islam calling for three options for non-Muslims.
i. Accept Islam (convert)
ii. Pay the jizya, the poll tax on non-Muslims, which is the cornerstone of an entire system of “Dhimmitude” is to humiliate non-Muslims.
iii. War with Muslims
The historical timeline of Islam finds Mohammad warring first with his kin in Arabia and then his successors carried it forward across Northern Africa, Spain and Eastern Europe from 639 through 1100. The Christians began their Crusade Wars, first called for by Pope Urban in the 11th Century and these lasted about 250 years. Yes it is again cliché to indict the Catholic Church for a call to action actions carried out by noble men of realms of the Western World. Not to say that the Church was without it’s own faults, the call for defense of Christianity was championed by noble men, among them from England, Richard the Lionhearted and from France, Godfrey of Bouillon. Not all battles were directly attributed to the Church nor do historians agree upon their descriptions. The Crusade Wars did not result in the colonization of lands or the building of any Empire under the flag of the Catholic Church or any Kingdom’s flag. But rather Muslims were allowed to live freely in the land won back by Christians. This is of course not the case in Muslim territory where Christians were subjected to cruel treatment called Dhimmitude; which for better understanding amongst us modern Westerners could be correlated to Hitler’s treatment of the Jews. The Crusades came to an end when Western Europe became preoccupied with their own battles. The Muslim Turks took advantage of the situation and snatched much of Eastern Europe; we knew that land as the Ottoman Empire until 1918,
The book demonstrates that the Crusades were not a Christian conquest of Islam, but rather they were a series of battles to gain back Europe’s civil rights. And yes it was a brutal fight for freedom. So were our American Revolution and the Civil War. To apologize for this would be like apologizing to Hitler, Genghis Kahn, Sadam Hussein, Milosovich or any other brutal person who led the abuse and oppression of a society. The book indirectly poses this question: if I were put in a position to apologize, would I rather make an apology to this list of men than find myself apologizing to my children and family around me for not standing up to or waking up to the realities of disparate ideologies that could by design deny you the freedoms of choice.
So: to apply the lessons of the past to the modern world, why should the Western World be on guard against Islam? Sharia Law as it is levied by the authority of Mohammed and administered by the practitioners of the Islamic faith.
a. Islam is a religion of war. The Qur’an is a book of war, if a warrior wrote the Qur’an it is likely that his words promote dominance by force. The books sites many verse from the Qur’an as evidence to the affirmative.
b. Mohammad is a Prophet of War, Islam was spread by the sword right from the very beginning.
c. Islam promotes one to lie, steal, and kill. The Qur’an preaches a peaceful society amongst Muslims, but promotes jihad using and tactic of deceit to not just vanquish “non-believers but to mutilate them.” I write this reaction to make a point also made in the book where the Koran is clear that according to their Allah when a Muslim engages in war they don’t just kill their foe, but to mutilate them and parade them around in order to humiliate them. We saw this in Mogadishu and we are now seeing it in Iraq. This is what we in the West should have been prepared for. (example: the female aid worker who’s naked torso (minus limbs and head) was thrown into the street in Iraq)
d. Islam oppresses women
e. Islam is anti-Science
f. Islamic Unity, today’s jihads are orchestrated to return the world to Islamic rule much like the 700+ years they experienced from 600 to 1400
In the face of these realities Islamophobia has become a real word with ominous consequence. As I read the pages of this book and reflected back to the news clips where the visual was always the shot of bin Laden shooting an automatic weapon and the audio was a brief sound byte of a declaration of war on America. It seems the news glossed over the importance of those words and have since buried them. I say this because this book makes it two things clear: first, Islam’s doctrine is to wage war against non-Muslims and that means this doctrine could come from any country that stands fanatically behind the Koran. Second, unlike most Westerners (who are not well-studied on Islam), Muslims are well studied on the West as they view us through their Koran-based paradigm.
The most critical path we are on regarding Islamophobia; the author sites cases now in Western Courts putting freedom of speech is at risk. There are cases abroad where people who have spoken against Islam were tried and convicted for “hate crimes”. This is contrary to Muslim activity where they are allowed to “spin” terrorist activity to find justification. It is also contrary to Muslim activity were they can publicly assemble and shout words in affirmation to the likes of Osama bin Laden as was the case in Dearborn Michigan. Yes, our reaction to the human bombs against innocent people or the hanging of soldiers could always begin with shock of the morbid brutality of their actions. But then the educated mind would react to this not with a call to decease; but rational call to vanquish such hostile behavior. And to be clear I am not promoting killing, I am promoting the abolition of the behavior. When I contrast Abu Garab to the burning and hanging of Americans from a bridge, I peel back to the next layer of the onion to the people’s reaction. Our Christian dominated West reacted with apology and corrective action. The Muslims paraded in the streets. We should expect more of the same from them. And to the next layer this book goes against everything that is politically correct and brings out a comparative analysis of the teachings of each faith to explain why.
The author provides a solution that is spread across our government, the press, and we the people. The government must draw a harder line with other governments who promote Sharia Law, and the oppression of human rights. The author writes “If any moderate Islam project were to succeed, it will do so only by identifying elements in Islam that give rise to violence…” I would start with countries that allow madrassas and terrorist training camps. The press must start telling the whole truth as opposed to reporting only facts that support their views. We the people need to bone up on exactly what this “war on terror” is all about. The author writes, “This is not a war on terror. Terror is a tactic not an opponent. To wage a war on terror is like waging a war on bombs. Refusal to identify the enemy is extremely dangerous: It leaves those who refuse vulnerable to being blind sided.” The enemy is the teaching of Islam. Yes, “fundamentalist” are said to have hijacked a faith. But Islam is a faith where its origin and continued practice is in war. Rather than wage a war on weapons of mass destruction would “we the people” have allowed our current president, actually say it is good enough to wage a war on those countries that hold and promote the ideals of fundamental Islam. Presidents Wilson and Roosevelt could not take the country to war on ideals, so what makes Bush any different. The answer is magically “NO; because that would be intermixing church and state and using our military to do so. Only Lincoln was allowed to wage a war on disparate ideals. But could we rather wage a war on those that promote the ideals of Islam and the subsequent Sharia Law…”we the people” would have to first become as educated about our enemy as they are of us. We would have to learn how to separate Islam from Sharia Law and War.
This war we are currently engaged in that began when? …in 2003, 2001, 1991, 1967, 1943, 1400, it is a war that Mohammad began on the deserts between Mecca and Medina against his own people who at the time were non-Muslims. That conquest left much of Europe in the hands of Muslims, exposed to the brutal consequence of Sharia law. I have been to “Chop-Chop Square” as Westerners call it In Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and yes they still have public stoning and the like. What is driven home in this book is that Islamic way of life well rooted in the bedrock of the Koran and is beyond belief and faith. It is a real call to war against anyone, Muslim or non-Muslim not practicing the words of the Koran
The author’s basic tenant is that the Qur’an and its complimentary Hadith are at the root of much of the dysfunctional social outcomes of Islam. One who is not familiar with these characteristics may find the book to be a militant call to arms. Given that the author dedicates only 270 pages to his two themes, combined with his casual vernacular, makes it a target for criticism. And as such you could say he has fueled the flames of a 1400-year conflict. However, first there is 1400 years of history leaving a trail that while Islamic society may give ground to individual freedom for periods of time, there comes a point that they violently snap back. Second, the doctrine of Islam is destructive to its own well-being. Third, it is Islamic doctrine that Muslims must dominate the world through any means.
Could it have been possible for President Bush or any American President to say in 2001 that this war is not a war on terror but a war on Islamic fundamentalist? Albeit the case, for political correctness he had to spin his call to war on the “Terrorists” “of any ilk” and then on Iraq (one of such ilk) with an eminent threat called weapons of mass destruction. He could have gone in a different direction when he said “you are either with us or your are against us”. That is where he (and we the people) went wrong. However, would history then put Bush along side Pope Urban as starting a religious war that has been in fact on-going, when all he was doing was proactively defending freedom. The author does leave you with a call to action. First, he is prodding you to wake up to reality. Second, whatever we do to defend ourselves, know what we are defending; our free(d) will.
Related web sites:
http://jihadwatch.org/
http://answering-islam.org.uk/
http://answering-islam.org.uk/Authors/Arlandson/top_ten_shar
ia.htm
Islamic Imperialism
Islamic Imperialism
By Efram Karsh
I picked this book up in a lending library of the Unity Church in the people’s republic of Boulder. How a book from such a controversial author found its way there is beyond me. This book makes it very clear that our struggle is not about religious conflicts, but about the imperialist desires of the caliphate rulers of Muslim faith beginning with Muhammad. The author introduces his thesis with the following quotes:
· “ I was ordered to fight all men until they say “There is no god but Allah””
o Prophet Muhammad’s farewell address, March 632
· “ I shall cross the sea to their island to pursue them until there remains no one on the face of the earth who does not acknowledge Allah”
o Saladin, January 1189
· “We will export our revolution through out the world...until the calls there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah” are echoed all over the world.”
o Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini, 1979
· “I was ordered to fight the people until they say there is no God but Allah, and his prophet Muhammad,
o Osama bin Laden, November 2001
Karsh then describes the backdrop history to color in the events those statements spawned. Within the fine brush strokes of this history you discover that Islam has been warring more amongst themselves than they have with infidels. They often found alliances with infidels convenient in their quests to rule their own Muslim world. Case in point; both Iran and Iraq went to the United States to supply their war with each other. This was very common during the crusades. The history is full of egregious Islamic deception rooted in a selfish quest for power.
I have read many books on the diplomacy surrounding war and in particular Islamic rationale for war with the West. They are consistent with Muhammad in his farewell address on the surface. However underneath there is a selfish quest for power on the part of a Caliph gone mad. What this book does is clearly demonstrates that the calls to Allah are mere rhetorical diversions to their real ambitions. Karsh labels it imperialism. A topic of world history in most cases and unfortunately continues as news in our newspapers today.
Karsh concludes with a call for Islam’s recognition of the concepts of nation states as a recognition of an everlasting fate-accompli, within their own world as well as their outside world. While Karsh makes this call he misses the errors made by the World Powers of the time in 1919 who did not draw up the boarders of the many small Islamic states that actually existed in the form of a millet system within the umma. Each region would be ruled by a caliph, imam or some voice of Allah, in competition akin to a survival of the fittest Muslim drama. This persisted up through and under the theme of Ottoman suzerainty and for the first in time in 1919 since the 800’s, Islam was not considered a power of any sort. He briefly suggest that on a larger scale beyond the Middle East Muslims favor democratic process found in republic states, as an example that his call has proven itself successful elsewhere. Interestingly, in those regions there is not the same degree of an overwelming thirst for power from Islamic origin
To sum up Karsh’s message he characterizes the plight that Nasser took Egypt through in 20th century. It represents the character of every Muslim Imperialist described not only in this book, but many others I have read. It goes as follows:
“that an idolized person had appeared who wanted his will to have, throughout the Arab countries, a degree of holiness, greatness and power which not even God’s prophets possessed… He ha made us feel every possible means that in Egypt and even the whole Arab world there could be only found one intelligence, one single power that could be relied on; the only thing ahead would be ruin. Thus was Fascism, Hitlerism, and Nasserism; all of them stand on a single base, which is elimination of minds and wills other than the minds of the leader.”
I am going to leave it there. I cannot improve on that. I equally do not have a solution. As current events unfold, there is an imperialism syndrome in the world today. There is a lot of jockeying and positioning for what I see as an eminent WWIII, or otherwise put the Crimean war, “take four”. Islam poses more of an immediate threat to both Russia, and China. Yet, they are happy to let the worlds leading power take it on the chin on their behalf and then rub salt in the wound. If it were not the United States it would simply be a different country taking the brunt of conflict, as history has shown.
In the past the quest for power seems to have had no protagonist other than a thurst for power. There is a sense of scarcity, which is only now blamed on oil, which drives a need for dominion that perpetuates imperial thinking as our Western world has equally demonstrated. As folks look to blame our current administration for not winning the peace, I struggle to find where any one else has ever done that. Wilson had it right in ideals, but he and the rest of the world failed to figure how to execute upon them.
To take a spin off of the authors assertion “A prominent Muslim Brother, Qutb, held lofty ideals about the original years of pure Islam (622-61). He described the degeneration in Islam’s direction. But he like too many of his predecessors, beginning with Mohammad, translated his interpretation of man’s jahiliya into a jihad. To be fair Qutb viewed jahiliya, man ruling man in ignorance or absence of God consciousness, to exist both within Islam and beyond.” History's big picture shows he is right. We continue to recognize the problem, but our response is wrong. If we are on a path for peace (big IF) we seem to keep getting in our own way.
Foot notes from my reading
Islamic Imperialism
Fatimin clan gave Islam its first real imperial presence
P 70 It seems little known how strong the Islamic foot hold was in Rome (Italy) in the years just prior to the crusades
p69 With Islamic power and position between far east and Europe in conjunction with Jews excluded from farming they evolved as the worlds businessmen. The crusades recognized this and began their Diaspora. This rote was taken over by Italian cities of Venice and Amalfi
p. 75-76 The Crusades must be viewed as a two-sided war with two divided factions. With Christians their was a schism between Rome and Constantinople. With Islam there was a schism between Shiites and Sunni.
p.79 Both sides of the Crusade wars were utterly convinced of the superiority of their religion. But their actions were guided by far more earthly combination of territorial and material ambitions.
p.96 Tsarina Catherine’s aspirations to wipe out the Ottoman Empire were thwarted by the rise and threat of Napoleon
p. 107 The Ottoman were courted by both sides at the beginning of WWI. They chose Germany as a way to expand Islam into Russia. A decision made in both fear of Russia and conquest of Asia, which became the U. S.S.R.
p. 119-123 It is interesting to read that Iran learned to despise Russia and England as early 1700. At that time the Orient was at a crossroad. Russia wanted the Black Sea. England needed Iran as a buffer. The battle for the Middle East made rivals of England and Russia. As Napoleon had aspirations on India, France allied with Russia.
What is intriguing here is Britain’s Imperial aspirations in the region. Other than defense of India, only an Empire on an uncherished land was in the offering. Russia on the other hand did have material cause in the 1800's
The Arab Caesar, Egyptian President Nasser, abducted power by converting from castigating Arabs to revering a pan Arab UAR. While oil may have had a part in his motives, and expelling the Imperial British who sponsored Israel, the author makes it quite clear that Nasser had one self serving interest for power.
In this same chapter the author makes it real clear that their is no Muslim unity. He has painted a landscape of a millennium of internal Islamic power plays holding out that Nasser is just one more.
p. 178 While Hakims quote on the previous page represents a history of power mongering, all worth quoting, Hakim states: What made Nasser's blunders more galling, was his total hostility to the idea of accountability.
p. 183 To further illustrate a Muslim empire agenda, cloaked in Muslim anti-Semitic posturing, Saddam extorted Kuwait for its oil until it could not comply. Then he simply invaded.
p 184 Today empire builders of Muslim decent wrap themselves around anti Israel sentiment to gain a pan Arab favor. This backfired for Iraq which took the Palestinian allies down with them. Arabs saw Palestine as a trader. But It was Israel who threw the PLO, a bankrupt organization, a lifeline
215-216 A Muslim brother Qutb held lofty ideals about the original years of pure Islam (622-61). He described the degeneration in Islam’s direction. But he like too many of his predecessors, beginning with Mohammad, translated his interpretation of man (jahiliya) into a jihad.
To be fair Qutb viewed jahiliya, man ruling man in ignorance or absence of God consciousness, to exist both within Islam and beyond. History's big picture shows he is right.
By Efram Karsh
I picked this book up in a lending library of the Unity Church in the people’s republic of Boulder. How a book from such a controversial author found its way there is beyond me. This book makes it very clear that our struggle is not about religious conflicts, but about the imperialist desires of the caliphate rulers of Muslim faith beginning with Muhammad. The author introduces his thesis with the following quotes:
· “ I was ordered to fight all men until they say “There is no god but Allah””
o Prophet Muhammad’s farewell address, March 632
· “ I shall cross the sea to their island to pursue them until there remains no one on the face of the earth who does not acknowledge Allah”
o Saladin, January 1189
· “We will export our revolution through out the world...until the calls there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah” are echoed all over the world.”
o Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini, 1979
· “I was ordered to fight the people until they say there is no God but Allah, and his prophet Muhammad,
o Osama bin Laden, November 2001
Karsh then describes the backdrop history to color in the events those statements spawned. Within the fine brush strokes of this history you discover that Islam has been warring more amongst themselves than they have with infidels. They often found alliances with infidels convenient in their quests to rule their own Muslim world. Case in point; both Iran and Iraq went to the United States to supply their war with each other. This was very common during the crusades. The history is full of egregious Islamic deception rooted in a selfish quest for power.
I have read many books on the diplomacy surrounding war and in particular Islamic rationale for war with the West. They are consistent with Muhammad in his farewell address on the surface. However underneath there is a selfish quest for power on the part of a Caliph gone mad. What this book does is clearly demonstrates that the calls to Allah are mere rhetorical diversions to their real ambitions. Karsh labels it imperialism. A topic of world history in most cases and unfortunately continues as news in our newspapers today.
Karsh concludes with a call for Islam’s recognition of the concepts of nation states as a recognition of an everlasting fate-accompli, within their own world as well as their outside world. While Karsh makes this call he misses the errors made by the World Powers of the time in 1919 who did not draw up the boarders of the many small Islamic states that actually existed in the form of a millet system within the umma. Each region would be ruled by a caliph, imam or some voice of Allah, in competition akin to a survival of the fittest Muslim drama. This persisted up through and under the theme of Ottoman suzerainty and for the first in time in 1919 since the 800’s, Islam was not considered a power of any sort. He briefly suggest that on a larger scale beyond the Middle East Muslims favor democratic process found in republic states, as an example that his call has proven itself successful elsewhere. Interestingly, in those regions there is not the same degree of an overwelming thirst for power from Islamic origin
To sum up Karsh’s message he characterizes the plight that Nasser took Egypt through in 20th century. It represents the character of every Muslim Imperialist described not only in this book, but many others I have read. It goes as follows:
“that an idolized person had appeared who wanted his will to have, throughout the Arab countries, a degree of holiness, greatness and power which not even God’s prophets possessed… He ha made us feel every possible means that in Egypt and even the whole Arab world there could be only found one intelligence, one single power that could be relied on; the only thing ahead would be ruin. Thus was Fascism, Hitlerism, and Nasserism; all of them stand on a single base, which is elimination of minds and wills other than the minds of the leader.”
I am going to leave it there. I cannot improve on that. I equally do not have a solution. As current events unfold, there is an imperialism syndrome in the world today. There is a lot of jockeying and positioning for what I see as an eminent WWIII, or otherwise put the Crimean war, “take four”. Islam poses more of an immediate threat to both Russia, and China. Yet, they are happy to let the worlds leading power take it on the chin on their behalf and then rub salt in the wound. If it were not the United States it would simply be a different country taking the brunt of conflict, as history has shown.
In the past the quest for power seems to have had no protagonist other than a thurst for power. There is a sense of scarcity, which is only now blamed on oil, which drives a need for dominion that perpetuates imperial thinking as our Western world has equally demonstrated. As folks look to blame our current administration for not winning the peace, I struggle to find where any one else has ever done that. Wilson had it right in ideals, but he and the rest of the world failed to figure how to execute upon them.
To take a spin off of the authors assertion “A prominent Muslim Brother, Qutb, held lofty ideals about the original years of pure Islam (622-61). He described the degeneration in Islam’s direction. But he like too many of his predecessors, beginning with Mohammad, translated his interpretation of man’s jahiliya into a jihad. To be fair Qutb viewed jahiliya, man ruling man in ignorance or absence of God consciousness, to exist both within Islam and beyond.” History's big picture shows he is right. We continue to recognize the problem, but our response is wrong. If we are on a path for peace (big IF) we seem to keep getting in our own way.
Foot notes from my reading
Islamic Imperialism
Fatimin clan gave Islam its first real imperial presence
P 70 It seems little known how strong the Islamic foot hold was in Rome (Italy) in the years just prior to the crusades
p69 With Islamic power and position between far east and Europe in conjunction with Jews excluded from farming they evolved as the worlds businessmen. The crusades recognized this and began their Diaspora. This rote was taken over by Italian cities of Venice and Amalfi
p. 75-76 The Crusades must be viewed as a two-sided war with two divided factions. With Christians their was a schism between Rome and Constantinople. With Islam there was a schism between Shiites and Sunni.
p.79 Both sides of the Crusade wars were utterly convinced of the superiority of their religion. But their actions were guided by far more earthly combination of territorial and material ambitions.
p.96 Tsarina Catherine’s aspirations to wipe out the Ottoman Empire were thwarted by the rise and threat of Napoleon
p. 107 The Ottoman were courted by both sides at the beginning of WWI. They chose Germany as a way to expand Islam into Russia. A decision made in both fear of Russia and conquest of Asia, which became the U. S.S.R.
p. 119-123 It is interesting to read that Iran learned to despise Russia and England as early 1700. At that time the Orient was at a crossroad. Russia wanted the Black Sea. England needed Iran as a buffer. The battle for the Middle East made rivals of England and Russia. As Napoleon had aspirations on India, France allied with Russia.
What is intriguing here is Britain’s Imperial aspirations in the region. Other than defense of India, only an Empire on an uncherished land was in the offering. Russia on the other hand did have material cause in the 1800's
The Arab Caesar, Egyptian President Nasser, abducted power by converting from castigating Arabs to revering a pan Arab UAR. While oil may have had a part in his motives, and expelling the Imperial British who sponsored Israel, the author makes it quite clear that Nasser had one self serving interest for power.
In this same chapter the author makes it real clear that their is no Muslim unity. He has painted a landscape of a millennium of internal Islamic power plays holding out that Nasser is just one more.
p. 178 While Hakims quote on the previous page represents a history of power mongering, all worth quoting, Hakim states: What made Nasser's blunders more galling, was his total hostility to the idea of accountability.
p. 183 To further illustrate a Muslim empire agenda, cloaked in Muslim anti-Semitic posturing, Saddam extorted Kuwait for its oil until it could not comply. Then he simply invaded.
p 184 Today empire builders of Muslim decent wrap themselves around anti Israel sentiment to gain a pan Arab favor. This backfired for Iraq which took the Palestinian allies down with them. Arabs saw Palestine as a trader. But It was Israel who threw the PLO, a bankrupt organization, a lifeline
215-216 A Muslim brother Qutb held lofty ideals about the original years of pure Islam (622-61). He described the degeneration in Islam’s direction. But he like too many of his predecessors, beginning with Mohammad, translated his interpretation of man (jahiliya) into a jihad.
To be fair Qutb viewed jahiliya, man ruling man in ignorance or absence of God consciousness, to exist both within Islam and beyond. History's big picture shows he is right.
Persian Puzzle
Persian Puzzle
By Kenneth Pollack
I picked this book up chiefly because of recent news in Iran and secondarily because of an Iranian friend I had in New York. He often spoke of the rich Persian culture and spoke Farsi with his children. I have an Iranian tapestry in my hallway and eat Amir’s pistachios from Iran when I get them. True enough you read early on in the book about Darius, Xerxus, and Cyrus with an emphasis on Cyrus’ conquering of Babylon. In this conquest Cyrus frees the Jews and returns them to their homeland, Palestine. This point I find interesting as the primer landmark contradiction in the Persian/Iranian history; a history that only evolved to the name Iran at the insistence of Reza Shah Pahlavi in the 1920’s. This is a point in history that flies in the face of the current Iranian theocracy and supports one of the tenants of American sanctions on Iran for their sponsored terrorism, anti-peace in the Middle East and the “destruction” of Israel.
Pollack prepares a backdrop for which he lays room for the reader to contemplate many moral questions while reading the book. I found it interesting to read that Persia over history is a land fragmented by mountains and deserts with no significant navigatable rivers. Holding a band of people together to be the world’s first superpower was no small feat. A feat that today’s Iranians are still so proud of that it permeates in their civil consciousness. I saw this in my friends Amir and Mondona, and better appreciate this now.
Oddly enough the Arabian conquest brought Islam to Persia a religion that over shadowed Zoroastrianism and threw Persia into a state of civil unrest and contradiction ever since. The one hundred year period prior to our current political situation (1979 to present) is a story of repressive dictatorships over a new sovereign state. The first Shah who regained his family’s through a coup and internal unrest saw himself much in the liking to Mussolini, and Franco. Pollack associates this mentality to Kadafi, Arafat, and a few of Egypt’s recent leaders. Notice he separates these inept leaders from the terrorist of Hitler, Stalin and Hussein. The important similarity to all was while encumbered with internal instability in conjunction with a fear of foreign domination; these recent rulers absconded power and ruled their people poorly.
The irony of Iranian leadership of the 19th and 20th centuries is similar to that of Poland. There were regions of people with a desire to lead themselves but displayed no proven capability to do so. Reza Shah Pahlavi was only an example of a line of leaders who lived in fear of Russia and Great Britain. The imposition of either of two foreign powers was self-inflicted to a certain degree. Persia’s fear of Russia gave reason to draw Great Britain into their sphere of influence, yet it was Great Britain with the dominant tools to lead. With the imbalance in skills as they were, Great Britain took advantage of all business activity. The discovery of oil exacerbated the imbalance. The weak leaders whether the Shah or Prime Minister Mosaddeq, could not manage the divergent demands on internal policy.
After World War II Iran began to invite the Unites States in to counter balance their triad of problematic and conflicting issues. Like all poor leaders their focus on military led themselves to financial ruin on every other front. It is important to have read that the United States were reluctant participants brought in at the invitation of Iran, no matter what was perceived through the fog of the coups for a leader. Unfortunately with our preoccupation with the spread of Communism at the time, no matter who was in the White House, we did not live up to the expectations of Iran’s leaders or their people. Later our pre-occupation with Viet Nam caused the Johnson administration to lose sight of the call for internal reform that was heard and revered by the Kennedy administration.
The CIA participation in the stacked 1953 election (now called a coup by Iran and somehow tolerated by the United States) between Pahlavi and Mosaddeq gave all the justifiable appearances of our meddling in another countries affairs. And it was justified, a mistake by the Eisenhower administration. What is important to know says Pollack is our agenda was not about oil. The agenda was to bring someone into power that would stand up to the Soviets, which paradoxically was indeed an agenda of the Iranian people. To accuse the USA of propping up a puppet regime is somewhat misguided according to Pollack. The Shah was dependant on the United States initially for economic reasons and we supplied ample aid. Unfortunately, this money was redirected to the military while his people were oppressed. Over time the Shah thumbed his nose up to American calls for human rights. The Shahs new found oil wealth, thanks to American intervention over the British in behalf of Iran, allowed him this option and left American influence neutered. By the time Carter became aware and made a call for human rights, it was too late.
I found it very interesting that even Pollack describes the events of 1953 as a CIA directed stacked election and then goes on later in his book to name that event as a coup. In Pollack’s defense, after reading the events surrounding every election of the 20th century, one would conclude that the words election and coup in Iran are synonymous.
It is important to appreciate why Iran, the theocratic government hates the United States, and why Iran conducts its foreign affairs as though it can thumb its nose at the United States to the extent that it can wage terrorist war against us. With a xenophobic persona caused by fear of both the USSR and Britain, Iran’s request to the United o mediate and or counteract the situation was not executed with clarity. With a revolving door in leadership every four years in the White House, a consistent policy and or named responsible person could not be defined. During pre and near post WWII the revolving door in Iran was even less clear. Elections in Iran through this same period were closely parallel to coups. Upon this canvas, one can easily visualize a people’s propensity to take aim at the tallest participant as it stands above the smoke.
Once we got on that slippery slope the only course was and is down. While it was common practice to offer a choice of two evils and prompting voter disenfranchisement to the extent that the candidates would get assainated the CIA wrongly engaged in this in 1953. What the CIA did was bombard the Iranian people with election propaganda to get the Shah elected. THAT’S IT!!!. According to the author. After this election/coup, from Eisenhower through Ford, the United States largely turned a blind eye to the Shah’s shenanigans; largely due to our focus on anti communism threats elsewhere in the world. The Iranian people felt betrayed in two ways. First we did not give them the attention they asked for. Second, the Shah on his own accord and with no pressure from the United States oppressed his people. Not speaking out on human rights violations committed by the Shah was a slap in their face.
Iran has learned through the hostage taking in 1979 and through the 1980s that they could influence policy in America. Khomeni realized that his capital in the Embassy hostages was already spent. But he despised Carter for his double talk. Carter spoke strongly against human rights violations around the world and did nothing in Iran. When he allowed the Shah into the US for surgery it was an insult to Iran. Carter’s response incorporated a fundamental mistake in making it clear that the hostages were to come back alive, this is despite that every hostage taken swore an oath that the Unites States interests came first. (Implying first before their own lives). Khomeni leveraged this in negotiations and sucked everything he could out of the US and embarrassed us publicly with his booty. The only thing Reagan did to free the hostages was get sworn in to office. The very minute this took place the hostages were set free. Thus the author puts forth the theory that an Iran got even for what the CIA did in 1953. Khomeni learned another lesson, that the United States was weak and its people did not have the stomach for conflict. He took Reagan to task by taking hostages in Lebanon. While Reagan did not make the same mistake as Carter he made a different one. He negotiated with terrorist in the Iran Contra fiasco. It was not until 1991 that all the hostages were set free.
Reagan ’s continued reluctance to engage directly in the Iran Iraq war demonstrated to Iran American weakness or intolerance to war. It was clearly stated that Iran had intentions to march through Iraq and straight to Israel. Khomeni’s agenda was an Islamic World. Reagan’s agenda was a continued resistance through the support of other armies where American interests were involved. Our eventual involvement through our Naval escorts of Kuwaiti ships did nothing to show American strength and everything to show a continued American betrayal. Through the Clinton administration America’s continuance to tolerate terrorist activity emboldened Hezbollah and al Queida. Theocracy leadership with a whip to its people and a stick to its neighbors internationally became a theme.
With regard to Pollack’s assessments of all the administrations foreign policy, he found something to criticize in every administration with exception to Kennedy the G.H. Bush. I found it interesting that a consistent theme of criticism of both Carter and Reagan was not being firm enough with Iran over terrorism, Pollack only mentions the Bahran Towers, and gives plausible argument for the Clinton Administration not taking a firm hand against Iran. His argument being that after full disclosure from Saudi Arabia, that Iran organized the assault, a new Khatami government was in power. This contradicts the Madeline Albrights assessment that un-elected hands controlled Iran. Pollack later recommends that any act of terrorism would be responded to with force regardless of regime change, so he leaves the reader somewhat confused. Additionally the other incidents of terrorism against the United States during the Clinton administration were not addressed to the same degree as both Carter and Reagan. This in itself is a puzzle within a puzzle. Pollack paints a picture where Iran became use to American weakness in the face of terrorism, but asserts that Iran was not specifically involved, and then claims Iran spreads terrorism; a foggy area for this expert author.
The book title becomes relevant in describing Iran. It is a country conflicted by its leadership that does not appear to represent the voice of its people. In 1997, with 91% of the people voting, more that 70% of the vote was in favor of reform from the “hardline” mullahs, the Madeline Albright speech of 1999 to Iran in an effort for rapprochement contained two critical words, “un-elected hands”. Every other word in the speech was aimed at a rapprochement of the two countries. While the elected Khatami government did take notice of those two words, they were willing to overlook them. Kahamen’i, the new un-elected Supreme Leader assumed control in delivering a very negative reply to the Clinton administration. To quote Pollack “Indeed it is unfortunate that this was all that came from it, but by trying so hard to start a process of rapprochement with the Khatami government, the Clinton administration gave the George W Bush administration the perfect argument to demand a harder line on Iran from America’s allies.”
If Clinton’s stick were equal in size to his carrot, would he have handed George W. Bush a different set of cards? In fact Pollack was equally generous to G.W. Bush. He speaks of the strategies between Clinton and Bush as complementary being that Iran always took the carrot and left the United States with nothing but the stick, a stick that for many reasons detailed in the book can be used for nothing but waving in the air. Pollack suggest that Clinton handed Bush the stick. Pollack reiterates that over the course of our relationship with Iran, and particularly in the last 25 years, their negotiating style called for the United States to put all concessions on the table for which they take them and leave. However Pollack demonstrates many cases where Iran does respond to the stick.
In Pollack’s closing chapters he describes a three-part strategy to become good neighbors with Iran. He claims that Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons is the number one concern; because if successful Iran’s complete persona of xenophobia changes. (a root cause resolution dynamic not explored universally by the author) The first is through a “Grand Bargain” whereby each side lay down their concessions, detailed in the book. The second is through international diplomacy where all nations of the world lay out a new world protocol among nations, detailed in the book. And the third part being military might. Because this is three-part strategy is introduced only after Pollack makes a case for the failure of each strategy independently, you the reader must pay close attention to the intricate relations between all three and the “trip wires” that would transition from one policy to another. In the end you begin to see the edges of the Persian Puzzle. You may even have your colored pieces in their proper piles, but there is no way the puzzle get completed in this book. You also begin to appreciate a requirement for a tremendous staff in our State Department to piece this all together. In retrospect I found the details and criticism in the early going of the book to be much sharper. There is enough history provided to appreciate the general feeling of the common man that Iran holds anxieties towards America. There is also enough history provided to be sure that Iran has much to be responsible for in their anxiety about many things internally and externally, including The West. This gives true meaning to the saying only history will tell. I can only hope that Pollack will be around in 50 years so that at age 99 I will read his sequel.
Epilogue: I am always taken back by: those in America that unilaterally condemns “THIS ADMINISTRATION”; when I contrast it to the following quote in the book by Ayatollah Khomeni upon burying two prostitutes up to their chest and had them stoned to death by the public. Bear in mind there was not trial. He said, “ Criminals should not be tried. The trial of a criminal is against human rights. Human rights demand that we should have killed them in the first place.” It is similarly described in the book where the leftist student Revolutionaries physically, and physiologically abused many hostages and Ayatollah Khomeni gave his seal of approval to these acts. To the Ayatollah perceptions were more important than truth; a reality he can hold to without a free press and a fair judicial system.
This country does have a judicial process, free press and core values aimed at liberty. On the moral questions raised, it appears that making compromises to those opposing this freewill is counterproductive. It is time we all turn up the volume on the beacon on the hill and stand together for what we are for regardless of WHICH ADMINISTRATION. The situation in the Middle East is very complicated. Pollack is much more versed than myself and his views are highly regarded. But he does not have a clear answer a proven answer. So why would we blame him while serving under Clinton or any other American for not solving this puzzle? I believe this strategy is the key in Pollack’s book the he touches but fails to utilize this KEY to simplify is three-part strategy. Pollock glosses over it, but ever since the Czar of Russia recognized the will of the people were not behind Napoleon, he knew the French would retreat regardless of what happened on the battlefield. A beacon on the hill is for liberty and anti terrorism. Let it shine through our people and our press. But let us shine what unites us, rather than that which divides us.
By Kenneth Pollack
I picked this book up chiefly because of recent news in Iran and secondarily because of an Iranian friend I had in New York. He often spoke of the rich Persian culture and spoke Farsi with his children. I have an Iranian tapestry in my hallway and eat Amir’s pistachios from Iran when I get them. True enough you read early on in the book about Darius, Xerxus, and Cyrus with an emphasis on Cyrus’ conquering of Babylon. In this conquest Cyrus frees the Jews and returns them to their homeland, Palestine. This point I find interesting as the primer landmark contradiction in the Persian/Iranian history; a history that only evolved to the name Iran at the insistence of Reza Shah Pahlavi in the 1920’s. This is a point in history that flies in the face of the current Iranian theocracy and supports one of the tenants of American sanctions on Iran for their sponsored terrorism, anti-peace in the Middle East and the “destruction” of Israel.
Pollack prepares a backdrop for which he lays room for the reader to contemplate many moral questions while reading the book. I found it interesting to read that Persia over history is a land fragmented by mountains and deserts with no significant navigatable rivers. Holding a band of people together to be the world’s first superpower was no small feat. A feat that today’s Iranians are still so proud of that it permeates in their civil consciousness. I saw this in my friends Amir and Mondona, and better appreciate this now.
Oddly enough the Arabian conquest brought Islam to Persia a religion that over shadowed Zoroastrianism and threw Persia into a state of civil unrest and contradiction ever since. The one hundred year period prior to our current political situation (1979 to present) is a story of repressive dictatorships over a new sovereign state. The first Shah who regained his family’s through a coup and internal unrest saw himself much in the liking to Mussolini, and Franco. Pollack associates this mentality to Kadafi, Arafat, and a few of Egypt’s recent leaders. Notice he separates these inept leaders from the terrorist of Hitler, Stalin and Hussein. The important similarity to all was while encumbered with internal instability in conjunction with a fear of foreign domination; these recent rulers absconded power and ruled their people poorly.
The irony of Iranian leadership of the 19th and 20th centuries is similar to that of Poland. There were regions of people with a desire to lead themselves but displayed no proven capability to do so. Reza Shah Pahlavi was only an example of a line of leaders who lived in fear of Russia and Great Britain. The imposition of either of two foreign powers was self-inflicted to a certain degree. Persia’s fear of Russia gave reason to draw Great Britain into their sphere of influence, yet it was Great Britain with the dominant tools to lead. With the imbalance in skills as they were, Great Britain took advantage of all business activity. The discovery of oil exacerbated the imbalance. The weak leaders whether the Shah or Prime Minister Mosaddeq, could not manage the divergent demands on internal policy.
After World War II Iran began to invite the Unites States in to counter balance their triad of problematic and conflicting issues. Like all poor leaders their focus on military led themselves to financial ruin on every other front. It is important to have read that the United States were reluctant participants brought in at the invitation of Iran, no matter what was perceived through the fog of the coups for a leader. Unfortunately with our preoccupation with the spread of Communism at the time, no matter who was in the White House, we did not live up to the expectations of Iran’s leaders or their people. Later our pre-occupation with Viet Nam caused the Johnson administration to lose sight of the call for internal reform that was heard and revered by the Kennedy administration.
The CIA participation in the stacked 1953 election (now called a coup by Iran and somehow tolerated by the United States) between Pahlavi and Mosaddeq gave all the justifiable appearances of our meddling in another countries affairs. And it was justified, a mistake by the Eisenhower administration. What is important to know says Pollack is our agenda was not about oil. The agenda was to bring someone into power that would stand up to the Soviets, which paradoxically was indeed an agenda of the Iranian people. To accuse the USA of propping up a puppet regime is somewhat misguided according to Pollack. The Shah was dependant on the United States initially for economic reasons and we supplied ample aid. Unfortunately, this money was redirected to the military while his people were oppressed. Over time the Shah thumbed his nose up to American calls for human rights. The Shahs new found oil wealth, thanks to American intervention over the British in behalf of Iran, allowed him this option and left American influence neutered. By the time Carter became aware and made a call for human rights, it was too late.
I found it very interesting that even Pollack describes the events of 1953 as a CIA directed stacked election and then goes on later in his book to name that event as a coup. In Pollack’s defense, after reading the events surrounding every election of the 20th century, one would conclude that the words election and coup in Iran are synonymous.
It is important to appreciate why Iran, the theocratic government hates the United States, and why Iran conducts its foreign affairs as though it can thumb its nose at the United States to the extent that it can wage terrorist war against us. With a xenophobic persona caused by fear of both the USSR and Britain, Iran’s request to the United o mediate and or counteract the situation was not executed with clarity. With a revolving door in leadership every four years in the White House, a consistent policy and or named responsible person could not be defined. During pre and near post WWII the revolving door in Iran was even less clear. Elections in Iran through this same period were closely parallel to coups. Upon this canvas, one can easily visualize a people’s propensity to take aim at the tallest participant as it stands above the smoke.
Once we got on that slippery slope the only course was and is down. While it was common practice to offer a choice of two evils and prompting voter disenfranchisement to the extent that the candidates would get assainated the CIA wrongly engaged in this in 1953. What the CIA did was bombard the Iranian people with election propaganda to get the Shah elected. THAT’S IT!!!. According to the author. After this election/coup, from Eisenhower through Ford, the United States largely turned a blind eye to the Shah’s shenanigans; largely due to our focus on anti communism threats elsewhere in the world. The Iranian people felt betrayed in two ways. First we did not give them the attention they asked for. Second, the Shah on his own accord and with no pressure from the United States oppressed his people. Not speaking out on human rights violations committed by the Shah was a slap in their face.
Iran has learned through the hostage taking in 1979 and through the 1980s that they could influence policy in America. Khomeni realized that his capital in the Embassy hostages was already spent. But he despised Carter for his double talk. Carter spoke strongly against human rights violations around the world and did nothing in Iran. When he allowed the Shah into the US for surgery it was an insult to Iran. Carter’s response incorporated a fundamental mistake in making it clear that the hostages were to come back alive, this is despite that every hostage taken swore an oath that the Unites States interests came first. (Implying first before their own lives). Khomeni leveraged this in negotiations and sucked everything he could out of the US and embarrassed us publicly with his booty. The only thing Reagan did to free the hostages was get sworn in to office. The very minute this took place the hostages were set free. Thus the author puts forth the theory that an Iran got even for what the CIA did in 1953. Khomeni learned another lesson, that the United States was weak and its people did not have the stomach for conflict. He took Reagan to task by taking hostages in Lebanon. While Reagan did not make the same mistake as Carter he made a different one. He negotiated with terrorist in the Iran Contra fiasco. It was not until 1991 that all the hostages were set free.
Reagan ’s continued reluctance to engage directly in the Iran Iraq war demonstrated to Iran American weakness or intolerance to war. It was clearly stated that Iran had intentions to march through Iraq and straight to Israel. Khomeni’s agenda was an Islamic World. Reagan’s agenda was a continued resistance through the support of other armies where American interests were involved. Our eventual involvement through our Naval escorts of Kuwaiti ships did nothing to show American strength and everything to show a continued American betrayal. Through the Clinton administration America’s continuance to tolerate terrorist activity emboldened Hezbollah and al Queida. Theocracy leadership with a whip to its people and a stick to its neighbors internationally became a theme.
With regard to Pollack’s assessments of all the administrations foreign policy, he found something to criticize in every administration with exception to Kennedy the G.H. Bush. I found it interesting that a consistent theme of criticism of both Carter and Reagan was not being firm enough with Iran over terrorism, Pollack only mentions the Bahran Towers, and gives plausible argument for the Clinton Administration not taking a firm hand against Iran. His argument being that after full disclosure from Saudi Arabia, that Iran organized the assault, a new Khatami government was in power. This contradicts the Madeline Albrights assessment that un-elected hands controlled Iran. Pollack later recommends that any act of terrorism would be responded to with force regardless of regime change, so he leaves the reader somewhat confused. Additionally the other incidents of terrorism against the United States during the Clinton administration were not addressed to the same degree as both Carter and Reagan. This in itself is a puzzle within a puzzle. Pollack paints a picture where Iran became use to American weakness in the face of terrorism, but asserts that Iran was not specifically involved, and then claims Iran spreads terrorism; a foggy area for this expert author.
The book title becomes relevant in describing Iran. It is a country conflicted by its leadership that does not appear to represent the voice of its people. In 1997, with 91% of the people voting, more that 70% of the vote was in favor of reform from the “hardline” mullahs, the Madeline Albright speech of 1999 to Iran in an effort for rapprochement contained two critical words, “un-elected hands”. Every other word in the speech was aimed at a rapprochement of the two countries. While the elected Khatami government did take notice of those two words, they were willing to overlook them. Kahamen’i, the new un-elected Supreme Leader assumed control in delivering a very negative reply to the Clinton administration. To quote Pollack “Indeed it is unfortunate that this was all that came from it, but by trying so hard to start a process of rapprochement with the Khatami government, the Clinton administration gave the George W Bush administration the perfect argument to demand a harder line on Iran from America’s allies.”
If Clinton’s stick were equal in size to his carrot, would he have handed George W. Bush a different set of cards? In fact Pollack was equally generous to G.W. Bush. He speaks of the strategies between Clinton and Bush as complementary being that Iran always took the carrot and left the United States with nothing but the stick, a stick that for many reasons detailed in the book can be used for nothing but waving in the air. Pollack suggest that Clinton handed Bush the stick. Pollack reiterates that over the course of our relationship with Iran, and particularly in the last 25 years, their negotiating style called for the United States to put all concessions on the table for which they take them and leave. However Pollack demonstrates many cases where Iran does respond to the stick.
In Pollack’s closing chapters he describes a three-part strategy to become good neighbors with Iran. He claims that Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons is the number one concern; because if successful Iran’s complete persona of xenophobia changes. (a root cause resolution dynamic not explored universally by the author) The first is through a “Grand Bargain” whereby each side lay down their concessions, detailed in the book. The second is through international diplomacy where all nations of the world lay out a new world protocol among nations, detailed in the book. And the third part being military might. Because this is three-part strategy is introduced only after Pollack makes a case for the failure of each strategy independently, you the reader must pay close attention to the intricate relations between all three and the “trip wires” that would transition from one policy to another. In the end you begin to see the edges of the Persian Puzzle. You may even have your colored pieces in their proper piles, but there is no way the puzzle get completed in this book. You also begin to appreciate a requirement for a tremendous staff in our State Department to piece this all together. In retrospect I found the details and criticism in the early going of the book to be much sharper. There is enough history provided to appreciate the general feeling of the common man that Iran holds anxieties towards America. There is also enough history provided to be sure that Iran has much to be responsible for in their anxiety about many things internally and externally, including The West. This gives true meaning to the saying only history will tell. I can only hope that Pollack will be around in 50 years so that at age 99 I will read his sequel.
Epilogue: I am always taken back by: those in America that unilaterally condemns “THIS ADMINISTRATION”; when I contrast it to the following quote in the book by Ayatollah Khomeni upon burying two prostitutes up to their chest and had them stoned to death by the public. Bear in mind there was not trial. He said, “ Criminals should not be tried. The trial of a criminal is against human rights. Human rights demand that we should have killed them in the first place.” It is similarly described in the book where the leftist student Revolutionaries physically, and physiologically abused many hostages and Ayatollah Khomeni gave his seal of approval to these acts. To the Ayatollah perceptions were more important than truth; a reality he can hold to without a free press and a fair judicial system.
This country does have a judicial process, free press and core values aimed at liberty. On the moral questions raised, it appears that making compromises to those opposing this freewill is counterproductive. It is time we all turn up the volume on the beacon on the hill and stand together for what we are for regardless of WHICH ADMINISTRATION. The situation in the Middle East is very complicated. Pollack is much more versed than myself and his views are highly regarded. But he does not have a clear answer a proven answer. So why would we blame him while serving under Clinton or any other American for not solving this puzzle? I believe this strategy is the key in Pollack’s book the he touches but fails to utilize this KEY to simplify is three-part strategy. Pollock glosses over it, but ever since the Czar of Russia recognized the will of the people were not behind Napoleon, he knew the French would retreat regardless of what happened on the battlefield. A beacon on the hill is for liberty and anti terrorism. Let it shine through our people and our press. But let us shine what unites us, rather than that which divides us.
The Last Great Revolution
The Last Great Revolution
By Robin Wright
This book begins its message with in effect a status report of the Revolution that took place in Iran in 1979. It bases its report in the fundamental phases of a traditional revolution. This book suggests that the Iranian Revolution is now in its fourth and final phase. The author places this revolution is on the same plateau as the French and Russian revolutions as it represents the last major sect of life to reach out for liberty. That’s right; Khomeni was brought in to fill the void left by the deposed shah who was alleged to have violated the liberty of the Iranian man. It was not the intention of the Ayatollah or the revolutionist for the revolution to have the religions overtones that it had. The country has since experienced four political leaders, each who have experienced the forceful hand of the Islamic fundamentalist mullahs and dealt with them in different ways. Twenty years later the author tells of an experience where by when cornered by Iranian activists, they inquired more about whether Pink Floyd had a new album out, as opposed to the American political position. The revolution is in its fourth stage of revolution and it becomes time to evaluate if the whole journey was worthwhile. This book does a fabulous job making sense of what’s in the mind of the Iranian people. It allows you to share in the irony of their quest for liberty. The following is a summary of Iran’s past twenty years and a co-conclusion.
After a brief summary of the biography of a revolution and then a specific foray into this particular revolution, the book moves in to detailed examples of the Cleric imposition. This imposition is found not only in politics but also upon the famous modern philosophers of Persia. Abdul Karim Soroush who had emerged as one such person who was being acclaimed to carry the comparable philosophical weight to Germanys Martin Luther. Soroush promulgated debate within Iran both about its political future and the evolution of the Islam faith. After Iran survived the initial challenges of ten years of war and fundamental Islamic imposition, Soroush attempted to get Iran back to the initial intent of the revolution by addressing the questions that the Clerics could not answer. While the Clerics appointed Soroush to a position to realign all university studies to the Islamic faith, they would not tolerate his call to include the perspective of Western and Jewish ideals. The mullah position was generally stated that inclusion by freedom of speech only empowered the position of the West and Israel and was a slap in the face of Islam.
Aside from the political government body, Iran also has an assembly of 86 Experts (Fiqih) to influence that body. The people are supposedly learned and virtuous. These Clerics actually over-ride via "influence” all political decisions. In the election of 1998, a time when the Revolution was quite a bit tempered since 1979, the Clerics went to extreme measure to ensure that candidates for political office were from a narrow field. This resulted in a low turn out at the polls and a question mark about the concept of the Fiqih. The people embraced the concept of the Fiqih, but did not agree in the roll of the Fiqih or the Assembly of Experts. The Faqih has evolved to be just another dynasty as opposed to the Supreme "thinker" that was intended.
In Iran as different as things may be, there are similarities for instance from one family comes three cleric leaders; one from the left, one from the middle and one from the right. While they agree on family and religion, they dispute politics with rigor. Sounds like an American/Irish Catholic family to me. A fundamental argument is centered on whether any one person is above the law. For Iran this is the Faqih. For Americans this pertains to our President. And indeed in both countries this leader does have in, varied degrees and through different venue, immunity to the law.
With regard to the press in Iran and in particular the credibility it has with the people; it is of no surprise that the Iranian young people were devastated to hear that one of their airliner was shot down. They were convinced that the action was really of the Iranian government. They would not believe that the Americans actually shot down the airliner until they heard it on international radio BBC. In the midst of a cleric driven culture revolution in Iran during the 1990's western influence crept back in via the satellite dish. By the late 90's the political leaders were indeed of the mind to relax the cleric rule. Yet, still within this climate, on all social issues the government consulted the Fiqih. And the clerics, just when the people had a glimpse of free press, had the last word. They placed a ban in Western press again Hence as a matter of law, the clerics decide what music, books, movies, and theater you can partake in. “The rest of the story” is underground.
In the period of relaxation of the cleric rule though live sports from the States were allowed with a few second delay so that the broadcasting technicians could cut all shots of American women that would be improperly dressed. This means to say all American women. However, by the close of the 90's the clerics could stand not more and issued a fatwa condemning satellite dishes and VCR's which resulted in Basij militants barging into homes and destroying the condemned devices. Majid Qaderi, the director of Iran's Intellectual Development of Children says, " Barbie is a Trojan horse. Barbie’s an American woman who never wants to get pregnant an have babies. She never wants to look old and this contradicts our culture. Thus we replace Barbie with our version of Sara"
The current head of the Ministry of Culture and Islam, Ayatollah Mohajerani describes freedom slightly different than in the West. "Obviously we don't share the same definition of freedom. The main difference is that in the West, it's freedom from something, which means that obstacles must be removed in the way of individuals. But in religious terms, it is freedom for which means that freedom must be in service of the perfection and prosperity of human beings"
The Iranian movie industry gives reason to have hope amidst a sea of irony for Iran's people. It portrays a State whereby the pendulum of judgement in censorship swings with the mullah’s opinion more so than with the rules of Islam. What this really means is that there is a "due process" in place. It is those in power that dictate what is shown by interpreting what they see in a film. The moviemakers of Iran, like those here in the States, are somewhat radical in the eyes of their Cleric rulers.
Yet at the same time, films since the revolution examine the values of Iranian life. Each film director is allowed to see events through his/her own eyes and capture that vision. IF his/her eyes are Islamic then the move is about religion. Most movies are not religious yet Iranian films abide by the hejb (no kissing), largely because an Iranian director would prefer to portray love in an artful form rather than a graphic bedroom scene. Iranian films get awards at Cannes and other film festivals. They do indeed express the emotion of Iranian culture. The crossroad that Iran's movie industry finds itself has foreboding consequence in either direction. In the course of less censorship, Iranian filmmakers are free to express more. However, with that freedom comes the competitive giant from Hollywood. The expression of Iranian culture through film must face the forces of extinction from either the left or the right.
Leave it to the artist to again speak for the people. Directors, in my mind an artist, in Iran make a critical point in their message. To the outside world, the revolution and the theocracy born out of it were one and the same. The political upheaval aimed at ending autocratic rule and redistributing power was one thing, but the subsequent Islamic government that eventually replaced the monarchy - and then imposed its own restrictions - was quite another.
The women’s role in Iran has seen the same pendulum swing in the post revolution as all other cultural shifts in Iran. The initial onslaught of cleric rule and male dominance has given way to the need and therefore inclusion of women. The war with Iraq placed a real demand on women as a resource, which led to women in government and led to their louder voice. However prominent women’s leader say "We want our right but in an environment that is compatible with our beliefs. That means we don't believe we have to live in a Western system in order to share power. But we are not going to trust men in our own system to grant us our due." It is women of this caliber that are redefining Iran’s interpretation of the Koran. The Ayatollah Khomeni in fact evolved from a conservative view on women to more modern guidelines. This transformation manifested itself personally in the rules imposed upon his wife versus his the rules impose upon his daughter. The personal evolution was lost in translation by the mullahs of the early revolution. The new President Katahmi has recently moved the women’s issues back towards the center, in relative terms. Here is a point of contrast; an Iranian woman feels “the hejb doesn't limit me, it frees me to be a person judged not by beauty but by actions and thoughts.” Is this not the goal of our Western women’s movement?
On sex and marriage, the rules that were originally put in placed in 1979 have since been modernized. Men and women are still forbidden to intermingle and touching is absolutely taboo in public. Most Iranian people can live with the morals that are implied and therefore many appreciate the dress that is required, however tempered and with some color. As far as birth control Iran has received international acclaim for the methods of education and distribution of all the various methods of birth control. This acclaim is recognized in the United States as well. This transition was largely due to the Ayatollah Komeini and several of his Cleric officers in the Assembly of Experts. The movement has enabled Iranian women to become professionals. Komeini's daughters all three are professionals by career and modern working wives. Marriages are still arranged whereby the mothers of the son go to the mothers of the daughters and select a bride. It is also astonishing to read that the legal age for marriage for a girl is nine. This is primarily because first it is the official age for puberty and second she can make the transition from her father to another man. In divorce, the laws have been made largely comparable to that of the United States. In my opinion because the shift from all awards of rights to the man to a 50/50 split and equal bias on children; that Iran has a more realistic view on the division of property than that of the United States.
Twenty years after the revolution Iran is getting back to the original intent of the revolution, but like the undertow of the oceans surf, the Cleric mullahs continues to impede the achievement of the original goal. The struggle between power and empowerment rages on. The undertow is indeed not Komeini or his successors of rank. It is the momentum of the mullah movement immediate underneath the surface. The Hizbolleah continues to spread the revolution abroad while maintaining internal activism towards militant Islam. Each year on November 4th Iran sponsors a protest whereby the youth of Iran shout "death to the great Satan" while also calling for a dialogue with the United States. The protesters are wearing all the USA sports gear and at the same time burning the American flag. It is almost a paradoxical whereby Islam’s peaceful intention of faithful religious practice is contrasted against the temptations of a degenerate product of the West, but the interpretation is warped by over zealous mullah’s quest for power.
There is an active movement now in the forth wave of the revolution to correct the inside of the regime. The goals now stated are freedom, justice, and religion; with democracy on the top of the list. Iran does indeed have a constitution and an elected government that acts with due process. This movement lay with the students of Iran's universities. Their enemy is indeed the Cleric mullahs. Unfortunately the Fiqah can and do, at any moment change law and arrest alleged dissidents when they feel the young have exceeded their power. Example: Parliament speaker was quoted on July 7 1999 as he revoked freedoms of the press saying “ The press is a gateway for cultural invasion, so we must take measures to stop it." However within the same Parliament session, Statesmen Mohajerani was quoted as saying "freedom can't be repressed by any law. We have to create laws in accordance with freedom, not freedom according to our laws. If crime is committed, we'll take action. But let the people have their say first".
I point this out because I read about a country, while not vested with the same culture, are indeed working through to freedom and liberty with debate. There is progress, and I question any interference from any outsider, especially the United States. This is a difficult assessment because of the tollateriate practice of the Clerics with their Hisbollah muscle. The book closes with a description of government that is tolerant to protest until the Cleric regime feels they have lost control. The author describes situation whereby all the democratic instruments are in place. She describes a culture that appears to have a say in its destiny. Then right when you think you are going to break through, the Mullah Clerics step onto the scene with a government sanction Hisbollah terror action vested upon their own people. There is no freedom of press if you consider writing or speaking against the regime.
The final conclusion however describes a successful revolution in terms of objectives accomplished. Iran clearly has a Theocratic Government guided by the laws of Islam. But at what cost? Since the revolution, baby boomer phenomena occurred. This was a result of Islamic regulated non-birth control during the first ten years of post revolution policy. Today one in twenty students have a hope for a college education. The schools are bursting at the seams at primary level. Inflation is at 25%. The Iranian currency has seen a 800% increase in it’s peg to the dollar. Today the price for a set of tires cost the same as what a whole car cost in 1979. While merchandise has found it's way back into the worlds largest Brasserie, the people cannot afford it. There is a high degree of discontent that is fueled by hunger for the conveniences of Western life. The Iranian people reach for the West and at the same time shout death to Satan. Keep in mind Muslims do not view Satan as we do. With all this said you could easily argue a case of confusion for the Westerner. You could argue the same case for the Iranian people.
There is hope in the hearts of the youth in Iran. They do not hold the same disdain towards the West. In fact hunger breeds disdain towards their own government instead. As the USSR's economy fell under the weight of its communist ideology, Iran may well follow suit. And thus Western foreign policy should be one of patience. It should be a policy that monitors with vigilance and safe guards towards security. The safe guard could indeed include military action only towards a regime that has proven to export terrorism and not the people. The proof must clearly be presented to the international community. I read nothing in this book that suggests Iran as a country or a people that pose a threat to the United States. For that you would have to read up on Hizbollah, terrorist groups, Iraq, or Saudi Arabia. For that matter we should be keeping an equally watch on the militia camps of with fanatical views here in the United States.
By Robin Wright
This book begins its message with in effect a status report of the Revolution that took place in Iran in 1979. It bases its report in the fundamental phases of a traditional revolution. This book suggests that the Iranian Revolution is now in its fourth and final phase. The author places this revolution is on the same plateau as the French and Russian revolutions as it represents the last major sect of life to reach out for liberty. That’s right; Khomeni was brought in to fill the void left by the deposed shah who was alleged to have violated the liberty of the Iranian man. It was not the intention of the Ayatollah or the revolutionist for the revolution to have the religions overtones that it had. The country has since experienced four political leaders, each who have experienced the forceful hand of the Islamic fundamentalist mullahs and dealt with them in different ways. Twenty years later the author tells of an experience where by when cornered by Iranian activists, they inquired more about whether Pink Floyd had a new album out, as opposed to the American political position. The revolution is in its fourth stage of revolution and it becomes time to evaluate if the whole journey was worthwhile. This book does a fabulous job making sense of what’s in the mind of the Iranian people. It allows you to share in the irony of their quest for liberty. The following is a summary of Iran’s past twenty years and a co-conclusion.
After a brief summary of the biography of a revolution and then a specific foray into this particular revolution, the book moves in to detailed examples of the Cleric imposition. This imposition is found not only in politics but also upon the famous modern philosophers of Persia. Abdul Karim Soroush who had emerged as one such person who was being acclaimed to carry the comparable philosophical weight to Germanys Martin Luther. Soroush promulgated debate within Iran both about its political future and the evolution of the Islam faith. After Iran survived the initial challenges of ten years of war and fundamental Islamic imposition, Soroush attempted to get Iran back to the initial intent of the revolution by addressing the questions that the Clerics could not answer. While the Clerics appointed Soroush to a position to realign all university studies to the Islamic faith, they would not tolerate his call to include the perspective of Western and Jewish ideals. The mullah position was generally stated that inclusion by freedom of speech only empowered the position of the West and Israel and was a slap in the face of Islam.
Aside from the political government body, Iran also has an assembly of 86 Experts (Fiqih) to influence that body. The people are supposedly learned and virtuous. These Clerics actually over-ride via "influence” all political decisions. In the election of 1998, a time when the Revolution was quite a bit tempered since 1979, the Clerics went to extreme measure to ensure that candidates for political office were from a narrow field. This resulted in a low turn out at the polls and a question mark about the concept of the Fiqih. The people embraced the concept of the Fiqih, but did not agree in the roll of the Fiqih or the Assembly of Experts. The Faqih has evolved to be just another dynasty as opposed to the Supreme "thinker" that was intended.
In Iran as different as things may be, there are similarities for instance from one family comes three cleric leaders; one from the left, one from the middle and one from the right. While they agree on family and religion, they dispute politics with rigor. Sounds like an American/Irish Catholic family to me. A fundamental argument is centered on whether any one person is above the law. For Iran this is the Faqih. For Americans this pertains to our President. And indeed in both countries this leader does have in, varied degrees and through different venue, immunity to the law.
With regard to the press in Iran and in particular the credibility it has with the people; it is of no surprise that the Iranian young people were devastated to hear that one of their airliner was shot down. They were convinced that the action was really of the Iranian government. They would not believe that the Americans actually shot down the airliner until they heard it on international radio BBC. In the midst of a cleric driven culture revolution in Iran during the 1990's western influence crept back in via the satellite dish. By the late 90's the political leaders were indeed of the mind to relax the cleric rule. Yet, still within this climate, on all social issues the government consulted the Fiqih. And the clerics, just when the people had a glimpse of free press, had the last word. They placed a ban in Western press again Hence as a matter of law, the clerics decide what music, books, movies, and theater you can partake in. “The rest of the story” is underground.
In the period of relaxation of the cleric rule though live sports from the States were allowed with a few second delay so that the broadcasting technicians could cut all shots of American women that would be improperly dressed. This means to say all American women. However, by the close of the 90's the clerics could stand not more and issued a fatwa condemning satellite dishes and VCR's which resulted in Basij militants barging into homes and destroying the condemned devices. Majid Qaderi, the director of Iran's Intellectual Development of Children says, " Barbie is a Trojan horse. Barbie’s an American woman who never wants to get pregnant an have babies. She never wants to look old and this contradicts our culture. Thus we replace Barbie with our version of Sara"
The current head of the Ministry of Culture and Islam, Ayatollah Mohajerani describes freedom slightly different than in the West. "Obviously we don't share the same definition of freedom. The main difference is that in the West, it's freedom from something, which means that obstacles must be removed in the way of individuals. But in religious terms, it is freedom for which means that freedom must be in service of the perfection and prosperity of human beings"
The Iranian movie industry gives reason to have hope amidst a sea of irony for Iran's people. It portrays a State whereby the pendulum of judgement in censorship swings with the mullah’s opinion more so than with the rules of Islam. What this really means is that there is a "due process" in place. It is those in power that dictate what is shown by interpreting what they see in a film. The moviemakers of Iran, like those here in the States, are somewhat radical in the eyes of their Cleric rulers.
Yet at the same time, films since the revolution examine the values of Iranian life. Each film director is allowed to see events through his/her own eyes and capture that vision. IF his/her eyes are Islamic then the move is about religion. Most movies are not religious yet Iranian films abide by the hejb (no kissing), largely because an Iranian director would prefer to portray love in an artful form rather than a graphic bedroom scene. Iranian films get awards at Cannes and other film festivals. They do indeed express the emotion of Iranian culture. The crossroad that Iran's movie industry finds itself has foreboding consequence in either direction. In the course of less censorship, Iranian filmmakers are free to express more. However, with that freedom comes the competitive giant from Hollywood. The expression of Iranian culture through film must face the forces of extinction from either the left or the right.
Leave it to the artist to again speak for the people. Directors, in my mind an artist, in Iran make a critical point in their message. To the outside world, the revolution and the theocracy born out of it were one and the same. The political upheaval aimed at ending autocratic rule and redistributing power was one thing, but the subsequent Islamic government that eventually replaced the monarchy - and then imposed its own restrictions - was quite another.
The women’s role in Iran has seen the same pendulum swing in the post revolution as all other cultural shifts in Iran. The initial onslaught of cleric rule and male dominance has given way to the need and therefore inclusion of women. The war with Iraq placed a real demand on women as a resource, which led to women in government and led to their louder voice. However prominent women’s leader say "We want our right but in an environment that is compatible with our beliefs. That means we don't believe we have to live in a Western system in order to share power. But we are not going to trust men in our own system to grant us our due." It is women of this caliber that are redefining Iran’s interpretation of the Koran. The Ayatollah Khomeni in fact evolved from a conservative view on women to more modern guidelines. This transformation manifested itself personally in the rules imposed upon his wife versus his the rules impose upon his daughter. The personal evolution was lost in translation by the mullahs of the early revolution. The new President Katahmi has recently moved the women’s issues back towards the center, in relative terms. Here is a point of contrast; an Iranian woman feels “the hejb doesn't limit me, it frees me to be a person judged not by beauty but by actions and thoughts.” Is this not the goal of our Western women’s movement?
On sex and marriage, the rules that were originally put in placed in 1979 have since been modernized. Men and women are still forbidden to intermingle and touching is absolutely taboo in public. Most Iranian people can live with the morals that are implied and therefore many appreciate the dress that is required, however tempered and with some color. As far as birth control Iran has received international acclaim for the methods of education and distribution of all the various methods of birth control. This acclaim is recognized in the United States as well. This transition was largely due to the Ayatollah Komeini and several of his Cleric officers in the Assembly of Experts. The movement has enabled Iranian women to become professionals. Komeini's daughters all three are professionals by career and modern working wives. Marriages are still arranged whereby the mothers of the son go to the mothers of the daughters and select a bride. It is also astonishing to read that the legal age for marriage for a girl is nine. This is primarily because first it is the official age for puberty and second she can make the transition from her father to another man. In divorce, the laws have been made largely comparable to that of the United States. In my opinion because the shift from all awards of rights to the man to a 50/50 split and equal bias on children; that Iran has a more realistic view on the division of property than that of the United States.
Twenty years after the revolution Iran is getting back to the original intent of the revolution, but like the undertow of the oceans surf, the Cleric mullahs continues to impede the achievement of the original goal. The struggle between power and empowerment rages on. The undertow is indeed not Komeini or his successors of rank. It is the momentum of the mullah movement immediate underneath the surface. The Hizbolleah continues to spread the revolution abroad while maintaining internal activism towards militant Islam. Each year on November 4th Iran sponsors a protest whereby the youth of Iran shout "death to the great Satan" while also calling for a dialogue with the United States. The protesters are wearing all the USA sports gear and at the same time burning the American flag. It is almost a paradoxical whereby Islam’s peaceful intention of faithful religious practice is contrasted against the temptations of a degenerate product of the West, but the interpretation is warped by over zealous mullah’s quest for power.
There is an active movement now in the forth wave of the revolution to correct the inside of the regime. The goals now stated are freedom, justice, and religion; with democracy on the top of the list. Iran does indeed have a constitution and an elected government that acts with due process. This movement lay with the students of Iran's universities. Their enemy is indeed the Cleric mullahs. Unfortunately the Fiqah can and do, at any moment change law and arrest alleged dissidents when they feel the young have exceeded their power. Example: Parliament speaker was quoted on July 7 1999 as he revoked freedoms of the press saying “ The press is a gateway for cultural invasion, so we must take measures to stop it." However within the same Parliament session, Statesmen Mohajerani was quoted as saying "freedom can't be repressed by any law. We have to create laws in accordance with freedom, not freedom according to our laws. If crime is committed, we'll take action. But let the people have their say first".
I point this out because I read about a country, while not vested with the same culture, are indeed working through to freedom and liberty with debate. There is progress, and I question any interference from any outsider, especially the United States. This is a difficult assessment because of the tollateriate practice of the Clerics with their Hisbollah muscle. The book closes with a description of government that is tolerant to protest until the Cleric regime feels they have lost control. The author describes situation whereby all the democratic instruments are in place. She describes a culture that appears to have a say in its destiny. Then right when you think you are going to break through, the Mullah Clerics step onto the scene with a government sanction Hisbollah terror action vested upon their own people. There is no freedom of press if you consider writing or speaking against the regime.
The final conclusion however describes a successful revolution in terms of objectives accomplished. Iran clearly has a Theocratic Government guided by the laws of Islam. But at what cost? Since the revolution, baby boomer phenomena occurred. This was a result of Islamic regulated non-birth control during the first ten years of post revolution policy. Today one in twenty students have a hope for a college education. The schools are bursting at the seams at primary level. Inflation is at 25%. The Iranian currency has seen a 800% increase in it’s peg to the dollar. Today the price for a set of tires cost the same as what a whole car cost in 1979. While merchandise has found it's way back into the worlds largest Brasserie, the people cannot afford it. There is a high degree of discontent that is fueled by hunger for the conveniences of Western life. The Iranian people reach for the West and at the same time shout death to Satan. Keep in mind Muslims do not view Satan as we do. With all this said you could easily argue a case of confusion for the Westerner. You could argue the same case for the Iranian people.
There is hope in the hearts of the youth in Iran. They do not hold the same disdain towards the West. In fact hunger breeds disdain towards their own government instead. As the USSR's economy fell under the weight of its communist ideology, Iran may well follow suit. And thus Western foreign policy should be one of patience. It should be a policy that monitors with vigilance and safe guards towards security. The safe guard could indeed include military action only towards a regime that has proven to export terrorism and not the people. The proof must clearly be presented to the international community. I read nothing in this book that suggests Iran as a country or a people that pose a threat to the United States. For that you would have to read up on Hizbollah, terrorist groups, Iraq, or Saudi Arabia. For that matter we should be keeping an equally watch on the militia camps of with fanatical views here in the United States.
The Arabs
The Arabs
By David Lamb
This review is a rambling review in the same sense that David Lamb rambles through Arab Nations drawing salient points to cast a spotlight on the diversity factor of Arabs from the perspective of a western paradigm. This book is by a Western author who largely paints a contemptual picture of Arabs. For instance he suggest that jihad would be considered the "sixth pillar of Islam" and would define jihad as holy war. These statements would be an insult to a Muslim. And these printed words, read by the millions of Westerners would most certainly breed contempt. He then weaves nuggets of fact, about Islam that grates across the fabric of our core values. Separations of church and state rules are diametrically opposed when comparing Christianity and Islam. The facts laid out are consistent with most everything I have read. It connects the past with the present, which may give insight into the future.
The book actually takes you on a tour of all the Arab nations in an effort to give you a feel for how life would be in that country. For instance: The author describes Cairo as a city in decline of major proportion. The reasons why are: 1.) Centralization of all Egyptian commerce in Cairo, 2) a constant state of hot or cold war with Israel, 3.) Nassar's burst of socialistic policy from 1973 to 1990, 4.) over population from a baby boom growing at the rate of a 1,000 people per day. The population density in Cairo is 240,000 people per square mile. People actually rent living space in cemeteries underneath tombs. It should be interesting to note that the United States has spent $62M in aid to help Egypt institute birth control. The downward spiral in Cairo's economy has led the desperate young to seek out Islam as a refuge.
In drawing the similarities and differences between Islam, Christianity and Judaism, the author threads his Arab tour with a history lesson on the origin if Islam. While the faiths were largely similar, they shared a common enemy; their differences began early as a result of mistrust in sharing power in the city of Medina. Because Mohammed fled Mecca, the birthplace of Islam, for his own safety his new home of Medina was already populated and controlled by Jews. While they at first shared the same God and rituals, the Jews rejected Mohammed as an Arabian prophet and untrained. The rejection caused Mohammed to change the orientation of his newly formed religion towards Mecca and away from Jerusalem. The differences between Jews and Muslims were sewn and the Muslims. Soon after the Muslims prevail in a 25 day battle with the culmination of the beheading of 600 of the defeated Jews. It was interesting to read that Mohammed sprouted Islam by force. He literally funded Islam’s beginning by raiding pagan tribes. Eventually the pagan sold out to Mohammed so that they could share in the booty of the raids. As a result Islam began to flourish. It seems that these beginnings draw similarity to that of Judaism yet sharp contrast to those of Christianity. Christians had their turn later as I understand things.
The author suggest that the brush fire beginning of Islam was not aimed at conquest or conversion but merely a continuation of the Bedouin skirmishing tradition that was primarily carried out for economic reasons. Kind of like Yugoslavia 1,400 years later. And I would suggest most other wars alleged to be of religious nature on the surface.
The schism between the Shiites and the Sunni helps clarify jihad within Islam. As history has it, Shiites believe the correct descendant to Mohammed is Ali and not Abu Bakr. The warring sides had the Shiite leader Husayn sacrificing his life to the Sunnis and hence giving mayrtarism a comparable sense of sacrament. This fanaticism is vested in only the Shiites or if indeed the Sunnis hold marterism in the same light. In the course of the reading about the conquests of the Muslims I reflect upon the Crusade Wars in the 12th and 13th centuries and realize the meaning of Diaspora and it's impact on the Jews. Of course, the Jews did spend a few centuries oppressing the Christians and significant amount of energy opposing the Muslims in their early days. So today could one simply say turn about is fair play. What has changed!!!!?
As Lamb describes the making of a terrorist, he begins with Kadafi in Libya. Kadafi is described as a man capable of deep thought and no reason yet apparently a popular characteristic of some Arab leaders. Kadafi has taken an oil rich country to third world status. I am especially intrigued by Kadafi’s raise to fame on the heels of Egypt’s Nassar and then immediate decline after the bombing of his compound in Tripoli. The Arab world power centers of Cairo, Libya and Lebanon have found themselves in a self-induced world of hapless poverty. The west, through colonialism and then support of Israel are the natural scapegoats for their demise. We clarify this in the Arab mind when we engage in warfare on their soil. Lebanon became a breeding ground for terrorist as we shelled their soil from the US New Jersey. Iran, a country that suffered years of US backed aristocracy and British extortion of oil money found an easy recruit to even their score. The Arab issue is not “land for peace”, an initiative that began with Nixon. It is about an inferiority complex towards their Jewish neighbors with a strong Western guardian.
George Washington warned in his farewell address against doing precisely what the United States is doing in the Middle East today. He admonished the young people to be neutral and to observe good faith and justice towards all nations. Cultivating peace and harmony with each. He said the United States should avoid permanent, inveterate antipathies toward some nations and passionate attachments to others. Such attachments engender a variety of evils and lead to the illusion of an imaginary common interest exists and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into participation in quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification. As long as the Arabs continue to ban democratic outlet and the US remains insensitive to Arabs while supporting Israel then terrorist activity will flourish.
The author offers three paths towards eradicating terrorism. First, is to assassinate terrorist leaders. Second is to impose sanctions against terrorist states, and third is to engage in diplomacy with Arabs states. Alternatively, as our recent world history shows us we have indeed gone to war in behalf of Muslim people three times, in Kosvo, Somalia, and Kuwait. To the point on diplomacy, given the assumption that war is the last step in bringing a diplomatic solution, we failed. Sanctions against Iraq come under an ever-increasing scrutiny by world leaders. This leaves the assassination route, one not legal, as the one to try. I suspect the reason why the virtues of global economics are not explored, is because of the internal Muslim leadership's non-participation on Western terms.
The author makes his position no secret on the fight against terrorism. "Is to conduct not massive air strikes but covert, selective assassination campaign against terrorist leaders. I find this ironic coming from a person who makes a living as a journalist. The classic mantra of academic left finds no home when our own are being killed in our home. This is medicine both left and right needed to unite under one flag for the security of one people. Yet, it is painfully brought out that the drastic swing to the left in post Nixon years leaves us with laws that render the recommended option illegal here in our home of the free.
Interesting trivia and digression in thought constructed by the author: Dawn is when there is enough light so that a person can distinguish a black thread from a white thread at arms length. Yet in Islam, science is indeed at loggerheads as to precisely when Ramadan begins and ends. When and in what time zone is the official beginning? The decision is vested in the authority of the guy in Saudi Arabia holding the threads who has control over the astronomy in the observatory. There is no word for fundamentalism in Arabic. Usouliyya (basic principles) comes close. The author states that " in any religion the believer is asked to put intelligence on the shelf, which is harmless enough. But when it has militant overtones it is self-righteous, irrational, anti-intellectual and dangerous. " He further suggest that the current movement back to the mosque does not represent an artistic or religious rebirth. He suggests that movement is a religious revival that gets louder and angrier with louder and angrier demands of the western world. The Six-Day War set off this revival, where Arab's vision of a Pan Arab nation dissolved. The 1973, Egyptian counter offensive gave the Arabs new found momentum in their fundamental roots to the extent that imposing an oil embargo was just a taste of things to come. It is not about land for peace; it is about the Arabs being second rate to the region's superpower.
Those poor miss understood Arabs. Why you ask? They do not invest in a level of public relations that is commensurate to the issues at hand. In contrast while a journalist in Israel has red phones on their desks for interviews with public officials, the same journalist would wait weeks for a visa in an Arab country and then wait days to get an interview with a officer of the person actually sought after. Granting high profile interviews with western news network is the exception and only due to extreme circumstance. During the interview the Arabs will not say what they mean; because pride and dignity are more important than what we in the West recognize as the truth.
This book led me to conclude that from a global perspective, we are very different people in our core values and thought. We have parted company long ago. The way back is not right around the corner. Yet I can set on the stoop of my New York apartment with a Muslim a Jew and me an Irish Catholic, and we see life the same way. Go figure.
By David Lamb
This review is a rambling review in the same sense that David Lamb rambles through Arab Nations drawing salient points to cast a spotlight on the diversity factor of Arabs from the perspective of a western paradigm. This book is by a Western author who largely paints a contemptual picture of Arabs. For instance he suggest that jihad would be considered the "sixth pillar of Islam" and would define jihad as holy war. These statements would be an insult to a Muslim. And these printed words, read by the millions of Westerners would most certainly breed contempt. He then weaves nuggets of fact, about Islam that grates across the fabric of our core values. Separations of church and state rules are diametrically opposed when comparing Christianity and Islam. The facts laid out are consistent with most everything I have read. It connects the past with the present, which may give insight into the future.
The book actually takes you on a tour of all the Arab nations in an effort to give you a feel for how life would be in that country. For instance: The author describes Cairo as a city in decline of major proportion. The reasons why are: 1.) Centralization of all Egyptian commerce in Cairo, 2) a constant state of hot or cold war with Israel, 3.) Nassar's burst of socialistic policy from 1973 to 1990, 4.) over population from a baby boom growing at the rate of a 1,000 people per day. The population density in Cairo is 240,000 people per square mile. People actually rent living space in cemeteries underneath tombs. It should be interesting to note that the United States has spent $62M in aid to help Egypt institute birth control. The downward spiral in Cairo's economy has led the desperate young to seek out Islam as a refuge.
In drawing the similarities and differences between Islam, Christianity and Judaism, the author threads his Arab tour with a history lesson on the origin if Islam. While the faiths were largely similar, they shared a common enemy; their differences began early as a result of mistrust in sharing power in the city of Medina. Because Mohammed fled Mecca, the birthplace of Islam, for his own safety his new home of Medina was already populated and controlled by Jews. While they at first shared the same God and rituals, the Jews rejected Mohammed as an Arabian prophet and untrained. The rejection caused Mohammed to change the orientation of his newly formed religion towards Mecca and away from Jerusalem. The differences between Jews and Muslims were sewn and the Muslims. Soon after the Muslims prevail in a 25 day battle with the culmination of the beheading of 600 of the defeated Jews. It was interesting to read that Mohammed sprouted Islam by force. He literally funded Islam’s beginning by raiding pagan tribes. Eventually the pagan sold out to Mohammed so that they could share in the booty of the raids. As a result Islam began to flourish. It seems that these beginnings draw similarity to that of Judaism yet sharp contrast to those of Christianity. Christians had their turn later as I understand things.
The author suggest that the brush fire beginning of Islam was not aimed at conquest or conversion but merely a continuation of the Bedouin skirmishing tradition that was primarily carried out for economic reasons. Kind of like Yugoslavia 1,400 years later. And I would suggest most other wars alleged to be of religious nature on the surface.
The schism between the Shiites and the Sunni helps clarify jihad within Islam. As history has it, Shiites believe the correct descendant to Mohammed is Ali and not Abu Bakr. The warring sides had the Shiite leader Husayn sacrificing his life to the Sunnis and hence giving mayrtarism a comparable sense of sacrament. This fanaticism is vested in only the Shiites or if indeed the Sunnis hold marterism in the same light. In the course of the reading about the conquests of the Muslims I reflect upon the Crusade Wars in the 12th and 13th centuries and realize the meaning of Diaspora and it's impact on the Jews. Of course, the Jews did spend a few centuries oppressing the Christians and significant amount of energy opposing the Muslims in their early days. So today could one simply say turn about is fair play. What has changed!!!!?
As Lamb describes the making of a terrorist, he begins with Kadafi in Libya. Kadafi is described as a man capable of deep thought and no reason yet apparently a popular characteristic of some Arab leaders. Kadafi has taken an oil rich country to third world status. I am especially intrigued by Kadafi’s raise to fame on the heels of Egypt’s Nassar and then immediate decline after the bombing of his compound in Tripoli. The Arab world power centers of Cairo, Libya and Lebanon have found themselves in a self-induced world of hapless poverty. The west, through colonialism and then support of Israel are the natural scapegoats for their demise. We clarify this in the Arab mind when we engage in warfare on their soil. Lebanon became a breeding ground for terrorist as we shelled their soil from the US New Jersey. Iran, a country that suffered years of US backed aristocracy and British extortion of oil money found an easy recruit to even their score. The Arab issue is not “land for peace”, an initiative that began with Nixon. It is about an inferiority complex towards their Jewish neighbors with a strong Western guardian.
George Washington warned in his farewell address against doing precisely what the United States is doing in the Middle East today. He admonished the young people to be neutral and to observe good faith and justice towards all nations. Cultivating peace and harmony with each. He said the United States should avoid permanent, inveterate antipathies toward some nations and passionate attachments to others. Such attachments engender a variety of evils and lead to the illusion of an imaginary common interest exists and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into participation in quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification. As long as the Arabs continue to ban democratic outlet and the US remains insensitive to Arabs while supporting Israel then terrorist activity will flourish.
The author offers three paths towards eradicating terrorism. First, is to assassinate terrorist leaders. Second is to impose sanctions against terrorist states, and third is to engage in diplomacy with Arabs states. Alternatively, as our recent world history shows us we have indeed gone to war in behalf of Muslim people three times, in Kosvo, Somalia, and Kuwait. To the point on diplomacy, given the assumption that war is the last step in bringing a diplomatic solution, we failed. Sanctions against Iraq come under an ever-increasing scrutiny by world leaders. This leaves the assassination route, one not legal, as the one to try. I suspect the reason why the virtues of global economics are not explored, is because of the internal Muslim leadership's non-participation on Western terms.
The author makes his position no secret on the fight against terrorism. "Is to conduct not massive air strikes but covert, selective assassination campaign against terrorist leaders. I find this ironic coming from a person who makes a living as a journalist. The classic mantra of academic left finds no home when our own are being killed in our home. This is medicine both left and right needed to unite under one flag for the security of one people. Yet, it is painfully brought out that the drastic swing to the left in post Nixon years leaves us with laws that render the recommended option illegal here in our home of the free.
Interesting trivia and digression in thought constructed by the author: Dawn is when there is enough light so that a person can distinguish a black thread from a white thread at arms length. Yet in Islam, science is indeed at loggerheads as to precisely when Ramadan begins and ends. When and in what time zone is the official beginning? The decision is vested in the authority of the guy in Saudi Arabia holding the threads who has control over the astronomy in the observatory. There is no word for fundamentalism in Arabic. Usouliyya (basic principles) comes close. The author states that " in any religion the believer is asked to put intelligence on the shelf, which is harmless enough. But when it has militant overtones it is self-righteous, irrational, anti-intellectual and dangerous. " He further suggest that the current movement back to the mosque does not represent an artistic or religious rebirth. He suggests that movement is a religious revival that gets louder and angrier with louder and angrier demands of the western world. The Six-Day War set off this revival, where Arab's vision of a Pan Arab nation dissolved. The 1973, Egyptian counter offensive gave the Arabs new found momentum in their fundamental roots to the extent that imposing an oil embargo was just a taste of things to come. It is not about land for peace; it is about the Arabs being second rate to the region's superpower.
Those poor miss understood Arabs. Why you ask? They do not invest in a level of public relations that is commensurate to the issues at hand. In contrast while a journalist in Israel has red phones on their desks for interviews with public officials, the same journalist would wait weeks for a visa in an Arab country and then wait days to get an interview with a officer of the person actually sought after. Granting high profile interviews with western news network is the exception and only due to extreme circumstance. During the interview the Arabs will not say what they mean; because pride and dignity are more important than what we in the West recognize as the truth.
This book led me to conclude that from a global perspective, we are very different people in our core values and thought. We have parted company long ago. The way back is not right around the corner. Yet I can set on the stoop of my New York apartment with a Muslim a Jew and me an Irish Catholic, and we see life the same way. Go figure.
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