At this website by various means we seek to defend life, to encourage Christian faith, to promote Catholic tradition, to edify Marriage in its link to the Creator, to encourage families and individuals, and to support missionary disciples of Jesus. G.S.
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Following are excerpts from an interview with Bahraini intellectual Dhiyaa Al-Musawi, which aired on Abu Dhabi TV on December 29, 2006.
Dhiyaa
Al-Musawi: I do
not believe in gallows of ideology. Our problem in the Arab world is that we
have many gallows of ideology and of accusations of social betrayal, on which
we try to hang an intellectual, a thinker, or a poet every day, just like in
the case of Naguib Mahfouz and others. We, I'm sad to say, are against
creativity and civilization, and against any language that seeks common ground
in society.
We must
have the courage to get rid of the “backward” cholesterol of ideology,
accumulating in the arteries of Arab awareness and the Arab mind. We suffer
from backwardness. This is not masochism - the kind psychologists talk about -
acts of self-flagellation. This is the truth. We have not developed even to the
point of admitting defeat. We [have to] admit our cultural defeat. In the past,
we had a civilization in Andalusia and in many other places, but today we are
regressing – we export violence, we terrorize whole countries, we threaten
national security, and many other things.
We need
to reform and to reshape religious thinking, because, in all honesty, the
pulpits of our mosques have begun to "booby trap" the people.
Interviewer: In what way?
Dhiyaa
Al-Musawi: They
booby trap them by generating hatred towards "the other." We have
claimed a monopoly over Paradise, and each of us has recorded it in the land
registry in his name.
Interviewer: But the pulpits are under
government supervision.
Some of
them are under government supervision, but in some Arab countries, although
they are under government supervision, the government itself encourages the
booby trapping. This problem has political reasons, but who pays the price? The
country, society, civil society, and the young man, who is being told that the
black-eyed virgins await him at the gates of Paradise, and that all he has to
do is kill himself, to slaughter himself. He might blow up his family and
children to get the virgins of Paradise. This is the language and culture of
death. We were not born into this world in order to die this way. The beauty of
Man lies in his living for the sake of his homeland, not in dying while booby
trapping others.
In the
Arab world, we have religious clerics who are beacons [of knowledge], but I
think the problem is that we are constantly intimidating the public. We talk
only about Hell, and not about Paradise at all. The Koran is balanced. It talks
about the fire of Hell and the fruits of Paradise, but we constantly preach
about the horrors of Judgment Day, saying that a bald Satan, or a bald serpent,
would visit them in the grave. It is constant terror. It is always a dark
picture. Why? That is the problem. Unfortunately, some young men – out of a
wrong interpretation of religion... The moment he becomes religious, he ceases
to smile and to greet others. He accuses some people of heresy and others of
sin. He begins all that discourse. He hates music, and refuses to dress neatly.
His mind is abducted into the dungeons of ideology, I'm sad to say.
Interviewer: Let me ask you a question. If a
Shiite, or even a Sunni, becomes a religious cleric, yet he listens to music,
can the Arab public possibly accept him?
Dhiyaa
Al-Musawi: In my
view, the Arab disposition suffers from many problems. We have destroyed many
things, including the beauty of the general disposition. Music is a beautiful
thing...
Interviewer: Do you listen to music?
Dhiyaa
Al-Musawi: Yes, I
listen to music. I listen to classical music, and I think Beethoven's
symphonies are very beautiful. They are among the masterpieces of human art. I
believe that music develops the spirit of Man and humbles him. What is wrong
with that?
As for
the policy of non-violence, I'd like to give you the example of Gandhi, whom I
consider a hero. If only we could obtain some of Gandhi's genes, and plant them
in the brains of our youth in the Arab world..
Interviewer: In your home, you have pictures
of Martin Luther King and Jesus on the wall.
Dhiyaa Al-Musawi: In my home, I put up a picture
of Jesus, because whenever I look at his picture, worlds of peace and love open
up before me. It was Jesus who said: "Love thy enemies, bless them who
curse thee." We need this beautiful language in our society. I also have a
picture of Gandhi, whom I consider to be a very fine person, and whose [image]
we should plant in the minds of our youth.
Some of us say: "May Allah curse the Jews and the Christians, the
offspring of apes and pigs." Is this the language of progress? Is this the
language of enlightenment and tolerance? If you had been born in Rome, you
would have been Christian, if you had been born in Tehran, you would have been
Shiite, and if you had been born in Saudi Arabia, you would have been Sunni,
and so on. How wonderful it would be if all these people could gather in love
around the table of humanity.
Nations that read more are the nations that are most respected, like the
Western nations, where people read... When you travel to Switzerland,
everywhere you go - on the bus or wherever - you see people reading books. Do
you see such sights in the Arab world?
The problem of the Arab youth is that they do not read. As Gustave le
Bon wrote in The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, the Arab youth
sometimes smile while they are taken to the slaughterhouse. Why? Because they
lack awareness. We suffer from illiteracy. Today, the Arab world has, according
to a U.N. report, close to 70 million illiterate adults – in other words, 70
million people whom you can booby trap, against their country and society,
because they do not read.
The Middle East Media Research Institute
P.O. Box 27837, Washington, DC 20038-7837
Phone: [202] 955-9070 Fax: [202] 955-9077 E-Mail: memri@memri.org
Search previous MEMRI publications at our website: www.memri.org
At this website by various means we seek to defend life, to encourage Christian faith, to promote Catholic tradition, to edify Marriage in its link to the Creator, to encourage families and individuals, and to support missionary disciples of Jesus. G.S.
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