Betrayed, Arabized

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

I guess you failed to look at this part of my post where I defined Arabization:

You certainly did not consider that part of your post important enough to include in the definition you copied over in your last post, but this confusion could have been avoided had you changed your actual 'definition' to reflect that, perhaps as follows:


Let me define Arabization from my perspective, it is the growing influence of some regressive and/or intolerant aspects of Arab culture and customs on Non-Arab Muslim countries. Arab societal behavior and norms have been wrongly intertwined with Islamic behavior and norms. The two being completely different as Arabic culture and custom is suitable for Arabs while Muslim culture and custom is suitable for all Muslims.

Would you agree with how I rephrased your definition? We can continue once you answer that, since my opposition to those arguing against 'Arabization', revolves around this issue primarily.

So how is being factual being denigrating?

It can't be considered 'factual' when rational/logical arguments refuting your POV remain (as do good arguments supporting your POV) - it is a good 'hypothesis' at the moment, but far from established 'fact'.

---------- Post added at 07:28 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:25 PM ----------

This happens when one runs out of intelligent counter-arguments. A feigned outrage is then used to avoid giving a coherent answer.

Funny, but after I picked apart T-Faz's definition and explained very specifically why and how it appeared to be a 'derogatory generalization', any rational individual would think that the resort to claiming that the position just 'picked apart' was 'fact' was the 'feigned outrage'.

I certainly don't see any 'outrage', feigned or otherwise, in my criticizm of T-Faz's definition, would you care to elaborate on where you appeared to see it?

 

[VCheng]

....................
So how is being factual being denigrating?

This happens when one runs out of intelligent counter-arguments. A feigned outrage is then used to avoid giving a coherent answer.

.............................
Funny, but after I picked apart T-Faz's definition and explained very specifically why and how it appeared to be a 'derogatory generalization', any rational individual would think that the resort to claiming that the position just 'picked apart' was 'fact' was the 'feigned outrage'.

I certainly don't see any 'outrage', feigned or otherwise, in my criticizm of T-Faz's definition, would you care to elaborate on where you appeared to see it?

I did not mean you, my favorite Agnostic!

I was referring in general terms the situation when being factual is accused of being denigrating is related to lack of intelligent counter-arguments. It has not happened with you yet in this thread.

Nothing personal was intended.

 

[Developereo]

I picked apart T-Faz's definition and explained very specifically why and how it appeared to be a 'derogatory generalization'

That's the whole problem. This whole confusion stems from sloppy wording in the original article -- perhaps deliberately. Each person is reading a different meaning in the 'problem of Arabization'.

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

I dont know why every thing is enforced on us- now tell me whats the use of learning Chinese in a province which does not even share a border with china-

i hate all these forms of forced izations-

Fair enough. At that age, Pakistanis are already learning 3 languages, their local dialect, the national language (Urdu), and English.

Adding Chinese to the list is probably too much. It should be optional, not compulsory.

 

[Developereo]

Fair enough. At that age, Pakistanis are already learning 3 languages, their local dialect, the national language (Urdu), and English.

Adding Chinese to the list is probably too much. It should be optional, not compulsory.

Given the abject performance of the Pakistani public education system, this is just a cheap political stunt.

Like when politicians keep passing tough new anti-crime laws when existing laws aren't being enforced anyway.

 

[muse]

Developero

You seem to have bought the bogus argument that religion is culture and vice versa. Religion is just an aspect of culture and when it is imagined as it's entirety, both culture and religion, suffer corruption And the argument that religion is the same as culture is a front for Islam equals arab

Dancing for joy? Haw hai!
By Feisal H Naqvi
Published: September 5, 2011

The writer is a partner at Bhandari, Naqvi & Riaz and an advocate of the Supreme Court. The writer can be reached at Twitter. The views presented in the article above are not those of his firm

The Lal Topi brigade has released a video showing delegates of the South Asian Free Media Association (Safma) dancing together. Not just dancing, but mixed dancing — men and women, Pakistanis and Indians, all dancing together. Haw hai! Not surprisingly, the soundtrack to the video seems to have been stolen from the more melancholy portions of Pakeezah!

From the comments appended to the video on YouTube, it seems as if many people agree that public dancing is a sign that Pakistan has gone to the dogs and that Safma is evidently part of a giant conspiracy against our beloved country. My question today is this: what is the connection between dancing and anti-state behaviour?

Some years ago, Pakistan won the T20 World Cup. That night, my family and I did the Lahori thing, which is to say we celebrated by driving around with our horns blaring. What I remember from that night though is that at different points along the impromptu parade route, young boys had simply parked their cars and were dancing with joy in the spotlighted stage created by the headlights of their vehicles. So it is an undeniable fact that we dance for joy. More specifically, it is an undeniable fact that young, Muslim, patriotic Pakistani males dance for joy. Why then are we so uptight about dancing?

Let us begin with the simple fact that we Pakistanis are not alone in our predilection for dancing when happy. Everybody dances the world over. Let me repeat that: every single culture dances for joy. Even the Saudis have their own national dance called the al ardha (or sword dance). More importantly, everybody has always danced for joy. Archeologists have found evidence of dance in the 9,000-year-old rock shelter paintings in Bhimbetka; one of the most famous artifacts of the Indus Valley culture is a 5,000 year old bronze statuette of a dancing girl; and pictures of dancers are ubiquitous from the ancient Egyptians onwards. So why are so many of us now convinced that dancing is evil?

The answer to this question is that we are continuously told by so-called religious scholars that Islam forbids dancing, especially ‘mixed’ dancing. Because mixed dancing can lead to ‘like like’, and ‘like like’ can lead to… well, you get the point.

Since I have no pretensions of being a religious scholar, I will leave the heavy theological lifting to others. Let me, however, make a few simple points. Religion is not culture. Yes, the two do get mixed up, but the argument that there is only one proper way of following a religion is self-evidently false. Muslims live the world over. While they have much in common, there is also much that they do not share. The lives of Indonesian Muslims are radically different from subcontinental Muslims, which are in turn different from the lives of Middle Eastern Muslims, which are different from the lives of West African Muslims, which are again different from the lives of the vast majority of Muslims living in North Africa. When we insist that all Muslims conform to one particular cultural model, what we are saying instead is that everybody who doesn’t order his life according to the cultural practices of Saudi Arabia is not a good Muslim. And that is an approach doomed to failure.

Secondly, there is only so much that laws can accomplish in the face of basic human desires. According to philosopher John Finnis, appreciation of beauty is one of the seven intrinsically valuable basic goods in life. In other words, just as we seek knowledge for its own sake, we seek beauty for its sake. These are things which are ‘self-evidently good’ and no amount of social conditioning is ever truly going to eradicate that primeval desire to get up and boogie.

Thirdly, it is particularly asinine, in the specific case of Pakistan, to try and insist upon a peculiarly narrow vision of Islam which forbids all mixing between the sexes and which treats dancing as forbidden. It is not in dispute that Pakistan is a society at war, facing an existential struggle in which the bad guys are people who have a particularly narrow and violent vision of Islam. Yet, at the same time, we are a society whose leaders lack the courage to tell our enemies that we are indeed different from them. Imagine an England in which Churchill kept on reassuring Hitler that Nazism was a truly wonderful philosophy but would he please just focus his anger on other countries instead. How long do you think English resistance would have lasted then?

The point is that nations under attack need to defend themselves ideologically as well as militarily. In our case, we are certainly making efforts on the military front but we are completely supine on the ideological front. More importantly, the position we’ve taken is one in which we are outflanked by the Taliban. As somebody already noted, our jawans are being sent off to fight and to shout Allahu Akbar against people who have been trained to shout Allahu Akbar a lot louder. No wonder then we’re confused.

Our current situation is that we have disowned most of our heritage, choosing instead to reaffirm only those bits that we share with the people trying to kill us. The obvious solution then is to reaffirm our entire heritage, even the bits that we share with the infidels across the border. I’m not just talking about bhangra sessions: I’m talking about qawwalis, raags and naats; Waris Shah recitals and khattak dances and all of the things that the millions in this country do to make themselves happy.

Let me put this more simply. One of the cardinal sins of military strategy is to get stuck in a two-front war. Currently, Pakistan is stuck in exactly such a war. One front is the war against the Taliban and their sympathisers. The other front is the war by the state against every iota of our heritage which is not Wahabi sanctioned. We need to choose which front is more important. Or else, the Taliban will make that choice for us.

 

[Developereo]

Developero

You seem to have bought the bogus argument that religion is culture and vice versa.

How so?

I specifically stated some pages ago that Turkish, Malaysian and Japanese Muslims were just as legitimate as anyone else, even though they hadn't adopted Arab culture.

In fact, it is the original author who seems to be making this false assertion that Wahhabi Islam = Arabization. If he is concerned about Wahhabization, and most of us are, let's call a spade a spade and focus on that specific problem. All the manifestations of intolerance that are mentioned are specific to certain intolerant brands of Islam.

Perhaps the author is afraid to use the word 'Islam' and is using 'Arabization' as a euphemism for 'intolerant Islam'.

 

[muse]

Wow - such a strident response, I'm not sure I understand why - what the author of the lead article and the article above are decrying is the idea that many in our society think that Islam equals arab.

Is the author of lead article afraid to use the word Islam? I think he's pretty clear in outlining Wahabism and the sponsorship of the state in promoting that particular idea in Pakistan.

In fact, it is the original author who seems to be making this false assertion that Wahhabi Islam = Arabization. If he is concerned about Wahhabization, and most of us are, let's call a spade a spade and focus on that specific problem

Actually he does:

The most considerate aspect of this whole panorama is the puritanical version of Islam i.e. Salafism / Wahabism that is predominately a phenomenon traces its roots to Arabian Peninsula and has been instrumented by the identity surgeons to homogenize the cultures that have not even an infinitesimal thing in common –consequences are horrible. This unyielding interpretation of Islam puts great emphasis on rituals and codes of conducts than on substance quite contrary to the Indian version of Islam that is marked with local customs evolved over the centuries through intermingling of diverse doctrines. All religions have two aspects that are theological beliefs related to one’s relationship with divine reality and sociological beliefs comprising of social behaviors dealing with human society. Former remain more or less absolute in their very nature while the later do change with the passage of time when religions go trans-regional. Problem, predominately, starts erupting when the sociological beliefs are subjugated by state to implement and propagate hidden agendas. These sociological beliefs then lay the bases of hatred, bigotry and misogyny. This is what has been done in land of the pure in the name of purifying religion by escalating a particular expression of religion to the stature of only-viable-interpretation-of-Islam. God has been portrayed as some Arabic speaking deity who is restricted to ethno-linguistic boundary which is clearly in contradiction of message of religion

.

 

[Developereo]

what the author of the lead article and the article above are decrying is the idea that many in our society think that Islam equals arab.

Fair enough. Since we all agree on our opposition to Wahhabism, let's focus on the cultural angle.

On the face of it, the assertion that 'Arab = Islam' seems ludicrous since most people would accept that God transcends culture and ethnicity. However, the situation is complicated by the fact that scripture is written in a particular language and, since the Qur'an is believed to be God's word, the only way to read His message firsthand is to read it in Arabic. No translation will do justice to the original. To that extent, Arabic has a special place in Islam. There are parallels in other religions -- the Pope says mass in Latin and Jewish scholars spend their lifetime debating the nuances of Hebrew words in the Torah.

To that extent, learning Arabic is innocuous since it won't turn the learner into an Arab, any more than learning Swedish will turn the speaker into a Swede.

The issue is further complicated in Islam by the concept of sunnat -- sunnah for our Arabicized readers -- whereby it is encouraged, though not required, to emulate the Prophet's lifestyle. This is where it can be argued that Arab culture seeps into the daily life of Muslims.

The author claims that Pakistanis are taking this to an extreme and are giving up local culture in favor of Arab culture, and people are debating whether, and to what extent, that is actually happening. Personally, I think the author doesn't give enough credit to ordinary people. Why does he think that people can't handle multiple cultural traditions? As I mentioned before, many Pakistani rituals have Hindu, Persian, and Arabic roots intermixed. In fact, the uniqueness of Pakistan lies precisely in our geography and history as a melting pot of these various traditions and cultures. The author feels that incorporating Hindu and Persian traditions is fine, since they are part of Pakistan's history, but he doesn't accord that same status to Arabic traditions? Why so?

 

[muse]

The author feels that incorporating Hindu and Persian traditions is fine, since they are part of Pakistan's history, but he doesn't accord that same status to Arabic traditions? Why so?

That's inaccurate, what the author is pointing to

this whole panorama is the puritanical version of Islam i.e. Salafism / Wahabism that is predominately a phenomenon traces its roots to Arabian Peninsula and has been instrumented by the identity surgeons to homogenize the cultures that have not even an infinitesimal thing in common

See, it's not that it's arabic tradition that is the source of concern, it is the salaf/wahabism bit, it's

This unyielding interpretation of Islam puts great emphasis on rituals and codes of conducts than on substance quite contrary to the Indian version of Islam that is marked with local customs evolved over the centuries through intermingling of diverse doctrines

I thin we are saying the same thing, so let me try and say it more clearly -- Religion is not culture, religion is just one aspect of culture, what the author is pointing to are cultural propositions, not religious - the author laments our confusion but further asks to gain what are we to give up our Pakistani selves for the arabized ?

And this heresy:

The point is that nations under attack need to defend themselves ideologically as well as militarily. In our case, we are certainly making efforts on the military front but we are completely supine on the ideological front. More importantly, the position we’ve taken is one in which we are outflanked by the Taliban. As somebody already noted, our jawans are being sent off to fight and to shout Allahu Akbar against people who have been trained to shout Allahu Akbar a lot louder. No wonder then we’re confused.

Our current situation is that we have disowned most of our heritage, choosing instead to reaffirm only those bits that we share with the people trying to kill us. The obvious solution then is to reaffirm our entire heritage, even the bits that we share with the infidels across the border.

 

[Developereo]

See, it's not that it's arabic tradition that is the source of concern, it is the salaf/wahabism bit, it's

Exactly!

I thin we are saying the same thing, so let me try and say it more clearly -- Religion is not culture, religion is just one aspect of culture, what the author is pointing to are cultural propositions, not religious -

Yes. We also agree that Wahhabi Islam is a vehicle for the promotion of a certain political and cultural agenda, which most of us oppose.

And this heresy:

Well, to play devil's [!] advocate, one could argue that we are shouting 'AllhuAkbar' precisely to reclaim Islam from the extremists.

But, assuming radicalism is as rife within the army as is claimed, it would be fair to ask why Islam had to be brought into the Pakistan army. Why wasn't Pakistaniat sufficient by itself?

 

[Zarvan]

Exactly!



Yes. We also agree that Wahhabi Islam is a vehicle for the promotion of a certain political and cultural agenda, which most of us oppose.



Well, to play devil's [!] advocate, one could argue that we are shouting 'AllhuAkbar' precisely to reclaim Islam from the extremists.

But, assuming radicalism is as rife within the army as is claimed, it would be fair to ask why Islam had to be brought into the Pakistan army. Why wasn't Pakistaniat sufficient by itself?

Islam has its own political economic and social system and very soon it will be implemented

 

[Developereo]

Islam has its own political economic and social system and very soon it will be implemented

I have no objection to anyone proposing a system of governance based on Islam -- or any other source -- as long as basic human rights and the rights of non-believers are respected. The source is less important to me than the end product.

 

[MastanKhan]

Islam is the only solution and for people who want sufism for your information guys Mahmmod Ghaznavi before attacking India met Hazrat Ali Hajveri famous Data Sahab and he gave him permission to attack India and also for your kind information it was Khawaja Moin u deen Chisti who Muhammad Ghuari saw in his dream and in that dream he ordered him to take on Prithvi Raj Chohan

Hi,

YOU KNOW BUDDY---WHEN YOU ARE BLIND----YOU ARE BLIND----the christians say----that is what is islam what you are practising----nobody has stopped any muslim from practising islam---maybe the truth is that the muslims really really don't want to practise islam---maybe they have had enough of it----and they can't take the life style---the basic fundamentals---the freedom to an individual---the justice for the weak and the poor---.

To those people who claim themselves to be muslims---please admit to yourselves---.

The minds of the pakistanis have been corrupted so much----it is just not enough to go back to islam----this hard drive has to be cleansed of all the bad data------.

You people need to remember one thing---pakistanis need to learn humanity and character first---then they can start to learn islam if they chose to.

 

[lonelyone]

Do you belong to Hizbut Tahrir by any chance, Zarvan?