My thoughts on Ft. Hood over at Religion Dispatches.
It’s quite possible that Hasan is mentally ill and chose to use Islam to express that illness the way a Christian may believe he’s hearing the voice of Jesus. In both cases they are turning to comfortable cultural idioms to express the confusion in their heads.
The following paragraph was cut from the final version, a decision I do agree with. However, I am thinking of picking up the thread and am curious to hear your thoughts.
One concrete action we can take is to reach out to Hasan’s student, Duane Reasoner, who believes ““In the Koran, you’re not supposed to have alliances with Jews or Christian or others, and if you are killed in the military fighting against Muslims, you will go to hell.”” He is clearly misguided in his understanding of the Qur’an. The first part he is referring to is verse 5:52, which refers to Christians and Jews who broke a treaty with Muhammad in Medina. The second is verse 4:92, which states a believer shall not kill a believer. According to the Constitution of Medina, a believer can include Jews and Christians. However, even if one accepts Reasoner’s understanding that the verse only refers to Muslims, he still has a problem. The greatest killer of Muslims in the 21st century has been the Taliban and Al-Qa’ida. The Sunni-Shi’ah conflict in Iraq is another violation of the Qur’an. Reasoner must either put himself in the position of deciding who is Muslim, or accept that as problematic as US intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan has been, it has probably also saved a large number of Muslim lives. Reasoner needs help, and he needs it now.
I do want to make it clear that the above is not meant as a defense of the invasion of Iraq; the quote is slightly out of context. So please focus on the main point of reaching out to Reasoner.
aziz 5:41 pm on November 11, 2009 Permalink |
YES! thank you. i was looking for this on email earlier and could not find it.
AA 5:58 pm on November 11, 2009 Permalink |
The one narrative I see coming out of the Muslim response is that there are lot of people ‘angry’ at many things wrong with a post 9/11 America. Well, Americans are angry too, and those who get angered, usually look for excuses to dump their anger (shadows) on others.
Anyways, I don’t necessarily have a unique view or claim to know the answers. But I find these two read relevant. The first one is relevant to the practical level, how the elected representative should lead (versus what the crowd may wish), and the second is more on the deeper level, an analysis of our over-identification with religion, nationalism, etc. People take their religiosity too personally (taking it seriously is another matter, but IMHO, the root cause lies in us taking religion too personally).
1 – (someone has posted this here earlier, I think it’s the best practical narrative).
http://lynch.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/11/09/al_qaedas_master_plan
2 – Psychological assessment of [over]identification.
http://docs.google.com/View?id=dgdtpw6r_186hktf6gdd
Buzz 6:00 pm on November 11, 2009 Permalink |
This topic has been reviewed a little in a thread Aziz started about whether it is Islamically ethical to be involved in the US Military. You raise some of the troubling questions and highlight the problematic nature of such an ethical question. It is far from black and white.
Do things change if the US Military supports Bosnian Muslims or enter into a military cooperation with Yemen?
While Muslims must support each other, do Muslims also have an obligation to support the society in which they dwell and prosper (as opposed to displaced refuges who may have never really joined their host country’s society)? And so forth.
The righteous caliph of the Muslim empire, to whom devotion and allegiance are due, does not exist. I think most Muslim who feel reticence about serving in a Western military express nationalist ideals more than Islamic ones. And if one can make the argument that serving in a Western military is unethical, it would seem that the same argument can be made to not participate in Western society at all. Who is to say that a programmer or a green grocer in the west does less than military personel in contributing to ‘western hegemony.’
null 12:52 am on November 12, 2009 Permalink |
I guess what you’re saying is that being in the west is a package deal. You can’t just decide that you want the freedom and democracy, but hold the bombastic foreign policy please. There’s probably some truth in this.
I can only speak for myself, but I don’t feel that not participating in a western Army comes out of “anti-western” feelings. It comes out of knowing that in any modern war there are huge numbers in the way of “collateral damage”, and I don’t want blood on my hands. I support my country by being good, and wanting it to be good. Quaint, but true. In the same way I would boycott an unethical company – no matter how much good it was doing for the economy – by not working for/buying from them, I choose to distance myself from the military complex as much as I can.
Buzz 1:06 am on November 12, 2009 Permalink |
I predicted that sentiment but forgot to account for it.
Obviously, not every Muslim gets in or has to apply for military service. But the army, like government and all strata of society requires representation. The way to make the western military more Muslim friendly is by participation in the highest ranks.
Still, I also see your position as additionally valid.