on the truth laid bear

Ok, when I first joined The Truth Laid Bear ecosystem I thought it would be kinda interesting just to see where I fit in. And then later on I was pleasantly surprised to find out I was a Large Mammal. Now recently I've been getting distinctively more traffic and comments on my site, but I'm currently a Marauding Marsupial (a demotion). What's even weirder is that yesterday and today I was actually at the very top of the Marauding Marsupial list but I had different rankings both times?!? And I actually have the same number of inbound links as the very last of the Large Mammals?!? Does anyone know how that line is drawn between Large Mammal and Marauding Marsupial?

the holiest parking lot in the world

A recurring issue which comes up in conversations between Muslims and non-Muslims is the challenge of explaining the difference between what Islam teaches in terms of its ideals, and the various practices which pass for Islam in various Muslim countries. "It's not part of the religion, it's the culture" (or economics, or politics, or colonialism) we say when it comes to explaining this or that abuse.

An especially difficult challenge is addressing the assumption that since Mecca and Medina are located in Saudi Arabia, that somehow the Saudi regime represents the purest, most mainstream and orthodox form of Islam. In fact there are many people in the Muslim world who are saddened and angry about several of the policies of the Saudi regime, and object to them on religious grounds.

Part of that criticism is based on the Saudi regime's attitudes towards Islamic historical sites and relics. Just look at:

The destruction of Mecca from Sf.indymedia.org
Makka's historic sites under threat from Al-Jazeera
Advice to our brothers of Najd by Sayyid Yusuf ibn al-Sayyid Hashim al-Rifa'i

The first two focus on how much of the religious architecture in Mecca and Medina is being destroyed by the Saudis. The last is a more comprehensive paper written from a traditional religious perspective and gives many examples (57 actually) of how the Saudi regime antagonizes orthodox Islam.

(links from mere islam)

interview with samantha sanchez

From Sunni Sister's wonderful blog:

Samantha is a poet, writer, teacher, da’iyee, mother, and wife. She is one of the original co-founders of LADO: The Latino American Da’wah Organization, and wrote her master’s thesis about Latinos and Islam. She was one of MuslimPoet.com’s “Poets in Residence” from 2003 to 2004. In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, I decided to ask her a few q’s about da’wah, Islam, and Latinos.


UZ: Have you been writing any poetry / fiction lately? If so, what’s inspiring you, what are you “into” now? Any projects?

SS: I have written some pieces but none that I have shared. Poetry is always there…in me. I have been reviewing my old poetry to get back into it though. I can’t say I have been inspired as much lately.

UZ: We co-founded LADO in October of 1997. What’s going on with LADO now, esp. since LADO and Latino Muslims in general have been featured in several media outlets lately?

SS: LADO is in the capable hands of Juan Galvan. I will never completely walk away but I sure have taken a hiatus from directing LADO for the past 2 years. He is still on the speakers circuit and works with ISNA on conferences.

UZ: There are estimates that the number of Latino Muslims has doubled, or even tripled since LADO was founded. As far as da’wah to Latinos from the “major organization” goes, what do you see? Pros, cons? Do you think these organizations give enough attention to the Latino community? How do you think da’wah material in English (or Spanish) addresses cultural concerns that a potential convert from a Latino background might have (if at all)?

SS: I think that in years since the founding of LADO, more attention has been paid by the major organizations such as ISNA and Why Islam?. However, more can always be done. I see it being done more on a local level than nationally. Groups in Chicago, Texas and here in our own backyard in NJ have recently had Open Houses of a sort for Latinos to learn about Islam. I applaud these efforts.

MSAs have also recently become part of the local efforts, as NYU and Columbia Universities having iftars and events that included Islamic History in Spain or speakers of Latino descent. Some of the dawah material is written well but it is iften merely translations. I think it would come best from Latinos themselves.

UZ: When it comes to the general Muslim community, do you think that people are generally open minded about Latinos, or do they hold negative stereotypes about Latinos that may keep people away from Islam? What can community leaders and da’wah workers do to educate the community about the diversity of Latino cultures?

SS: I think that the majority of the Muslim community is open minded about Latinos and in fact intrigued that someone of Latino descent would choose to be Muslim. There are always those who look down on converts as not pure bred no matter what their stock, but thankfully, these are few and far between. I believe that community leaders should do more locally, having Latino converts speak at local mosques to explain a bit about Latino culture so that in turn this will help dawah efforts to the Latino community.

UZ: At the same time, do stereotypes of Arabs, Indians, Muslims, etc. among Latino people, esp. Spanish speakers, prevent those who have some interest in the Message of Islam from exploring it further (ie, have you run into this)?

SS: Stranegly enough, I personally have not run into many Latinos who think that badly of Arabs or Muslims. I am sure there are some. I would suppose that the only way to cure this malady is for Latino Muslims to be more vocal in the media particularly on TV. Perhaps if Latinos were made more aware of their own roots and they could hear from one of their own who is a Muslim, such stereotypes would dissappear or lessen at the very least.

UZ: You did a study some years ago on Latino converts. Are you still planning on making a book out of this material?

SS: I would love to have published that work. In fact, many studies that have been done since then have quoted from my work, which is rewarding. For many reasons it has been placed on the back burner, but the fire isn’t out just yet. There were problems with publishers that never got resolved and I never found another publisher that worked. Insha’allah it will happen someday soon.

obama and martinez

Florida Senator Mel Martinez, the first Cuban-American elected to the U.S. Senate, said Friday he was teaming up with Illinois Senator Barack Obama, the only black member of the chamber to introduce an immigration enforcement bill. It would create guest worker programs for immigrants, and provide incentives for undocumented workers to become documented, but tighten border enforcement. (full story)

white muslims and moorish science

Laury Slivers, who wrote the piece Nourished by the Waters of Indigenous Islam also has another blog entry entitled Which Shade of White? about her experiences as a white Muslim.

In this latter piece she alludes back to the Moorish Orthodox Church of America which isprobably among the more ecclectic and unique movements in American religious history. They seem to have been the Sufi-tinged white hippie fellow travelers of the Moorish Science Temple.

If you want to learn more about the "Moorish" movement which formed around Noble Drew Ali, or want to delve more deeply into the "margins" of Islam, then one name you should definitely get to know is Hakim Bey (also known as Peter Lamborn Wilson). He has published books on Islamic heresies and mystical poetry. But he also has a HUGE amount of material (articles, interviews, a manifesto or two) available on the internet. I blogged about him in an earlier entry called hakim bey, ontological anarchy and cultural expression

the truth is out there

Damn. It's one thing when that one brother who is always talking about the Illuminati and Roswell and watches the X-Files just a little too much tells you about a secret conspiracy in the government. But when it comes from Collin Powell!?!?

WASHINGTON - As top officials in the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney’s office await possible criminal indictments for their efforts to discredit a whistleblower, a top aide to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, Wednesday, accused a ''cabal'' led by Cheney and Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld of hijacking U.S. foreign policy by circumventing or ignoring formal decision-making channels.
Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as Powell’s chief of staff from 2001 to 2005 and when Powell was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the U.S. Armed Forces during the administration of former president George H.W. Bush, also charged that, as national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice was ''part of the problem'' by not ensuring that the policy-making process was open to all relevant participants.

''In some cases, there was real dysfunctionality,'' said Wilkerson, who spoke at the New America Foundation, a prominent Washington think tank. ''But in most cases..., she (Rice) made a decision that she would side with the president to build her intimacy with the president.''

''…the case that I saw for four-plus years,'' he said, ''was a case that I have never seen in my studies of aberrations, bastardisations, and perturbations in the national-security (policy-making) process'', he added.

''What I saw was a cabal between the vice president of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, on critical issues that made decisions that the bureaucracy did not know were being made.''

Wilkerson also stressed that the ''extremely powerful'' influence of what he called the ''Oval Office Cabal'' of Cheney and Rumsfeld, both former secretaries of defense with a long-standing personal and professional relationship, adding that both were members of the ''military-industrial complex'' that former President Dwight Eisenhower warned the nation against in his 1961 Farewell Address. ''… don’t you think they aren’t among us today in a concentration of power that is just unparalleled'', he asked.

(full story)

the emperor has no clothes

After reading What America Needs Now: A Prophetic Social Movement that Speaks Moral Truth to Amoral Power by Andrew Bard Schmookler I wasn't sure whether to stand up and say "Amen!"... or yawn. Don't get me wrong. I like the fact that he said what he said. I think it needs to be said. It's important. But it has been said before. Alot. (And more eloquently in my opinion). It's just hard for me right now to see what the next step is going to be. Are people waiting around for some guy (or woman) in a bathrobe to come down from a mountain somewhere with stone tablets? Do we need to go somewhere and march? Sit-in? Demonstrate? sing? Maybe we should start the Spiritual Left Blogring (not a bad thought)?

What Schmookler says is:

By skillfully speaking the moral truth, we can help unite the good people of America, and end the polarization that our amoral leaders have worked to foster. With such “prophetic” speech, we can help America’s conservatives to remember how better to tell the difference between good and evil, and help America’s liberals to remember how absolutely vital—and real—that difference is.

Let us then speak to America, drawing strength from that ancient idea deeply embedded in the Western religious tradition: the idea that the material power of the bad ruler can be overcome by the power of moral truth boldly spoken. Let us launch, then, a “prophetic” social movement to re-establish the power of real righteousness in America.

And we definitely need to speak truth to power, but in order to succeed, any movement needs more than a catchy sloagan. They need a plan, and a willingness to follow-up on that plan.

For more thoughts from Schmookler, his blog is called None So Blind

tuning out blackness

Another blog which should be going on my blogroll when I finally get around to updating it is Marian's Blog but I'd especially like to highlight her review of Tuning Out Blackness: Race and Nation in the History of Puerto Rican Television by Yeidy Rivero on how issues of race and representation play themselves out on Puerto Rican television screens through the decades: moving from exclusion and invisibility through blackface to the Puerto Rican version of the Cosby Show.

nourished by the waters of indigenous islam

I haven't been to the Muslim WakeUp! site in a while, but I recently found a piece there called Nourished by the Waters of Indigenous Islam by Laury Slivers which seemed Grenada-esque. It is another response to Sherman Jackson's latest book and an extension of some of his ideas. It is a step in the right direction but ultimately, I think she goes too far and would make the label "Muslim" so inclusive that it doesn't mean anything at all. Granted, there are also some people in our communities who give out takfirs more readily than salaams. I guess I'm praying that the two sides will meet somewhere in the middle.

For some more thoughts on the limits of tolerance within strictly traditional Islam, check out the people of direction.

the front line

These days I've been trying to explore different parts of the blogosphere and I realize that I should really add to and re-organize my blogrolls. For example, I just started looking at The Front Line by Muhammad Karim who is living in South Africa and the brother feels like a kindred soul.

garvey's ghost

I just wanted to give a shout-out to a Garveyite blog I recently found called Garvey's Ghost. I would take exception to some of the comments on religion and spirituality (although I also agree with several) but either way the blog offers an interesting perspective on world affairs and current events.

in defense of white pride

This will sound odd especially to people who have read my blog for a while (and I almost can't believe I'm saying this myself). But I think it is about time someone spoke in favor of white pride. (I'm serious.) Not white supremacy. Not white racism. But a healthy amount of knowledge of self. In the long run, low self-esteem and social isolation, feeling groundless in the midst of history aren't good for anybody. White kids throwing "kill whitey" parties and the resurgence of neo-nazi activity in the US, in my opinion, are two sides of the same coin.

There is a strong need and desire for youth of all races to find some place to belong. And there is nothing wrong with a health dose of wisdom based on the experience of ones ancestors. Study history, but understand it as well. Don't just believe a caricature. Take it all, the good and the bad. Get some perspective. Know where you come from. Know where you are at.

That doesn't mean you have to dress up in costume (whether brownshirt or b-boy). But know yourself, and treat other people with respect.

old story, new tribes

Published on Thursday, October 13, 2005 by Inter Press Service
Venezuela to Expel U.S. Evangelical Group
by Humberto Márquez

CARACAS - Venezuela will expel the U.S. evangelical group New Tribes Mission, which has been active in indigenous communities along the southern border with Colombia and Brazil since 1946, President Hugo Chávez announced Wednesday.

"They will leave Venezuela," said the president. "They are agents of imperialist penetration. They gather sensitive and strategic information and are exploiting the Indians. So they will leave, and I don't care two hoots about the international consequences that this decision could bring."

New Tribes, an evangelical organisation that has long had close ties with the U.S.-based Summer Institute of Linguistics, is active in a number of countries in Asia and Latin America, and in Venezuela has focused its efforts on the Yanomami, Ye'kuana and Panare indigenous groups and other ethnic communities in the southern part of the country.

Since the 1970s, New Tribes has drawn heavy criticism from many quarters, including leftist political groups, environmentalists, indigenous organisations, academics, Catholic Church leaders and even members of the military. The controversial group has been accused of prospecting for strategic minerals on behalf of transnational corporations and of the forced acculturation and conversion of indigenous people.

Sociologist and environmentalist Alexander Luzardo, who 20 years ago published a report on the New Tribes Mission's operations in the Amazon jungle, welcomed Chávez's decision.

He told IPS that the decision "complies with what is stipulated in the constitution of 1999, which establishes indigenous peoples' right to self-determination and to respect for their beliefs, values and customs.

He also said the expulsion of the group would be in line with the recommendations of numerous government and parliamentary reports that had warned about the group's activities in Venezuela.

"New Tribes has westernized indigenous people by force, while spreading a sense of shame and guilt, disguised as teaching the gospel: they taught the Panares that Satan had turned into a Panare Indian and that they were guilty of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ," said Luzardo.

The now defunct National Identity Movement, which grouped together cultural, environmental and indigenous organisations in the 1980s, maintained that New Tribes acted as a cover for the prospecting of geological and mineral wealth coveted by corporations that provided funding for the Summer Institute of Linguistics. These included General Dynamics, a defence industry contractor, and Ford

Chávez stressed that "we are not going to run roughshod over anyone, we will give New Tribes time to pack up their things and go."

(full story)

"kill whitey"

In "Kill Whitey" on the Dance Floor, Michelle Garcia writes about how for several years now in certain parts of New York, "kill whitey" parties are the rage:

The dance floor throbs to the rapid thump-thump of the hip-hop beat. The deejay, Tha Pumpsta, leans against his booth, and a woman slides up from behind, grabs his narrow hips and rubs hard.

Tha Pumpsta hops onto the crowded dance floor of guys in big T-shirts dangling from slight frames and ladies in short skirts and tasseled boots.

"Kill whitey!" yells Tha Pumpsta into the microphone as he bounces to the beat. "What . . . gonna . . . do dance . . ." he raps to the beat. "Kill whitey!"

But you'd never guess who is calling the tunes. (full story)

the moors and europe

THE MOORS, BLACK CIVILIZERS OF EUROPE is a link to a brief overview of Moorish accomplishments in Spain and their implications for the rest of the continent.

a history of muslims in america

Here is a very brief chronology of the history of Muslims in America. It starts in 1178! and goes up to the early 1990s.

all god, all the time

All God, All the Time by James Carroll is a remarkably humble and sincere perspective on God's role in the midst of current events. From Common Dreams.

searching for failure

Try this:
Go to www.google.com
do a search for the word "failure"
And see what item comes up at the top of the list.
Here is an explanation but try it first.

islam and hip-hop

Also from I.M.A.N.: Islam and Hip Hop: Capital D Discusses the On-Going Role of Muslims in this Global Medium

the legacy of malcolm x

Also from I.M.A.N.: The Legacy of Malcolm X: An Interview with Ilyasah Shabazz where one of Malcolm's daughters shares her thoughts about her father.