Tariq Ramadan and Political Islam

To begin, I am a secular person. I am not ashamed of such a statement though recently I have learned that it makes me some what of an elitist. I am not ashamed of being an elitist either. I can't choose what class I am born into, but I can choose how I want to live my life and what impact I want to have on my community.

This brings me to the question of Islam. Tariq Ramadan (his picture is on the left) is an Islamic Scholar at Oxford University. He is of Egyption origin and in his book Islam and the Arab Awakening he postulates that what the Arab region needs now is to encourage real revolution by adopting Islamic ethics into new Islamically shaped governments. His example or reference is Turkey, which has a political system that is very much so influenced by Islamic politics. He however would rather Turkey take more from Islamic economic policies than the liberal ones they use.

My initial reaction when reading this was how do Christians, Druze, Allawites, Jews, non or partial believers, and even loose Muslim followers all live underneath the heading of Islamic law and Islamic practices.

Ramadan argues Islam is lucid and all encompassing. It opens the doors for dialogue and inclusion. And yes though Islam when practiced with his interpretation and heart would/could/or possibly may be a feasible policy for state practices, I just don't see the Arab region being mature enough in its faith to implement such policies, if they are ever implementable.

I see faith as a jack in the box, it is surprising, powerful and bouncy, but its also a little scary. Devotion is deep, to surrender to anything is a giving of oneself that is whole and to do it blindly (for that is what faith is to some extent) than you are easily swayable in the name of that devotion.

This is the power hizballah and fanatical sunni factions have. This is how they sway there people. Through devotion and its unnerving sacrifice, Gods name can get a person to do anything.

Not to exclude the fact that the bouncy nature of any text, the fact that language is not finite and sways also is a serious concern. Fanaticals are given a means of interpreting the worst of things from the sweetest of words with the bounciness of language.

It's precisely because I see religion as a jack in the box that I fear its involvement in politics. Faith can be shared in the culture and in the society, it does not need to be silenced, but politics is a sphere where religion clouds more than it clears.

To give Ramadan a thumbs up though, I do believe that a shared societal debate about Islamic values and "ethics" can be very useful for helping in the formation of government, but the debate needn't be focused on only Islamic ethics. Shared values are as diverse and bouncy as language.

Philosophy of the Mind

So I was reading this book on poetry. (Go figure!) The author is a really big fan of classical Japanese women Poets. (Who wouldn't be?) And there was something that struck me as fascinating, though it had very little to do with what was actually being said in the book.

SHI in Japanese means Mind-Body-Spirit.

A while back I read this philosophy book on (well) the mind. It is called Mind: A Brief Introduction by John Searle. (Couldn't get clearer than that!) The book is very straightforward, lacks all the philosophical language that deters people from philosophy. But was very useful with regards to introducing the Western span of thought on how the Mind functions.

Whereas in Japan/China they use to think the heart was were all feelings, thoughts, and souls derived from, Western scholars believed there to be a distinction between the Mind and the Heart. Such a small difference has lead to dramatic differences in faith, body, thought, spirituality, (you name it).

A soul in Japan is linked fundamentally to the function of the body, the same can be said about our thoughts and our feelings. They all are harmonized together in the shell that is our skin.

In contrast, American strands of thought tend to believe that there is a distinction between the Mind, Feelings, the Body and The Spirit. In fact in the past westerners made a threefold distinction: Mind, Body, Soul. Philosophy has addressed that dynamic in more detail.

Interestingly, Searle says most commonplace thought in the West is that the mind and body are separate from the soul. Meaning that the soul does not determine the functioning of the body or the mind. Conversely, Japanese thought tends to believe that the soul, body, and mind are all linked and all influence each other. (Of course this is all gravely simplified and dramatically changing in today's world!)

When I was a kid I had a friend who was Vietnamese and was kicked out of her country during the Vietnam war. A feisty little girl, she would later in her life become a blond, with large boobs, and a white republican boyfriend. (identity crisis! I think so!)

In any case, I remember taking her home one day with my mother, and she explained that her mother use to pray for hours and hours, so much so that her body would gravitate. This mystified me, but I didn't believe it in the slightest, neither did my mother. But looking back now, it is clear to me that the overwhelming power of the soul does help one survive, it pulls one down into the pits of despair and madness, or helps them fight the sicknesses they may have to overcome. And maybe, just maybe, it can gravitate someone off the ground. (This sorta reminds me of Sufism.)

That said, my sister once told me that she read that Steve Jobs biggest regret was not putting more faith into the power of science.

Anyone reading my blog will notice I have the tendencies to go through really dark periods, its comforting to me to believe that my soul in some way or another is attached to me, forcing me to move forward. Its even more comforting to know that when and if I do hit rock bottom, and my soul no longer has control, there is a pill for that!

Oscillation

Oscillation is a very scientific term. It specifically refers to the idea of some form of matter moving between the extremes of two or more states. The middle being the point of reference between these states and the oscillating  matter gradually fluctuating between the various elements extremes.