Lamis Andoni is a Middle East consultant for Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based news station. She has been covering the Middle East for 20 years. She has reported for the Christian Science Monitor, the Financial Times and the main newspapers in Jordan. She was a professor at the Graduate School in UC Berkeley.
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Lamis Andoni
Doha, Qatar
Lamis Andoni is a Middle East consultant for Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based news station.
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Please allow me to begin by quoting the poet e.e.cumings: "Humanity, I love you, for you are forever taking the secret ot life, putting it in your pants and forgetting it's there, and sitting down on it"
We are "sitting down on the secret" when we assert a fundamental "our world" vs. "your world" dicotomy.We share one world, really and we need to converge on some acceptable means of sharing it. We cannot arrive at that means by asserting the validity of one culture's prejudices {"inherent condescention" ? Is not the presumed inferiority of non-Muslimsn a tennent of Islam?)over those of another. The full, unmitigated ,beautiful and horrific range of human behaviors is amply represented in any culture.The task of any individual, any clan, culture,or nationality is to find some meaningful way of placing the lesser self in service to the better self. To conduct our selves in an awareness of the inherent nature of our humanity. We do not always have the discernment or the humility to do so.In the face of that,"shocking the sensibilities" is sometimes in order ...it took shocking the sensibilities to get Americans to give up slavery, THEN came a long, slow and yet to be completed movement towards equality.
If Afghanis are offended at the depiction of a rape, then perhaps their sensibilities should be shocked with the data globally on the use of sexual violence as a factor in war,social repression, domestic violence ,and genocide (e.g. the rape of women and girls in Darfur, the rape of Croate women by Serbs in the Balkan war to "dilute " the ethnicity, white Australians seeking to address the "aboriginal problem" by "f#%&ing them white").When we recognise a resonence in our own thinking, behavior, or cultural habits, we should reexamine our assumptions. We SHOULD ALL BE SHOCKED by these things....greater awareness leads to deeper self examination...this is our spiritual and communal obligation to one another as fellow humans.
I'm not talking about any forcefull imposition of a way of life, I'm talking about simply being able to acknowlege facts and realities and having it result in reflection and not riots.
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Please allow me to begin by quoting the poet e.e.cumings: "Humanity, I love you, for you are forever taking the secret ot life, putting it in your pants and forgetting it's there, and sitting down on it"
We are "sitting down on the secret" when we assert a fundamental "our world" vs. "your world" dicotomy.We share one world, really and we need to converge on some acceptable means of sharing it. We cannot arrive at that means by asserting the validity of one culture's prejudices {"inherent condescention" ? Is not the presumed inferiority of non-Muslimsn a tennent of Islam?)over those of another. The full, unmitigated ,beautiful and horrific range of human behaviors is amply represented in any culture.The task of any individual, any clan, culture,or nationality is to find some meaningful way of placing the lesser self in service to the better self. To conduct our selves in an awareness of the inherent nature of our humanity. We do not always have the discernment or the humility to do so.In the face of that,"shocking the sensibilities" is sometimes in order ...it took shocking the sensibilities to get Americans to give up slavery, THEN came a long, slow and yet to be completed movement towards equality.
If Afghanis are offended at the depiction of a rape, then perhaps their sensibilities should be shocked with the data globally on the use of sexual violence as a factor in war,social repression, domestic violence ,and genocide (e.g. the rape of women and girls in Darfur, the rape of Croate women by Serbs in the Balkan war to "dilute " the ethnicity, white Australians seeking to address the "aboriginal problem" by "f#%&ing them white").When we recognise a resonence in our own thinking, behavior, or cultural habits, we should reexamine our assumptions. We SHOULD ALL BE SHOCKED by these things....greater awareness leads to deeper self examination...this is our spiritual and communal obligation to one another as fellow humans.
I'm not talking about any forcefull imposition of a way of life, I'm talking about simply being able to acknowlege facts and realities and having it result in reflection and not riots.
December 23, 2007 12:07 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on December 23, 2007 12:07