Well, I also don't think that the motion if that's what it is,
chosen for this evening,
is a particularly good one,
but I knew about it as long as Professor Ramadan didn't at least agree to speak to him,
in spite of that reservation.
And...
I make this not just as a point of self-pity
but because for example,
someone in this great city has become used to making nice these days - Imam Rauf,
who describes himself as both founder and visionary,
- of whatever the downtown establishment is now to be called -
wrote an article - and I'm pretty sure it was on the eve of Yom Kippur -
for the New York Times.
In which he said: "when you think about it..." - this is the one of the most hand-washing statements
I have yet heard in making the make-nice-department -
"when you think about it, our our word 'Islam' is almost the exact translation of your word 'Shalom'"
I didn't say it!
I've never heard anyone else say it.
It isn't true among other things...
Islam may have some relationship to the word Salam
which can have some relationship to the word prostration, or religious observance it may,
but we know what Islam means, is intended to mean, it does mean... it is "surrender to God",
acceptance of God, surrender, sometimes...
translated as submission but in any case
the resignation to the divine will.
Again not in my opinion a prescription for peace, but that
isn't my only objection to it.
I don't think that abjection of fatalism or the prostration before divine or...
let alone before holy men who are interpreting the book,
is a recipe for good health of any kind:
mental or physical since we're talking about the Greek concept of the body,
and of the spirit and the virtue.
Just get that out of the way, now you're right...
- I was surprised to find myself saying -
professor when you say that the problem is not the book but the reader.
In the case of the Quran that is certainly true of me. It's true probably of every book I've ever read,
that difficulties I have with it or...
capacities I don't have with which to approach it, understand it, but...
if I read the Quran I certainly say well I... I can't tell whether this book is...
the word of God or not, I can only doubt that there is such thing,
but I can hope that this was a bad day for God.
Can't I? And I can hope to live in a country where I could say that and get applause.
Yes, and even... and even mirth and don't think it isn't a precious thing
and don't think it's being compromised, I'm coming to that.
I don't like the idea of a paradise reward for martyrs.
Don't like it. It's not me somehow.
Don't like the account... Don't like the earlier accounts
of village squabbles with the local Jews
who've taken a look at the new claim to be the Messiah
and decided about him what they decide about the previous claimant.
Is no good, not up to...
snuff. Do you think the Jews are ever going to be forgiven for that, by the way,
for rejecting two in a row? I don't think so...
and I don't see why they should hope for...
I don't see why they should hope for forgiveness either.
And still I'm allowed to stand here and say this,
and there are many parts of Europe I couldn't do that anymore,
or I'd have to be very careful about who I had invited for the audience.
I couldn't do it... easily on the air,
couldn't do it easily in print, couldn't do it easily in public,
couldn't do it on certain campuses,
couldn't do it with certain publishing houses.
Now, all of this has been done to us, by the wrong Muslims.
Well let's get together then isolate who these wrong Muslims are,
who've imposed a culture of violence pecked... censorship upon us, and let's get rid of them,
and have an honest discussion about the text and the reader.
And I think the ball is in your court, professor, on that.
Just to stay with my own professional thing I know best.
Not one major media outlet print or broadcast,
has yet shown you what the danish cartoons actually look like.
Yale University Press which commissioned a book on them which was to include the cartoons,
- as how could it not... Eventually panicked...
Yale University Press panicked and publish the book without the cartoons over the objections of its own.
Everybody knows what I'm talking about.
The President of the United States and head of the Joint Chiefs a few days ago was so pulverized with fear,
that they had to address personally in pleading tones of Christian nutbag in Florida,
who might have been or might not have been about to commit a minor act of blasphemy.
Is this the culture
that Islam wants us to have in relation to it,
one of... if you like pre-emptive submission,
pre-emptive cowering, backed by the fear of force.
Because that is not multiculturalism,
that's not... that's nothing like the gorgeous mosaic,
that's actually the absolute negation
of what multicultural system would be like.
And a multicultural system has to look rather as Kant's, I think on a religion,
whose preachers and websites openly,
openly make threats,
against people like myself,
against the Jewish people, against the Hindus,
who for heaven's sake are not even monotheists,
can be killed in almost any pretext,
against... and... and...
very... and very... and a very important point and I have to make it,
and against the wrong kind of Muslim now.
Professor, don't...
- I'll say this as mildly... as I can. -
Don't... you may not be aware that you weren't, and I'm saying...
I don't want to increase the area of unexpected offense taking,
that's been so hugely broadened by the sensitivities of...
of a religion that has the answer to everything.
But I'll just say I don't greatly care to be told as if I didn't know,
that the Iraqi life is as precious as an American one.
And as someone who's visited Iraq quite a lot,
had occasion to think about it a good deal,
what if you could mention anything United States has done in Iraq,
that is remotely as criminal, as sadistic, and as violent,
as the blowing up of the mosque of the golden dome in Samarra.
One of the holiest sites in the Muslim world.
Callously blown up by Sunni forces in alliance with
forces who perhaps not agree with them for once on this,
was... were fascistic Ba'athists,
probably they got the weapons and that high explosive from them,
that makes it worse surely.
Intending to start and successfully in fact initiating the civil war,
in which countless... thousands of people have been killed, religious processions have been...
just fired upon... funerals have been fired upon,
Quran's but without number of course be incinerated,
much more importantly children old people and civilians.
Now where is... I just wonder...
You'll have to... You must be able to quote it to me.
Where is the Sunni fatwa against this conduct?
Where is it?
Where is the authoritative statement of moral outrage
in the city, well saying: "this is not acceptable behavior for followers of the Prophet".
I missed it.
And so apparently did the followers of the Prophet miss it, because they keep on doing this all the time.
They were doing it before United States got to Iraq and they'll be doing it after we've gone.
So I'm sorry I would be talked to,
in that tone of voice.
And I want to know... I repeat my question: who has the authority to issue fatwas?
Is it Sheikh Qaradawi, who sometimes very much...
expresses respectful, who on...
Al Jazeera gives advice for all kinds of things,
some of them innocuous, sexual matters and so forth doctrinal rulings,
sometimes upon the legitimacy or otherwise of suicide bombing,
if directed to Israelis
not just Jews, of course, but... no, no, we draw the distinction.
On the other hand Hamas which does the suicide bombing,
doesn't draw the distinction.
If I can't issue a fatwa against Hamas, if I'm a Muslim,
if there's no one who will, they weren't, surely someone could say:
"we don't think Hamas should have on its website and manifesto,
the reproduction of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion",
a Christian fascist fabrication,
that is one of the warrants for the Nazi exterminationist solution.
I mean surely that's a question for the UN anti-racism committee,
on a spare day.
Or...
Or since that spare day never seems to come,
for some Muslim authority to say: "no brothers don't... don't do that",
it doesn't come, it doesn't happen.
Look on the website, it's still there.
Now, you... you would do better, I think professor, if you identified yourself
as a member of a very small and critically endangered minority,
someone who really is against all this, and will say so.
I will also decry the fact, that the religion itself can't seem to throw it off.
But you seem to have that a little bit both ways.
Now...
I'm afraid I have to stop you, so we can get to…
So then my closing statement is:
If you want diversity as much as the professor does,
much as I'm sure many people here do,
religious diversity, cultural diversity,
what you need for it is this:
you need a secular state with a godless constitution, like this one.
To... to speak as you did of the Ottoman Empire,
as a place where they were not just Muslims
but Christians and Jews, is either not to know yourself
or to expect others to have forgotten or not to know what it meant to be a non-muslim,
under the Caliphate,
or under any similar theocratic Muslim authority to this day.
Now, what we need... secularism is the only guarantee of religious freedom,
and yours and that of every other Muslim, we will defend,
but you won't be surprised that we have some questions for you in the meanwhile. Thank you.
Okay.
You laughed a lot and make laugh to people,
I have a problem with, we are talking about people who are being killed,
We are talking about people... about wars,
that's... that's fine, I have a problem with the way you are putting things here.
First, you know, when you said the first remark say, okay, you know what total
these are the first letters of totalitarianism,
because Islam is a comprehensive religion by the way exactly like Judaism and Christianity.
I never met a rabbi, a Christian, telling me you are with God on Saturday,
and with the Devil on Monday or... What is that?
But in Islam it's as if... it's all together.
It's a very simplistic way of dealing with Islam.
It's a comprehensive religion,
but there are rights of God and rights of people, and you have to differentiate,
and it's very old.
Come back to Alain de Libera, the French philosopher
telling you, you know, what separating authority
between what is to God and what is to human being, it's coming from Islam,
and this was taught and translated into Christianity
in the Middle Ages exactly opposite to what we think.
You may disagree but at least acknowledge the fact
that there are many interpretation in history then say Islam is this "total means totalitarian".
What's that?
"Auto" are the first letters of "autocratic".
This is not an argument, it's not serious.
And as I said, yes it's...
we are talking about reading,
and by the way it's for all the texts, is the same for...
the Marxists... you know quite well about the Marxists tradition.
and you know what some Marxists did with the texts.
This means that everything that Marx wrote was bad?
No. Once again, it's a serious matter here.
When we are talking about interpretations,
I mean it.
I mean that yes, there are people using the text in the way which is not...
and you have historically to acknowledge the fact,
that you yourself might have read some of the texts
not in the good way.
So this is the second point. About now...
the cartoons and... and... some of the... the things, that you are referring to.
You know...
Look at the muslim-majority countries and look at the Muslims in the Western Muslims,
and if you look at the reaction of the Muslims living in the States or living in Europe,
you cannot just say Islam was one and all the muslims are reacting the same way,
by the way the very month of October when the whole story started,
I was in Copenhagen and I said to the Muslims take a critical distance,
and don't be involved in this you don't like it but let it be,
because this is freedom.
the point is that you are not making because you are reducing something which is...
all the cartoon was all about freedom of expression,
you don't speak about the instrumentalization by politicians and... and...
and governments in muslim-majority countries and even in the West about the whole story,
because this is too complex to be put in.
So many authorities, many scholars and then...
you come with the... who are the the Muslims who are able to to speak.
If you read some of the the things that I'm doing or writing,
you would say that yes, I acknowledge the fact
that there is a crisis of authority in Islam.
But please don't tell me today, that you didn't hear,
the Muslim voices around the world,
criticizing and saying this is unacceptable to kill the people in the streets in... in New York,
and the condemnation was widespread by the scholars.
If you don't hear... of course... this... you know,
not less than 12 councils of Muslims scholars around the world,
from Amman to Istanbul, to Paris, Dublin, were condemning this.
It's as if they don't speak,
because at the end, when the people are calling to kill for killing they are heard,
that when people are condemning what is done in the name of the religion,
it's as if they don't speak, it doesn't make the headlines.
But I'm telling you that some scholars did it and said it, and I was one of them.
and you know what is very interesting indeed the whole discussion is that...
when the people like what I'm saying say: you know what?
What he's saying is good, but he is alone.
Minority it's open but he's alone.
But when the people don't like what I say, say: "You know why? He has huge followers."
So depending on... if you like are not what it said,
you have followers or not.
So I can tell you something that the mainstream Muslims presence
in the West and in many Muslim majority countries as well,
I acknowledge the fact, that they are critical towards the use of the religion.
Now many Muslims... yes, would support,
and I did this and by the way, I was banned from the... this country mainly for that...
are saying for example that the Palestinian resistance is legitimate,
and I said that, and I repeat this here,
but I also said that the means used to kill innocent civilians and innocent Jews
in... an Israelis in Israel, I cannot accept that.
Have you heard that?
I said it. So...
And I'm not... I'm not alone.
I'm not alone... So, once again,
its many interpretations listen to this and...
also be respectful of these diversity and...
the way the Muslims are dealing with this so...
so the fatwas, the legal opinions are coming from everywhere,
when you speak about some of the issues because you know,
it's sensitive so you put it in a very simplistic way: women, violence, Hamas and all these together,
it gives the impression oh yes, yes, this is right.
But you don't give the people all the interpretation,
everything which is done in every one of these fields
coming from the Islamic tradition and scholars of today.
Trying to improve the status of women,
trying to act... to condemn violence and to promote justice and peace.
You also have to deal with this.
At the end you may have a problem with religion much more than with Islam.
And to tell me...
to tell me at the end of your speech,
the only right solution is a secular godless constitution.
In the United States of America I think it's problematic.
Because I don't think it's a godless nation here.
There is a reference.
- So, no, no... - I'm just talking only about the constitution.
No... Only the constitution.
Now but I don't think that even you're the politician,
and even the President of the United States of America,
is referring to something which is a godless secular system,
or I don't understand all the speeches I... I... I listened to.
But the point is... that my way of dealing with...
the secular or separating... I don't have a problem with separating authorities.
I don't have a problem with this,
and in even my solution in Israel and with Palestinian I want
one state where people can live together under the same rule of law.
But it's as if...
we agree on this in France but not really in Israel, because it wouldn't be Israel.
So it's selective not consistent approach.
I want you to see this everywhere in that way,
and then you are saying it,
but I would say that the people who are applauding sometimes,
they want this for some and not for all.
So let me tell you something.
I'm critical from within,
and I think that I'm far from being the only one.
And from within the Islamic tradition
listen to... also for example the Western Muslims who... the way they were dealing with...
the September's 11th,
the way they were dealing with the cartoon crisis,
the way they were dealing with Fitna.
Many of them were saying: no don't be involved in the United States of America.
How the Muslims reacted to all this controversy on the mosque here in New York,
or in "Burning the Qur'an Day"?
Were they all violent?
Or have you heard some voices of reason and peace in this country?
I think if you are honest, you heard these voices of peace,
of people referring to their religion and say:
"We are Americans and what we want for this country is a peaceful proactive existence and coexistence."
I think that this is also coming from the ethics,
their values and you have to value this as being the future.
So to dream of something which is a godless future,
I think it's the wrong dream.
But to be able to deal with all this diversity and to listen to the voices,
instead of rejecting an entity as something which is bad per se,
let us look at the people who
from within are trying to do good with what they are,
and what they believe in.
I think that this is... the way forward for... for all of us,
and this is the way I would... I would put it for... for...
for the future, and...
I'm not talking about wrong Muslims,
I'm talking about the critical debate among Muslims,
and I hope that you yourself,
with the people who are supporting some of the views you are also critical about
the way you sometimes reduce the other to an alien presence
not helping us to got to... to get to a better understanding of a critical debate.
Sometimes I'm just lost with the way you put things because...
the debate is closed before it started.
Thank you.
English subtitles by Quantum Leap Engineer
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