Re: Idiotic imams and khutbahs

br na'eem (and all),

oh, yes, i agree that a range of tactics and methods are required ...to
accomplish change.  ;)  i surely didn't mean to try to say how people
should write or speak.

but, i have to say, though, that i see no more war in this than in the
daily, seemingly innocent, completely accepted interactions among people
i observe all the time, of people butting  heads heedlessly to gain a
leg up on someone or someones else, using anger and outrage and
oneupsmanship and clever put downs against some people as a means of
displaying one's strength, in order to demonstrate personal power, in
order to try to make others admire them and to build up a "team" of
those who all think alike and act alike and want to be alike.  none of
us are wrong for viewing the world differently, but i think we move into
being wrong when we try to manipulate other people to think like us,
especially if we're willing to choose to hurt people to get what we
want.



i don't see this power struggle as being any different than all the
class, and gender, and heritage, and prestige, and status, etc., etc.,
struggles we're all subjected to all the time.  and i don't agree with
br sanjay that any one of our identities can take precedence at any one
moment, but that's because i don't think we have multiple identities - i
think looking at ourselves that way, as if there are separate "issues"
in the world, just divides us further, and causes schizoid feelings to
take root in us individually.

there are lots of people like this imam, who assign to themselves
leadership roles that are not based on offering a personal example for
change, but on targeting and manipulating personal values and fears to
exert power and dominance, and i think that includes trying to make us
think we have "lots" of identities and that it's even possible to pick
and choose among them.  i don't think it is.  though maybe sometimes we
think we can do that....

this is not about god or religion or islam, it's about power and control
- it's just that this particular abuse of power is taking place in the
context of islam, in the context of a religious congregation, framed in
personal relationships with god -- a context in which people
instinctively feel they should be safe and protected.

oh, i also think br sanjay's comments that our "real" community exists,
for the most part, everywhere other than the masjid is, sadly,
accurate.  (ok, maybe he didn't quite say that.. ;) , but i'm saying it.

charmi