ruminations on the owner of Jihad Unspun
Sep. 12th, 2004 12:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
winterbadgerI'm continuing to read this site, specifically the owner's personal testimony. It's fascinating. I find myslf more and more uncomfortable with her, the more I read about her. I'm struck by how she seems, by her own account, unable to move in anything except sudden, sweeping life-altering changes. Her story of going from being a crippled child to a fully functional teeanger to a rock-bottom addicted teenager, from a alcholic to an overnight, miraculously cured teetotaler, from a devout and utterly convinced Christian to a devout and utterly convinced Muslim: none of it sounds unbelieveable to me, but all of it taken together suggests to me someone who is fundamentally unstable and unable to operate without an absolute certainty of *something* (doesn't really matter what). Which makes me very reluctant to accept her judgement or her analysis of *anything*.
I'm also struck by how often the words "I had no idea" or "I knew nothing about" come into play, followed almost immediately by a sudden, rapid change of direction in her life story. More than anything, she seems to have lived most of her life without much knowledge of or interest in the world outside a very tight little ambit around herself. When this self-imposed barier was breached, she seems to have been overcome by all the information she had been either blocking out or allowing to pass her by for so many years, as if all of it had suddenly happened *just then* because it was just coming to her attention.
Another facet of her reaction to information: her seemingly unbounded arrogance. One of the best examples I've come across is her declaration "There was still one big problem as far as I was concerned and that was Christ, the Savior. Over a two week period, I research this whole matter extensively and it became very apparent that Christ could not be God and that God can not, by His very nature, have partners." There, that was easy. Humans have been chewing over that one for, oh, at least 5700-5800 years, longer if you go back before the monotheists; but this lady, with no theological, historical, anthropolgical background, no research training or (apparently) any higher education at all has figured it out in two weeks. Gee, what has mankind been wasting all its time over?
But what bothers me most is her black/white vision. She begins by saying that she wanted JUS to show "both sides" of the story. As if there were ever only *two* sides to any story that involveshuman beings! Then she goes further and adds that she wanted JUS to be a voice for Muslims (so, then, not wholly impartial?) Then she concludes by saying that she's convinced that the "war on terror" is a cover for a decades-old war on Islam that has been propogated by a desire for oil and which is based on 9/11, an event that she states the US government knew about beforehand and did nothing to stop. She then descends into gross hyperbole and name-calling worthy of an al Jazeera broadcast.
What makes the whole thing almost comic-opera, and what makes me wonder how much of the roots of this story are not total fabrication, is her shaky grasp of English. This is someone who claims to have been a publisher and web enterpreneur, but her text is filled with spelling errors, punctuation errors, other typos, and screaming grammatical errors that completely reverse the sense of what she's notionally saying, such as:
I'm sorry, "the very fabric of our beliefs that pits brother against brother"? If that's what Islam is about, then I'lll pass; I'd prefer a religion that seeks to unite brother with brither. Is there really someone being held hostage out there somewhere who is trying to send SOS messages with text like this?
It's an interesting read, but it convinces me that JUS is a propaganda site; doesn't mean it's not still worth reading, but its claims to evenhandedness seem to me laughable.
I'm also struck by how often the words "I had no idea" or "I knew nothing about" come into play, followed almost immediately by a sudden, rapid change of direction in her life story. More than anything, she seems to have lived most of her life without much knowledge of or interest in the world outside a very tight little ambit around herself. When this self-imposed barier was breached, she seems to have been overcome by all the information she had been either blocking out or allowing to pass her by for so many years, as if all of it had suddenly happened *just then* because it was just coming to her attention.
Another facet of her reaction to information: her seemingly unbounded arrogance. One of the best examples I've come across is her declaration "There was still one big problem as far as I was concerned and that was Christ, the Savior. Over a two week period, I research this whole matter extensively and it became very apparent that Christ could not be God and that God can not, by His very nature, have partners." There, that was easy. Humans have been chewing over that one for, oh, at least 5700-5800 years, longer if you go back before the monotheists; but this lady, with no theological, historical, anthropolgical background, no research training or (apparently) any higher education at all has figured it out in two weeks. Gee, what has mankind been wasting all its time over?
But what bothers me most is her black/white vision. She begins by saying that she wanted JUS to show "both sides" of the story. As if there were ever only *two* sides to any story that involveshuman beings! Then she goes further and adds that she wanted JUS to be a voice for Muslims (so, then, not wholly impartial?) Then she concludes by saying that she's convinced that the "war on terror" is a cover for a decades-old war on Islam that has been propogated by a desire for oil and which is based on 9/11, an event that she states the US government knew about beforehand and did nothing to stop. She then descends into gross hyperbole and name-calling worthy of an al Jazeera broadcast.
What makes the whole thing almost comic-opera, and what makes me wonder how much of the roots of this story are not total fabrication, is her shaky grasp of English. This is someone who claims to have been a publisher and web enterpreneur, but her text is filled with spelling errors, punctuation errors, other typos, and screaming grammatical errors that completely reverse the sense of what she's notionally saying, such as:
As long as Muslims allow the enemies of Islam to shred the very fabric of our beliefs that pits brother against brother, and we ignore the obligations Allah has prescribed for us and remain ignorant of our deen (religion), our Ummah will remain weak and we will continue to be the target of aggression.
I'm sorry, "the very fabric of our beliefs that pits brother against brother"? If that's what Islam is about, then I'lll pass; I'd prefer a religion that seeks to unite brother with brither. Is there really someone being held hostage out there somewhere who is trying to send SOS messages with text like this?
It's an interesting read, but it convinces me that JUS is a propaganda site; doesn't mean it's not still worth reading, but its claims to evenhandedness seem to me laughable.
