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Robert Burns Night this Saturday
Jan. 23rd, 2004 09:53 amThe Flying Scotsman is apparently a new restaurant in D.C., staging a Burns Night celebration this Saturday night with free haggis! Anyone interested?
Jan. 23rd, 2004
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Jan. 23rd, 2004 06:17 pmSo I was having a very interesting discussion with some of my fellow employees today about the state of the world (you know, one of those "there's stuff we could be doing, but it's not pressing, and it's Friday, so let's solve all the world's problems" discussions). And they're good guys, rocket scientists, quite literally, but a bit on the Americo-centric conservative side and not necessarily deeply imbued with a knowledge of foreign affairs, other cultures, different religions (not that everyone can be an expert in everything; after all, I have only a vague grasp of the details of some of the subjects we were straying onto, and I know almost nothing about rocket science...)
But, in discussing the Wahabi Sunni religious faction in Saudi Arabia, I pointed out that they absolutely loathe Shi'ites, and consider them so apostate as to be nonMuslims, as "bad" as, or almost worse than, Christians and Jews. Which led to a discussion of the division between Shi'ite and Sunni Islam, and between Arabs in the Gulf Region (mostly, though not all, Sunni) and Iranians (pretty much exclusively Shi'ite) and how those two divisions (religious denomination and ethnicity) were what my PoliSci 101 lecturer would call a "cross-cutting cleavage." We talked about how Iran had been a major power center, both before and after the advent of Islam, playing host tot he Persian empire, the Parthian empire, and the Sassinid Empire.
And then one of my colleagues said, "Yeah, but the Arabs never had anything like that."
Trying not to gape rudely at him, or say something too insulting (I'd had way too much caffeine and needed to consciously be calm), I said, "Well, yes, actually. From about the 7th century on. Until the Ottoman Turks came along. Probably about 700 years."
"Really? But they didn't have armies or anything. It was just religious. Just in the Middle East, right?"
"No, they had armies. They had rulers. The Arabs came out of the peninsual and conquered everything from Spain--almost France--to northern India, with some help from the various peoples they picked up along the way. It was religiously motivated, yes, but they ruled those countries. When the Turns took over, they conquered the Byazntine Empire, rolled across in the Balkans, and went as far as Vienna. For centuries, the Arab world was *the* dominant power in the Mediterranean, *the* center of science and art and learning."
He looked kind of stunned.
I can tell he's never watched Lawrence of Arabia. One of the more moving pieces of dialogue comes early between Prince Feisal and TE Lawrence:
The reason that some in the Arab world look backwards to the past for their path to the future is that in the past their people were great. They united dozens, hundreds of nations and ethnic groups with a vision of faith and duty to G*d. They were conquerors, warlords, judges, poets, playwrights, doctors, explorers, scientists, theologians. They built palaces and places of worship that were (and some still are) things of great beauty. They traveled to places around the world, linking peoples through trade and religion who had never been in contact before. They led the world. And today, some educated men and women in America don't even know the Arab empire ever existed. Their history and culture are dismissed by many as "backward." I detest and deplore the cruelty and visciousness of Wahabi-ism and other violent and repressive forms of Islam. But I can easily understand why Arabs would look to the past, compare it to the present, and wonder how the one ever led to the other.
But, in discussing the Wahabi Sunni religious faction in Saudi Arabia, I pointed out that they absolutely loathe Shi'ites, and consider them so apostate as to be nonMuslims, as "bad" as, or almost worse than, Christians and Jews. Which led to a discussion of the division between Shi'ite and Sunni Islam, and between Arabs in the Gulf Region (mostly, though not all, Sunni) and Iranians (pretty much exclusively Shi'ite) and how those two divisions (religious denomination and ethnicity) were what my PoliSci 101 lecturer would call a "cross-cutting cleavage." We talked about how Iran had been a major power center, both before and after the advent of Islam, playing host tot he Persian empire, the Parthian empire, and the Sassinid Empire.
And then one of my colleagues said, "Yeah, but the Arabs never had anything like that."
Trying not to gape rudely at him, or say something too insulting (I'd had way too much caffeine and needed to consciously be calm), I said, "Well, yes, actually. From about the 7th century on. Until the Ottoman Turks came along. Probably about 700 years."
"Really? But they didn't have armies or anything. It was just religious. Just in the Middle East, right?"
"No, they had armies. They had rulers. The Arabs came out of the peninsual and conquered everything from Spain--almost France--to northern India, with some help from the various peoples they picked up along the way. It was religiously motivated, yes, but they ruled those countries. When the Turns took over, they conquered the Byazntine Empire, rolled across in the Balkans, and went as far as Vienna. For centuries, the Arab world was *the* dominant power in the Mediterranean, *the* center of science and art and learning."
He looked kind of stunned.
I can tell he's never watched Lawrence of Arabia. One of the more moving pieces of dialogue comes early between Prince Feisal and TE Lawrence:
Feisal: No Arab loves the desert. We love water and green trees; there is nothing in the desert. No man needs nothing. Or is it that you think we are something you can play with because we are a little people? [quoting a remark Lawrence has made earlier, in anger, to someone else] 'A silly people, greedy, barbarous, and cruel'? What do you know, lieutenant? In the Arab city of Cordova, there were two miles of public lighting in the streets when London was a village...
Lawrence: Yes, you were great.
Feisal: ..nine centuries ago...
Lawrence: Time to be great again, my lord.
The reason that some in the Arab world look backwards to the past for their path to the future is that in the past their people were great. They united dozens, hundreds of nations and ethnic groups with a vision of faith and duty to G*d. They were conquerors, warlords, judges, poets, playwrights, doctors, explorers, scientists, theologians. They built palaces and places of worship that were (and some still are) things of great beauty. They traveled to places around the world, linking peoples through trade and religion who had never been in contact before. They led the world. And today, some educated men and women in America don't even know the Arab empire ever existed. Their history and culture are dismissed by many as "backward." I detest and deplore the cruelty and visciousness of Wahabi-ism and other violent and repressive forms of Islam. But I can easily understand why Arabs would look to the past, compare it to the present, and wonder how the one ever led to the other.
I'm trying to decide if it would be rude of me to pass these on to my colleague (he's a much older and more traditional man than I am, and I don't want to seem as if I'm trying to "teach" him), but they're short sumamries that I think are fairly balanced and informative.
from Wikipedia
from the Center for Educational Technologies
from Wikipedia
from the Center for Educational Technologies