Quote:
Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall
I'm curious what you think about this Daily Show conversation. I feel like it is very similar to what we've been discussing here. You would probably tend to agree with Stewart who seems to disagree with Ali's contention that there are problems with Islam itself that need to be fixed.
I do think both are pretty much on the same page, and it boils down to Stewart thinking that people will bastardize any religious text in order to do insane shit, while Ali seems to be arguing that certain aspects of the way Islam is taught leads to a culture in which death is valued above life and that (among other things) needs to change.
She also echoed some of your points about the many reformers who are risking their lives and need to be supported.
http://thedailyshow.cc.com/guests/ayaan-hirsi-ali
TM |
She also starts talking about an inherently interesting theological issue, which is, how do you or do you even attempt to apply a document written in the 7th century to today's morality. It's an argument I've had repeatedly with fellow Catholics, where the traditional view is that the Church itself is eternal and immutable, and that plays a very significant role in why we don't have women priests yet. It's particularly difficult in a religion where the word itself is what is divine, and the prophet was only a vehicle for transmission of the word of God.
Others attempt to dig the document out from its historical context: maybe all that sexist shit was overlaid on it by subsequent generations (fans of Arabic poetry are especially fond of this approach, since there was a real flowering of Arabic poetry written by women at the time of the Prophet, probably one of the greatest set of original documents relating to ancient world proto-feminism you'll find). This is probably easier to do with the Qur'an than the Old Testament if you really parse through the two documents.
I don't know if she still considers herself Islamic or not, and whether she's arguing about how to interpret Islam or against Islam, but figuring this one out is essential for every ancient religion trying to adapt in the world, of course, but Islam, like every other religion, has to do it in a particular context.
It's an interesting debate, though I suspect it's not the debate you're focused on in looking at that clip. You're probably more focused on whether she is pointing out something intrinsically bad or different in Islam itself that leads to bad things.
As to that, I'd say this: if tomorrow you miraculously converted every member of ISIS to Catholicism, I don't think you'd materially change the way ISIS operates. You'd still have a movement of people funded by captured oil revenues trying to consolidate power in a fragmented landscape where there are alternatives that are, for people trying just to stay alive, arguably worse, and where lots of external actors had or were looking to buy their own local proxies to foment war. And they would still be thinking about outdoing our shock-and-awe approach by being more shocking and more awful than anyone else, though as Catholics they'd probably choose mass burnings at stakes rather than beheadings as their shocker of choice. Some of this is tactical: if you are trying to run a blitzkrieg through a place that already features a wide range of repressive oil-funded murderous dictators, and proxies are already taken for Iran, the Soviet Union, and the US, how do you gain a competitive advantage?
