Burning Korans = Not A Good Idea

One of my readers recently asked me how Moroccans were reacting to the controversy over the proposed mosque/Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero. Honestly, no one has mentioned it since I've been back in Morocco, and I haven't brought the subject up. But I have been following the ruckus online and have been disappointed with the way the debate (shouting match?) has developed.

Since my audience is generally Western, let me start with something unfamiliar: a video making the rounds in the Francophone Muslim world that a number of my Moroccan Facebook friends have posted on Facebook.

The video begins with footage of Muslims dressed in Western style, cheering Western sports, and playing Western-inspired game shows like "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" while these words appear (in French):

While we sing, dance, eat, and imitate their civilization...

...look what's happening in their civilization.

It then flashes to a CNN interview with Pastor Terry Jones, whose church has decided to burn Korans in commemoration of 9/11 and protest against Islam. As the Facebook posts testify, this is far from helpful to relations between Islam and the West. The American interviewer is obviously hostile to such a stupid idea, and Pastor Jones cannot respond satisfactorily to his line of questioning. More text appears:

While a Muslim scholar does his duty...

The video then cuts to footage of Khalid Arrachid, an Islamic scholar who was apparently jailed for "defending the prophet in the Muhammed cartoon controversy". I can't find anything online to confirm he was jailed, but in this video he describes the Danish cartoons of Muhammed and then cites a Koranic passage about being "severe with the disbelievers" to demand violence against those who mock the prophet. He decries the shame and disgrace Muslims suffer, calls Muslims to show their manhood and defend the prophet, mocks the "effeminacy" of Europeans and their "freedom of expression", and laments the lack of visible leadership of Muslim nations.

After lamenting the imprisonment of this Islamic scholars for "doing his duty", the above video ends with seemingly threatening footage of a man with a gun trained on someone off screen. The last words to appear are:

Islam is a religion of peace but not of humiliation.

It's no viral sensation, but the video does have over 11,000 views now.

A Facebook group entitled "tous contre l'acte de bruler le coran le 11 septembre 2010" ("Everyone Against Burning the Koran on September 11, 2010") was started in opposition to this proposed Koran burning. Currently it has 13, 799 members. The comments on the group's page range from exhortations to defend Islam's honor a la Khalid Arrachid to quotes of Koranic ayas (verses) to prophecies that Pastor Jones and company will burn in hell to pleas for non-violence because violence would only confirm American stereotypes about Islam. It's a mixed bag, but at least some of it is quite troubling.

I draw a few observations from this Facebook activity:

1) Moroccan Teenagers Have a Liberalized, Western Outlook
Moroccan teenagers' desire to defend their religious tradition is only one of their many interests and concerns, and a good number of them actually conflict with the message of the video. The majority of items they post on their Facebook walls represent the Westernizing tendency the video decries: Western sports stars and celebrities, American music videos, and quizzes about love and sexiness. They may strongly and defensively identify as Muslim, but the way their interests and concerns are unconstrained ideologically or legally is not that different from the situation of Westerner teenagers. As time goes on, these tendencies will only strengthen. The Arab world is westernizing faster than many realize.

2) Islam Currently Has Illiberal, Violent Tendencies
The maker of the YouTube video obviously does realize how quickly this westernization is happening, and he is opposed to it. Khalid Arrachid is not alone when he opines on the victimized state of Muslims, the effeminate nature of Western culture, the manly necessity of defending Islam and its prophet, and the possible violence such a defense will require. Now his cries may fall on deaf ears among middle and upper class Moroccan youth because they are financially and politically secure, but they still are deeply angered by insults to Islam and to Mohammed. Moreover, immigrants in Europe (and to a lesser extent the United States), citizens of less developed Muslim countries, and lower class Moroccan citizens often do not share that security, and so their anger is more likely to express itself violently.

3) There Are Legitimate Questions About Islam In Pluralist Societies
These phenomena raise serious questions about how such an Islam can fit into pluralist, secular societies. Those on the right tend to ignore the nuances of these questions as they raise voices and money in crude and xenophobic populism. They gloss over cherished American values like religious freedom, freedom of association, and property rights. But those on the left similarly ignore the illiberal, violent tendencies of Islam as they work themselves into an indignantly righteous rage against the other side's crude, xenophobic populism. They fail to understand how religion works, the historical development of Western political-religious involvement, and, in their intense emotional obsession with this moment in time, the broader sweep of the complicated process of assimilation into the American mainstream.

If Catholics in America are any indication, the prognosis for a future assimilation of Muslims into an American consensus is good. Pre-Vatican II and pre-JFK, there were some very serious questions about whether Catholics, with their illiberal tendencies, could function well in a pluralist democracy. But after theological recognition of pluralist democracy and after a charismatic leader who made necessary concessions to an already existent American consensus on religion and politics, Catholics gradually became a surprisingly normal and uncontroversial part of our nation's political and religious mosaic.

Protesting an Islamic cultural center directed by a Muslim leader who goes on speaking tours for the U.S. government and burning Korans are most definitely not intelligent, serious ways to engage these questions, but even if the overly mediatized, populist right cannot address them as they should, they remain important questions. And until they are resolved as they were with Catholicism half a century ago, they will continue to inspire inarticulate and emotional resistance to Muslims.

4) There Is A Denial About The Islamic Inspiration For Terrorism
Partially as a reaction to the hateful and xenophobic reaction against Muslims as a whole, both secular Westerners and Muslims comfortable in liberal, secular society tend to ignore that attacks such as 9/11 are in fact inspired by a certain interpretation of Islam. Instead, there is a tendency among the secular elite to attribute terrorism's motivation solely to economic and political considerations.

While European colonialism of the Arab world (including Zionism), cozy relationships between the United States and Arab governments, and continuing difficult economic circumstances play important roles in Islamic terrorism, the religious motivation cannot just be swept aside. This form of terrorism is inspired, justified and praised by Muslims with a certain historical and religious hermeneutic...a hermeneutic that will not just go away with a wave of the magic wand of secular liberalism.

Of course, neither can Islam be treated as a monolithic entity, as too many conservative commentators tend to do. Only a small minority of Muslims share Al-Qaeda's ideology, although a good many may sympathize at least in part. But that doesn't detach Al-Qaeda's hermeneutic and actions from the Islamic tradition. "Islam is a religion of peace but not of humiliation", a mantra shared by most Muslims, necessarily implies violence and resistance towards liberal, pluralist Western governments at some point in time.

Since the Enlightenment, for better or for worse, religion in the Western world has been viewed more or less as an internalized set of personal convictions and beliefs. This necessarily conflicts with a religion like Islam that is less focused around orthodoxy (correct belief) than around orthopraxis (correct action). European Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan has proposed an interesting solution to the conflict. Time will tell if his or some other synthesis will prevail in the Muslim community. In the meantime, non-Muslim Westerners are unlikely to have any positive influence in those debates, but, at the very least, we can recognize that they are happening.

Source: http://moroccandispatches.blogspot.com/2010/08/burning-korans-not-good-idea.html

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Games and fun

Games play (heh) an important part in my life.

I blame my big brother. He introduced me to Dungeons & Dragons at the impressionable age of, ooh, about 13. It was new and exciting, a fun game in those days, before the news media and fundamentalist Christians had heard of it; a friendly, co-operative game, bringing socially inept geeks together in their common love of fantasy and fairy tales.

D&D has come a long way in the 30 years since then (mostly backwards, at least for the players, although obviously it's kept the publishers in business). But it's also given rise to an entirely new genre: the computer FRPG.

It's not widely appreciated, even by players of both, how different the computer FRPG is from the version with pencils and paper and polyhedral dice. Some people think that writing the perfect computer FRPG is just a matter of coding a big enough world, and faithfully and meticulously translating enough of the rules. But this thinking ignores the most important rule of all, which is the core of the difference.

Put simply: the pencil-and-paper game is a social event - a bunch of people get together to have fun. The computer version is a storytelling medium - the "author" draws up a plot, and the player's job is to find a way through it. There may be many different ways, some arriving at slightly different endpoints, but the basic framework and goal are not negotiable. (True, most human DMs start out with a similar "plot" in mind. But good ones will change it as they go along; only bad DMs will try to force their players to stick to a framework they planned from the start. A well-run game is not so much a story as a symposium.)

And that's why the computer FRPG is a form of art, no matter what Roger Ebert says on the subject; because it's not like the social game that is played between friends. Rather than spending so much time defining "art", I think Ebert should give more thought to his idea of a "game". Games like Neverwinter Nights, the Zelda family, Morrowind, Jade Empire - these are not about winning or losing, or even playing. They are about experiencing a story.

Some of them allow more latitude than others. Resident Evil imposes a fixed path, set out by constant short-term motivators. Neverwinter Nights - the most faithful translation of pen-and-paper rules I've seen - forces you to jump through the hoops laid out in the order required, because there's simply not much else to do. Oblivion, by contrast, gives you near-complete freedom - but there's still a single, central storyline to be completed.

The 2008 version of Prince of Persia is an extreme example. Not only do you have to follow the plot (with virtually no latitude about what order you do things in or what skills your character develops), but when you screw it up, you're immediately returned ("restored") to the point just before you did. This mechanism caused a lot of controversy at the time - some people thought it was taking the risk and the skill out of the game.

But, in truth, none of these games is about risk or skill, any more than watching a whodunnit is about your ability to outguess the fictional detective. They are about the experience.

And that, dear Mr Ebert, is art. Some of it is even, I would claim, good art.

I recently replayed Jade Empire, and I would say that, in script, acting, cinematography and (most importantly) storyline, it stands comparison with decent Hollywood action movies. Zelda: Twilight Princess is by turns engrossing, thrilling and touching, as well as beautifully visualised. Oblivion, while scriptwise a pale shadow of Morrowind, tries to make up for it with technical execution (I recall the first time, stealing through some tunnel, I saw an ogre ahead of me - I almost wet myself).

There's also, of course, plenty of bad art in the genre. Assassin's Creed has a confused and cliched storyline, with little latitude to explore and no attempt to reconcile the inconsistencies. Ditto Freelancer, and Neverwinter Nights 2. Bad writers keep you on the story railroad by putting in arbitrary, unexplained restrictions to what you can do. Whereas the better games either trap you in a storyline where there is always an obvious, immediate short-term goal (Zelda, Resident Evil), or continually nudge you towards the plot with internally consistent motivators (Morrowind).

But even bad art is still art. Good art shows what it can aspire to.

If the computer FRPG were really just a digital version of the tabletop game, then Ebert would have a point. As it is - well, he should try playing through some of these games. Then let's see if he can still maintain that he hasn't experienced some kind of art.

Source: http://itreallyisupsidedown.blogspot.com/2010/08/games-and-fun.html

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Tampa TV Reporters Fired For YouTube Video

WFTS-TV fired three people and disciplined four others for creating a mock newscast and posting it online. The spoof, anchored by Kerry Kavanaugh (left), reported that a Ch. 28 employee was one of Tiger Woods' mistresses. It was apparently meant as a gag gift for the woman's birthday. Click here to read details from the St. Petersburg Times.

Fake newscasts and blooper reels are as old as TV news. Before YouTube, they were the products of harmless fun that only a few people would see. You edited them on tape, gathered the intended audience into an edit booth and showed off the results in person. Tapes were inconvenient to copy, at least compared to copying-and-pasting a bit of text, so you were relatively assured that your inside joke would stay inside the group with whom you shared it.

Now, editing happens on computers, and you get a video file that is all too easy to upload to the Universe. Once there, you lose any control over who sees it and shares it. If it goes "viral," it can cause a fatal illness to your job, if not your entire career.

That's why I feel bad for those who lost their jobs. They thought they were doing something funny for a friend. It's the brain surgeon who thought he or she had to share the video on Facebook and YouTube whose career ought to be kaput.

Firing seems excesssive punishment. The station's GM told the Times that the video could risk the station's credibility, which I understand to a point. But I saw the clip before it was removed from YouTube and if the only people still watching TV news are ones who couldn't immediately tell that this was a fake story, I'm not sure that the business has much credibility left, anyway.

Meanwhile, I remain grateful that the bulk of my broadcast career happened in the ante-YouTube era. My on-air mishaps haunt me enough in memories. I'd hate to think how I'd feel if they were conveniently available for anyone to view.

Source: http://mcqueue.blogspot.com/2010/08/tampa-tv-reporters-fired-for-youtube.html

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Mon Apr 26 2010 : Tonight on The 'X' Zone with Rob McConnell

SEGMENT 1: 10 pm - 11 pm Eastern / 7 pm - 8 pm Pacific
HY KAPLAN - "Corporate Psychic" - Hy graduated Temple University with a BA in Physics and worked as an applied Physicist for eleven years. He moved into high tech sales and sales management for the semiconductor industry and then formed his own business as Hy Kaplan Associates, a sales and training consultancy firm. Hy traveled the world to establish business partnerships for a US based test equipment company. He was the founder of the International Test Conference and the International Test Foundation. The Conference brought together management and engineering personnel of the semiconductor industry to work together to resolve common problems. The Foundation set up a scholarship program for engineering students at Drexel University for inner-city needy students. He started Tough Love chapter in Cherry Hill. Wrote a self-help book for parents with misbehaving or teens engaged in substance abuse, "Saving Your Teenager's Life." His first novel "Paradise Denied! published in January 2010. Paradise Denied! makes the case that the governments of the world are targeting the wrong people in the war against terrorism. A solution that exposes the right targets is offered in an entertaining and thought-provoking manner. Web site: www.paradisedeniedbook.com

SEGMENT 2: 11 pm - 12 am Eastern / 8 pm - 9 pm Pacific
BRIAN HAUGHTON - History's Mysteries - History's Mysteries is an investigation into 35 archaeological mysteries from across the globe, organized by geographical region. As with Brian Haughton's previous book Hidden History, this work separates its collection of enthralling ancient riddles into three sections: Mysterious Places, Unexplained Artefacts, and Enigmatic People. The choice of subjects was made to include a wide range of cultures and a mixture of both the well known and the relatively obscure. Consequently you will read about India's celebrated Taj Mahal and the biblical Temple of Solomon, as well as the little known Royston Cave, in the UK, the infamous Rennes-le-Château, in France, and the forgotten site of Great Zimbabwe, in South Africa. But what constitutes an ancient mystery? The ancient world will more often than not be mysterious by its very nature. We can excavate buildings, artefacts, even sometimes texts, but we cannot know how the people of these ancient societies felt, what they believed or what motivated them to behave in the way they did. Nevertheless, modern science is allowing us the kind of access to secrets of the past which was only dreamt of a few decades ago. DNA studies, for example, of modern inhabitants of parts of Syria, Palestine, Tunisia, Morocco, Cyprus, and Malta have shown extraordinary connections with the ancient Phoenicians who once had colonies in those areas. Ongoing study, conservation, and sampling of The Uluburun Shipwreck, the remains of a 3,300 year old ship and its extraordinary cargo from the coast of southern Turkey, is discovering fascinating connections between ancient Canaan, Egypt, Mycenaean Greece, Italy and even the Baltic Sea area of Northern Europe. Science alone, however, will not give us a complete picture of the ancient world. But when combined with the study of mythology, folklore and sometimes simply a sharp change of viewpoint when looking back at the ancient world, science can be extremely enlightening. Indeed, it is surprising what can be accomplished by turning oneself off from a technology-obsessed 21st century mindset, for example in terms of understanding what the priorities may have been for the inhabitants of Nabta Play in the Egyptian desert 11,000 years ago, or the builders of Tenochtitlan in Mexico, around 700 years ago. Nevertheless, even if we could somehow project ourselves back into antiquity, one suspects that the magic and mystery which was undoubtedly a part of the everyday lives of many of these ancient civilizations would remain elusive. It is often said by 'alternative' historians that bringing a particularly controversial ancient site or artifact to the attention of the world will 'turn conventional wisdom on its head'. 'Conventional' archaeologists ('conventional' presumably meaning those who have studied and qualified as archaeologists) are criticized for not being open-minded enough to accept new theories and ideas. But, generally this is not the case, witness the (often heated) discussions surrounding genuinely challenging archaeological puzzles such as the extraordinary Turkish site of Göbekli Tepe, the enigmatic 'Venus' figurines of the last Ice Age, the abandonment of Mesa Verde, or the volcanic eruption which destroyed the Mediterranean island of Thera. Spurious 'ancient' artifacts or sites (such as the Oak Island Treasure or The Dendera Lamps) are anything but a challenge to 'conventional' archaeology. The furore surrounding these subjects on the web and in various print publications is the result of speculation based on the preconceived agenda of the writer, and as such has no place in history or archaeology. It is this distinction between genuine and bogus ancient mysteries that History's Mysteries attempts to clarify. Sometimes a few hours research and a generous helping of critical thinking can dispense with anything in the second category. In writing History's Mysteries Haughton has not attempted to justify personal prejudices regarding the enigmas of the ancient world. Rather he has been guided by the facts, even if, in the end, they can sometimes be unsatisfactory. - www.mysteriouspeople.com

SEGMENT 3: 12 am - 01 am Eastern / 9 pm - 10 pm Pacific
MONICA HOLY - Fringe Dweller on the Night Shift - By day, Monica Holy's life looks like millions of others. She paints, jogs, talks to friends, and worries about her children. Monica's nightlife is a different story. Since birth, Holy has entered extraordinary worlds of consciousness through the portal of lucid dreams. While there, she conducts souls to the other side and to the light, teaches, guides, and heals. She enters those non-ordinary realities not just to explore them, but to work on behalf of the human community. In Fringe Dweller on the Night Shift (Weiser Books, October 2009), she eloquently recounts her psychic and spiritual work with the troubled dead, the newly dead or those about to die - especially children - to provide emergency relief. She also brings back messages from the world beyond this one, by offering each and every one of us inspiration and ideas for honoring our feelings and connecting to the divine expression of all that is. Ultimately, we will all see The Grid (chapter 10): the invisible reality beyond our five senses that underlies all physical form as we know it. Monica Holy's work is in the spirit and tradition of native, shamanistic travelers (a la Don Juan in Castaneda), spiritual mediums (John Edward and James Van Praagh), spiritual guidance from other realms (Shirley MacLaine), and what the Akashic realm looks and feels like (Deepak Chopra). Fringe Dweller on the Night Shift combines cosmic adventure with down-to-earth practical information - part art, part memoir, part philosophy, part guidance, this book is a work of the heart. Monica Holy is an artist, psychic medium, spirit guide, and mother of two. She has worked in animation, photography, and typography for film and television. For most of her life, she has kept her psychic and spiritual life a secret. She feels the time is right to share her story in hopes that it will help others understand their own journey through life. This is her first book. - www.thefringedweller.com

SEGMENT 4: 01 am - 02 am Eastern / 10 pm - 11 pm Pacific
DAVID CHAMPION - Psychic Readings - Clairvoyant - Relationships and Spiritual Counseling - Are you carrying the burden of an unanswered question? Are you in search of spiritual renewal? Which path should you choose for romance, travel, health, or your career? A different perspective may be all you need to change your life forever. I can guide you to self -awareness so you can make that decision you may be struggling with. I can provide you with clarity. Clarity is seeing a situation and being able to fully understand it - sort of like seeing the big picture. You may be thinking or feeling something related to your struggle. My psychic readings can confirm or validate your highest understanding - guiding you to the right path you may be searching for. - www.davidchampion.com

ROB McCONNELL
REL-MAR McConnell Media Company
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Tel: (905) 575-1222
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Source: http://xzonenation.blogspot.com/2010/04/mon-apr-26-2010-tonight-on-x-zone-with.html

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