[New Word] Jionijom

An ideology that tries to build itself on metaphors of race, jealousy and bloodletting. It isnt good at providing enduring fruit, causing the unfortunately afflicted group to sink in the ocean. This wouldnt be so bad if Jionijoms nature was not to drag everyone else nearby down with it while proudly celebrating itself.

Jionijom was probably not intended. It is the sum of bad situations, judgements and pronounciation.

Many people pity Jionists and try to help them, but it only makes them worse. Some cases just can't be helped in such ways.

Jionist commonsense has been coded with a few trademarks.

-Religion and politics have nothing to do with each other.
-Dissent, defame, destroy with indignance, but never resolve.
-Civil society is 'vibrant'.(Anything but donor induced social engineering)
-We are an independant state mr ambassador, how much aid money this time sir?
-The eternal reason for national creation is for secularism to flower.

'The Grave' by Don McLean

YouTube link
Haunting reflections on the battlefield......

The grave that they dug him had flowers
Gathered from the hillsides in bright summer colors,
And the brown earth bleached white at the edge of his gravestone.
He’s gone.

When the wars of our nation did beckon,
A man barely twenty did answer the calling.
Proud of the trust that he placed in our nation,
He’s gone,
But eternity knows him, and it knows what we’ve done.

And the rain fell like pearls on the leaves of the flowers
Leaving brown, muddy clay where the earth had been dry.
And deep in the trench he waited for hours,
As he held to his rifle and prayed not to die.

But the silence of night was shattered by fire
As guns and grenades blasted sharp through the air.
And one after another his comrades were slaughtered.
In morgue of marines, alone standing there.

He crouched ever lower, ever lower with fear.
"they can’t let me die! they can’t let me die here!
I’ll cover myself with the mud and the earth.
I’ll cover myself! I know I’m not brave!
The earth! the earth! the earth is my grave."

The grave that they dug him had flowers
Gathered from the hillsides in bright summer colors,
And the brown earth bleached white at the edge of his gravestone.
He’s gone.

[Track 9, American Pie]

[New Word] Moronarchy

Pronounced as if you were squeezing together monarch, moron and anarchy. Aimed to describe in one word, a few of the political phase transitions that have resulted in the establishment of an awfully rubbish system of political practice apparent in the world.

Imran Khan

A hero of mine since childhood has gone on the run after *allegedly* ( i .. erm never heard it in person, not that i was listening) reacting to his ruler's declaration of a state of emergency *allegedly* rather harshly. He's been trying to build a political party and I've been reading his manifesto. The party's website says he is safe and calls for lots of people (including the 'Lawyer's Movement') to take to the streets and demonstrate in several cities over the next couple of days. :-(

Surely there must be other ways of 'doing it'? Innalillahi wa innailayhi rajiun in advance, over all time and all space. Allah grant the qaums who love you the collective inteligence and humility not to make a mess of this world.

A few weeks ago i saw the man himself on a strange politics show on UK TV, hosted by George Galloway. It was good to see him, seemed rather miffed at the UK allowing the head of a 'nasty' party to operate from here.

[Film] Persepolis

Film festival ended last night. We went to see Persepolis, a french dubbed cartoon based on the graphic novels of the same name by Iranian Marjane Satrapi. It was a satirical and semi autobiographical take on the life of one particular urban secular family culture before, through and during the Iranian revolution. I am told that the comics were a little less sober and restrained.

It depicts her journey from childhood to young womanhood, puncuated with politics, family suffering, heavy metal and 2 periods of pseudo-exile. Several of her big family characters really grew on me, her wise totally politically incorrect posh granny and her committed lefty/commie uncle. There's some really ancient wisdom coded into the script.

Granny speaking with her as she's about to live for Vienna: ~ "You will meet a lot of jerks in your life and they will hurt you. Try not to hate them for it and remember it is because they are stupid. There is nothing worse than resentment and bitterness."

The most choking part for me was when she'd really had enough of things in the West. Telephoning her father from hospital , she asks if she can come home with no questions asked.

Granny makes a stunning comeback on the point of integrity. Back in Iran and newly in love, Marjane frivolously relates a near escape from the Guardians (public morality 'gardeners') to her.

All dolled up and waiting to meet a bloke in a park a bunch of Guardians crash into the scene and start 'reminding' people and being nosey. Anticipating potential entroublement and drawing on her handbook of tough situational escape tactics she plays the innocent little girl appealing to the "brother, brother" guardians to jail a chap (like you shak!) sitting on a park bench for insulting her. Chap on bench is summaraly arrested and taken away.

Granny goes rather ape upon hearing this, not finding it childishly amusing at all. She storms out of her presence and takes the care of shaming her. The lesson is of the lowliness of 'selfishness for self preservation' and that there is always a choice and a better way, a point her uncle died making.

I found a lot of dignity and identity through the film, which distinguishes it from other market or righteous indignation fodder. Her father's advice of 'Remember who you are and what you are from' hit me as very familiar. The British Petroleum origins of the Shah and the Iran-Iraq war trap were very well framed indeed, the former with humour, the later with something much darker and poetic.

What marked this cartoon out for me were the buckets of humour, charm and reality. It was not a naff sense of humour either. There are several levels of wit, and possibly the best use of the Eye of the Tiger that I've heard since we ran up the steps of the Albert Hall after finals. Perhaps enough evidence to disprove the female inability to be funny thesis. Maybe enough too for some to add to the pile market 'manipulative, flattery'. I suppose its on what your focus is.

The politics of appreciation and taste are weird. At one point the mocking tone in the laughter of the audience itself tasted foul. Imprint of western supremicism perhaps, but the momemt was funnily pulled off. I think that arty farty people in the occident love Iranian culture despite their stance on Islam and the Muslim Worlds. Therefore Iranian cinema and art particularly charms them with its 'contradiction' and 'enduring spirit through oppression' value.

Theres a lot of politics in how this is being awarded, promoted and demoted. I rarely recognise the essence of films I see in the reviews of them. And the Iranian Government did have a point in objecting, this particular artefact wasn't about the glory of the Revolution and post Revolution successes, and it was an oppositional production. The comic books are presently used to foster state militancy's sense of civilising mission in the Middle East.

However, from an aesthetic view it is a good example of the potential of Cultural J coded for several audiences.

NYT Article.

Shahriar Kabir "If Islamic politics is not banned what is the justification for creating Bangladesh"

4th Nov. The pain and the politics of events leading to the birthing of Bangladesh-71 release, hit the deshi public media sharply last fortnight as the Islamist party, with tonnes of war baggage that refuses to be resolved in the courts, went to visit the Election Commission to talk about rules.

Interestingly for me, JamateIslami's stance of new parties seeking election in 2008 is to allow them in with few demands and for the EC to just see how they performed. New parties are essential and slow building processes that need to bed down, as the two main players still refuse to reform themselves and will be making trouble for the people before these future elections are called.

However this is not the issue of discussion as the framers of this dialogue of the deaf have chosen to embark upon a few chokkors of the really futuristic and hope inspiring Genocidal-Liberation War territory.

The story can be followed in the Daily Star of Dhaka and many other blogs and comments from Bangladeshis. The territory has been covered endlessly and the state of play is rather crooked.

I'm posting these youtube links to complement the whirlwind mainly because a thoroughly decent man is being vilified. His good name and sincere works are being soiled by people made to revisit their grief, feeling scorned, ignored and in a blamestorm that knows no norms or limits.

The mess was not even of his making, but i suppose once a wolf of a journalist has been dispatched onto you there is little you can do. Observe the behaviour of the individuals in the studio. The lady host's better behaviour lends credit to my belief that Bangladesh will get better and better as it's women folk climb the career ladders and displace the meanies.

The interviewee appeared on an ETV television show and the 'transcript' of his participation has been mutilated through the press. It is a piece of work that our cousin's at memri (jionist whispers movement) would have been proud off. The vox pop spun around the rather tumultuous TV programme has run as would be expected. I do wonder whether any hadith could have made it through a society like these days intact and with a proper isnad.

Here is the interview,

Part-1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siPcRkCuRFw
Part-2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwJfXa6uebk
Part-3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xXLYz6Zr6E <- where the title is sourced

Knowing more about the nine months of war and the preceding phases would be smoother if the official space were not so polluted with political imperatives and pride. The secularist imperative is what the journalist Shahriar Kabir so kindly reveals in his attempt to discursively entrap the interviewee.

I feel he wants to have his brand of cake, eat it, make everybody eat it and cast a magic spell to transform it into quick dry concrete whilst still in the digestive tract.

the trouble of flattery

Some of us call it the blowing of smoke up another's arse, others know it through the term 'Paamp'. Its disturbing.

Flattery is as fraudulent as its evil twin, the demonic curse. Used skillfully and in tandem, these are lethal weapons in the destruction of people and nations.

The flatterer creates no power or essential value. She uses intermediaries. She is the ultimate propagandist, knowing a particularly dark and ancient form of the game.

The flateree initially suffers the flatterer and the flattering because he wishes to know himself in a good way. He certainly does not see himself as a fool enchanted.

With time his faculty of discernment decays beyond recognition and loses penetration. Consequently his thought and action leave a lot to be desired.

Meanwhile her power grows out of the mental abscesses of the fools she flatters, who know no better and cannot know better of untill they cast off her spell. It is painfull to remove once it has been integrated into the common sense in tandem with its twin, the demonic curse.

Two such coupled and opposing vices do not equal a virtue.

[Humour]Islamic leadership choice in an age of feebleness

Your educational viewing for today. Some non-derivative content.

Imran jk [of Thank Allah its jumma fame] is a man with a sense of humour and Cultural Technique. Once i went to an event at a top london uni thinking i would see him doing some stand up. Unfortunately there was a fatal error in my reading of the poster and it was someone else.

In this short film the MSA, deeply perturbed by the global discource on extremism adopts a new method of leadership selection.

Catwalk ... Fundraising and Islamic motivational speaking

Mr subhanalla, alhamdulillah, mashalllah (astagfirullah) pits his wits against Mr 'Sami Yusuf makes me weep', the wet haired freshie, the atheist frat boy and more..

see who wins in this battle for hearts and minds.



thankyou shak!

A Reminder

"I say again that no speech-making and no proclamation concerning culture will turn us from our fundamental tasks: the liberation of the national territory; a continual struggle against colonialism in its new forms; and an obstinate refusal to enter the charmed circle of mutual admiration at the summit."

Marhum Franz Fanon, On National Culture, The Wretched of the Earth, 1963.

Science in the Islamic World

Theres a new SciDev.Net Dossier on Science in the Islamic world. Open this in another window or something.

There are articles from Prof Ihsanoglu (OIC sec Gen, historian of science, builder of IRCICA) and Ehsan Masood (science journalist).

iqra bismi rabika!