Following up on my presentation, I wanted to suggest Mehrah Kamrava's edited volume of "The New Voices of Islam: Rethinking Politics and Modernity, (2006) which has pieces from 13 or 14 of leading Muslim intellectuals, and it captures well the plurality of thought on the issues that I raised in the presentation. Also, Bekim Agai has a piece in "Schooling Islam" (2007) on Turkish state policies towards Islamic higher education touches a good deal on the contributions of Fethullah Gulen. There is an interest in these topics in our group, so I figured I'd make the recommendations knowing of course that several people most likely have these titles on the shelf already.
Zvi-I thought of the philosophy of the OneVoice Movement and others like it when I read your post. These projects are mainly working to stimulate citizen dialogue, but part of their project is also to push for more transparency in diplomatic affairs, as part of the way forward.
C.M.L.
2 comments:
Celene,
Thank you for the suggested reading.
I think it is useful that people are introduced to the rich dialogue that is going on within the Muslim community, but I say that with a bit of concern. There seems to be a tendency to view "reformist" Islam as the only viable or humane school connected to the religion. The religion is vast with many different teachings, almost all of which are non-violent and which have a justifiable right to exist.
No matter how dismayed one might be with the "Christian Right" in the US, it would be insulting and ridiculous to herald the reform in Christianity to overcome the backwards thinking of America's Bible Belt.
Many would argue that Christianity has already gone through its reform and that Chrisitian movements are not responsible for massive violent death. This theory, however, would bring us into the legitimacy of violence and whether the state has a right to enact violence by and through any means. Many Europeans, for example, might argue that the Christian Right is responsible for the violent destruction that occurred in Iraq. I would disagre with them, but it is not an uncommon theory.
Piggy-backing off your presentation, my presentation next week will focus on the similarities and differences between the Islamic system of governance and the Liberalist one. It is my hope to allow the group to consider that Liberalist philosophy is not absolute, and that the Islamic system of governance may indeed be just as viable. If nothing else it will present to the group with applications to the ideas you suggested last week.
It will also begin to delve into Zvi's profound thought about "ignorant diplomacy" by laying out some of the deeper issues related to the conflict.
I hope you all will be able to make it.
ali
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