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November 02, 2003SAUDI MORALSSecretary of Defense Rumsfeld, in his famous memo, pointed out that we are engaged, not only in a shooting war, but also in a war of ideas. In such a war, clarity is important. We are not in a war against terrorism. Terrorism is a tactic; we are fighting a war against totalitarian Islam, a worthy heir to twentieth century totalitarian ideologies like Nazism and Communism. Arab-American author Joseph Farah points out the sickening consequences of a utopian insistence that Islam means peace. After noting President Bush's welcoming White House Ramadan message to Muslim clerics, Farah comments: "Saudi Arabia doesn't welcome other faiths. It persecutes them. Sudan doesn't tolerate other faiths. It persecutes them. Iran doesn't honor other faiths. It persecutes them. Even Egypt doesn't value other faiths. It persecutes them – along with many other Muslim countries. So why do we pussyfoot around with Islam? Let's at least agree that Islam, where practiced as the official religion, is as intolerant of Christians and Jews and others as any ideology or dogma on the face of the earth. After more than a year the Ministry of Commerce sent us a letter which stated that a year before — this shows the dynamism of the ministry — the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice had objected to the brand name and therefore the ministry refused to register it. You see, the name of the product is Explorer, which is a direct translation of the Arabic name. The learned scholars of the commission rightly noted that the letter X in the name was a cross, and this aroused their delicate Islamic sensibilities and they banned the registration. I am greatly relieved that thanks to the vigilance of the commission a great tragedy was avoided. Until then I had innocently and, I must admit, naively assumed that the letter X was just that, a letter of the alphabet, not as it turns out a cunning and dastardly plot by Christians to corrupt our Muslim faith..."
Posted at 07:26 PM by
 
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I guess I couldn't teach in Saudi Arabia (and perhaps not in NYC public schools).
Posted by: Ricardo Munro on November 7, 2003 12:44 AMToday in order to explain the concept CHANGE IN DEMAND, an economic phenomenon, I had to explain the word phenomenon which not a single one of my students knew in either English, Spanish, Mixteco or Punjabi. So I asked them if they knew what a rainbow was. That everyone knew! So I explained that sometimes one could observe, for example in Scotland, a double rainbow that looked like an X or a cloud formation that looked like and X and this was considered good luck. Did anyone know why? They did. Of course, I unapologetically wear an American Flag and Cross of St. Andrews flag everyday (a gift from my later mother). I never suggest to my Sikh students that they consider changing religion by the way but the reality is the one of the few literary allusions my students will understand, such as the King Solomon story, are biblical. Forget Shakespeare or even Cervantes. That's just the reality.