The Most Amazing Woman
Ayaan Hirsi Ali: one of the most amazing women people in the world.
As the debate on Islam rages on and propagandists on all sides try to pass off dis-information as fact (Islam is a peaceful religion -- yeah, right) or the West has declared war on Islam (oh, we got bigger fish to fry) the name Ayaan Hirsi Ali keeps popping up.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali disavowed Islam and left the religion and has been outspoken and unafraid to actively campaign against Islamic practices and specifically Islam's subjugation of women and the cruel and arcane practice of female circumcision, also known as genital cutting or mutilation. Radical Islamic Extremists have put out a Fatwa (an Islamic death sentence) on her necessitating her to live under the protection of armed bodyguards.
Deborah Solomon's interview with Hirsi Ali, for the New York Times Magazine provides a brief, albeit basic, glimpse into who this amazing woman is and what she stands for. Her answers are loaded with meaning that can only be found between the lines.
Solomon's questions are in bold text and Hirsi Ali's answers are in regular.
What Islam really needs is a reform branch -- Reform Islam, which, like the Reform Jewish movement, would reconcile an ancient faith with modern ways.
The problem is that those of us who were born into Islam and who don't want to live according to scripture -- we don't have what the Jews have, which is a rabbinical tradition that allows you to ask questions. We also don't have the church tradition that the Christians have.
You have the mosque.
The mosque is not the church.
People commit more atrocities, murder more people, shed more blood, in the name of god and religion than any other existing belief: do we really need it?
Posted at 12:41 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Trouble Down South (Providence)
We can all be thankful for the peace and tranquility we enjoy here in Mt. Hope, on Providence's East Side, for it is not always that way in other parts of the City.
I browse ProJo for city news and one of the articles that jumped out at me was this title: Gangs Retaliate with Firebombs (click for link).
From the article:
Five firebombs have hit houses in Providence since September -- including two at the same location. All involve crude Molotov cocktails tossed near the doors or through the windows late at night, said Assistant Fire Chief Michael Dillon. All have hit houses where at least one gang member lives or spends time, said police Maj. Thomas F. Oates III.
"This is not random," Oates said. "This is not ... problems at commercial buildings with someone lighting fires just to light fires. This is about sending a threat or a message to a certain person."
The map in the paper shows where the boms exploded: St. James St., Union Av. Daniel Av. Adelaide Av. in the section of Providence south of 95 and Downtown along Elmwood Av. See map
This brings to my mind the time we had our own fire-bombing incident here on the East Side. But that wasn't gang related it was international in nature, related to the Arab / Israeli conflict -- the Gaze Strip come to the East Side.
A former Israeli soldier took a job at Brown U. and this individual, being quite arrogant and aggressive by all reports, must have crossed hairs with the wrong Arab crowd for one evening someone threw an empty Corona beer bottle filled with gasoline and stuffed with a rag through his open living room window. Fortunately no one was hurt, the message sent, the guy went back to Israel shortly thereafter.
No arrests were ever made but there was quite a hue and cry about anti-semitism and various Israeli organisations checked in, but it was really no more than a personal dispute brought on, in my opinion, by the guy''s unpleasant personality.
But it's never pleasant to know there are people running around throwing fireboms into peoples houses in Providence even though it is reported to be gang related. Lives are at stake.
I'm holding my breath waiting for the report that these guys have been apprehended by the police, and I'm grateful that it is not happening here on the East Side.
Posted at 10:10 AM | Community | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
