Comments on: Arab brotherhood? Only when it's convenient

By: erica_aisha

erica_aisha — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 08:34:07 +0000

hmmm, well to me it's a fallacy to equate Islam with Arabs… Since Indonesia is the world's largest Muslim country (with a female President in it's somewhat troubled history.. ok quite troubled history) maybe we should all be compared to Indonesians… er maybe not. None the less, I just wish people would realize that it's a religion not a race or location.. present company excluded… I am not at all referring to you. Perhaps this is why I choose to wear a more traditional hijab as opposed to a head covering of any kind. I like to challenge stereotypes. Arabs: Muslims Texans:Christians sure, many Texans are Christians… but there's more to Christians than that right? Yes, Muhammad was an Arab… and the rest of the Prophets were Jews.. so… now what do we do? Simplification really does not do this situation justice. The Jordan situation, however, is always quite complicated. One of my favorite blogs is from a family who used to reside in Baghdad. They are privileged in Amman because the father is Jordanian… well Palestinian Jordanian. The mother's a Shiite Iraqi Muslim, the dad's a Sunni, the kids are in between (a secularist, a reformist and a more religious guy). I bet their viewpoint would be interesting (and they are all allowed to work and go to school, etc there because they are now citizens too). Besides, although I believe in the idea of Muslim Sisterhood (only marginally care about brotherhood) Arab Nationalism and the Arabist movement are on their way out the door anyways.

By: MsMissive

MsMissive — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 13:49:21 +0000

It's easy to see both sides of the situation for Jordon, but it becomes tiresome hearing about Arab brotherhood when we have examples of the exact opposite happening instead. From a westerners perspective, it's simply another drop of hypocrisy into the bucket of Arab countries. Of course I realize that no country is free from it's own version of hypocrisy, but it's a particularly hot topic when Americans are trying to understand exactly what it means to be a Muslim.

By: erica_aisha

erica_aisha — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 10:57:05 +0000

It's a weird dichotomy to Jordanians. On the one hand they are proud to be the supporter of Palestinians… on the other hand they want them out and Jordanians often tell Palestinian jokes the way US citizens tell Polish or Irish jokes which imply stupidity or prolification akin to lapins (bunnies). I always admired Jordan for taking on the refugee problem while their richer and more self-titled "devout" (read Saudi and Iranian and well all other oil-rich states) could care less about the refugees. They seem to be too pious to remember the Hadith in which Muhammad stated "you should not eat if your neighbor is hungry". Ugh. Jordan would seriously be empty if the Palestinian descendants left. They would, however, have more money and public programs if Iraq was safe enough for people to go home and rebuild. 500,000 nearly undocumented people who aren't allowed to work is pretty draining. I'm surprised King Abdullah said that… thanks for the link. You are sooooo one of my favorite random news facts websites.