I never thought I’d write a post praising moderate Islam. I’ve pretty much concluded that the phrase is an oxymoron, like “tolerant fundamentalist”. But this video is almost enough to convince me otherwise:
For one thing, it’s a lovely song, with lyrics that seem, from the subtitles, to be graceful and true. Its message is universal; although the images are of Islamic terrorists, and its clearly aimed at an Islamic audience and clearly intended to move that audience to reject terror, it is a song that any of us can sing with feeling and with broader intent. I call myself an atheist; you repeat the term, and there is venom in your tone. Yeh hum naheen. You look at an old white man; you see an Imperialist American, and you scowl and spit. Yeh hum naheen. I look at a cluster of Hasids in Williamsburg; I think of their wives, bewigged and burdened with babies, and I see deluded oppressors. Yeh hum naheen. This is not us; I am not that: not that one you reduce me to, not that one you label me, not one at all, but many, and you as well. Yeh hum naheen.
I can see this song joining others I have sung in my life whose lyrics were not in my tongue, but whose meaning added richness to my life: Die Gedanken est frei, Kumbaya, Guantanamera, Viva la Quince Brigada, Hey, Zhankoye. I will listen again. And again. I hope to hear it sung by many who are not Muslims.
I am still suspicious of and disgusted by Islam as it is revealed in the Koran, just as I am suspicious of and disgusted by Judaism as it’s revealed in the Torah, and by Christianity as it’s revealed in the Gospels, in Revelations, and in the epistles of Paul. Those books are full of bile and vengeful rage; the God Who terrified their authors is a paranoid solipsistic SOB, powerless, irrelevant, and almost certainly illusory. Those who believe that God to be real and who try to live their lives according to His will are to be pitied.
But this is a great song, and it carries a message we would all do well to hear and to integrate into our view of things and our habits of mind. There’s a website and a foundation. There is a petition against terrorism, which millions of Pakistanis have signed – more Pakistanis have signed the petition than voted in the last Pakistani election. That is hopeful.
David Gilner | 12-Feb-09 at 7:10 pm | Permalink
Richard- You really should temper your religious arrogance! Tsk, tsk ;^) Those who believe that God to be real and who try to live their lives according to His will are to be pitied. You just pissed semi-dualistic Vedanta right down the drain–and for what purpose? You might write hose who believe in souls are to be pitied. Then, as Buddhists, we could both pity their ignorance, without engaging the question of God’s reality and nature.
richard | 12-Feb-09 at 9:32 pm | Permalink
First, David, you are right; I should temper my arrogance. But it is not, I think, entirely arrogance, but also a measure of mindfulness to be wary of those who follow God. The capital ‘G’ is deliberate and important; this is not some vacuous principle of divinity, and this is not one of many; this is the One True God, Who demands of His followers that they set no others before Him. Frankly, those followers scare me, and I think (without, I think, being arrogant) that they are the fount of much and maybe most of the terror in our current world. As for those who believe in souls, they are, again I think, delusional, and their belief in such eternal entities is, as the Buddha pointed out, a hindrance to developing an understanding of how things are that is necessary to liberation. But if it’s just a matter of souls, I’m not as wary of the people who believe in them as I am of those who believe in Him. (The gender is also deliberate and important.)
Pity is tricky, and may have been an unfortunate choice of words. But good Lord, what more generous response can I muster for those who cower before and commit great cruelties in the name of a Being whose Word is inerrant and inconsistent, whose justice is inescapable and incomprehensible, and whose very existence is highly improbable?
If I pissed semi-dualistic Vedanta down the drain, I’m sorry; I didn’t know it was there. But I’m clear about the purpose. It’s to hold those believers who claim to be different from those other believers to some measure of accountability. It’s one thing to say “I am not this”; but when “this” is Christian, or Jewish, or Muslim, and those others whom I am not are saying that this – this fatwa, this defensive war, this oppressive legislation, this racist doggerel – is of the essence or even just OK, then I think those sweet singers have to clarify and focus their denial. It’s not just me and my fellow Westerners; it’s those others also, those mullahs and rabbis and preachers and popes, who are telling the singers what they are. And I want to see some outrage at that.
Jennifer | 13-Jul-09 at 10:24 pm | Permalink
I’m not a Buddhist, just an atheist, and I WANT to believe that Islam is not a religion that calls on its followers to murder me because I am godless. I WANT to believe that a ‘good’ Muslim is a person who does not desire the world to be under the power of Islamic law, but I don’t see it… I have read the Quran several times, I have befriended Muslim women and I have had dinner with non-Muslims who ‘escaped’ — and I mean literally — from Muslim countries where they were born. If Islam is a religion of peace and respect, why do the non-Muslims I know who are from Kuwait, Iran, Egypt, and Jordan completely despise it?
There are Muslims who believe that music is haram so the singers should be jailed and whipped. The woman in the video is not covered and is singing with men who are haram to her. Under Islamic law she is a criminal. I believe that Muslims who are NOT calling for the destruciton of western civilization and the institution of sharia are Muslims who are better than their religion and not true Muslims at heart. They take from the Quran what they like and leave the rest, just like Christians and Jews with their holy books.
Great blog, by the way.