Allah o Akbar

i recommend hitting play and then reading the accompanying letter. it reads movingly, and reminds me of Brueggemann’s description of Psalmic prayer: the speech of extremity.

I cannot in any way claim to know what people are thinking or meaning on the ground, but for centuries, ‘Allahu Akbar’ has been in the Muslim world a battlefield of meaning and ultimately of political legitimacy. They are five syllables pregnant in meaning, mutability and richness, not simply a ritualistic or fundamentalist dogmatic trope. Nor is ‘Allahu Akbar’ simply a prayer. In fact, despite all its negative, violent connotations in the West, ‘Allahu Akbar’ has been uttered by Muslims throughout history as a cry against oppression, against kings and monarchs, against tyrannical and despotic rule, reminding people that in the end, the disposer of affairs and ultimate holder of legitimacy is not any man, not any king or queen, not even any supreme leader, but ultimately a divine force out and above directing, caring and fighting for a more peaceful, rule-based, just and free world for people to live in. God is the one who is greatest, above each and every mortal human being whose station it is to pass away.

The fact that ‘Allahu Akbar’ is echoing through the Iranian night is not only an indication of the longing of people there to find a peaceful and just solution to this crisis. It also points to how deep the erosion of legitimacy is in whosoever acts against the will of the people, in whosoever claims to act on God’s behalf to oppress his fellow human, including in this case some of the ‘supreme’ Islamic jurists themselves. This all goes to show that Islam, far from being merely an abode of repression and retrogression, has the capacity of being a fundamentally restorative and democratic force in human affairs. In the end, so it seems, at least in the Iranian context, ‘Allahu Akbar’, God is greatest, is a most profoundly democratic of political slogans. So deep is this call, that what is determined out of this liminal moment may very well set the terms for (or against) a lived, democratic Islamic reality for decades to come.

from Nicholas – a reader at Nico Pitney “live-blogging the uprising” at HuffPo. (post: 3.40PM ET, 6/18/09, titled Allah 0 Akbar!)

LB

rethink

what a difference a week makes…

last saturday it was so warm the blinds had to be shuttered to keep cool. today, woken at around 6.30am by the forecasted heavy rain. not anticipated was the hail that came with it. it’s june 6th. and i’m wearing 3 pairs of socks right now as the only place i can pick up wifi, ’til my own broadband gets connected next week, is at my desk with the window open. so this is how we get to be so many shades of green: a rainy 48degrees in june.

this week has filled with much crafts, reframing and hanging artwork, altering and mending clothes. which for the most part has been calm and quiet.

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the end of a week comes and i’m not surprised to see i wasn’t the only one who thought the collection of it’s so personal testimonies on abortion would make a powerful and worthwhile book. i admire sullivan for his openness to share his own changing perspective in light of these stories, and the acknowledgement that he, “needs time to think and rethink”.

in ikon we have often talked about how the law is always trying to keep up with justice. for every rule…

we all hold postions in the abstract until such time as we either experience the reality or we open ourselves up to hearing the stories of those who have lived the reality.

i have changed this week as i too have been thinking and rethinking. these stories shook me to the core. i have found myself standing at the kitchen sink mopping dishes and suddenly weeping. but i don’t regret reading them, or allowing them to help change me.

if g-d is compassion, that which or whom suffers with, then g-d is everywhere in these stories. i have prayed many times this week, wondering where it might take me to.

maybe the apostle paul was onto something when he wrote,

so no matter who you are, if you pass judgement you have no excuse. it is yourself you condemn when you judge others, since you behave in the same way as those you are condemning.

– romans 2, v.1

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20 years on from Tiananman Square, i am reminded that the names of the majority of those who stand for peace will not be in history books…

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bricks healing bricks. i love this.

LB

the photo was put through tiltshiftmaker

"terror is easier to face than confusion", he said

i’ve been reading the analysis of dick cheney’s speech to the AEI last week. wondering at the horror of the torture committed in afghanistan, abu ghraib and guantanamo. at the attempts to justify it, deny it.

and feeling powerless despair. we call it inhumane. but it was humans who did it. authourised it. legal-eased it. and there seems nothing but silence with which to respond. wordless in the face of images indicting us with just how far we humans will go to prove our might, our power, our authority, our triumph over the will of another. and as we rob the other of their dignity, strip it, beat it, break it, we lose our own…

i think of my infant nephew and feel the conflict of welcoming him into this world. for there is goodness and beauty but there is so much else besides. so many whose lives are marked by sadness, pain, suffering, horror. for whom this place is hell. i see the images of naked men, hooded, taunted by dogs, leashed, bound, and i think of this tiny boy starting out on his journey and wonder at what he will make of this world. wondering at what his life will be for… and if we can only tell him and his sister that we are present to a kingdom of beauty if we look the other way….

i think of the persisting scandal in the british parliament threatening to topple a government and i think of the abuse of so many at the hands of the irish church, of mass rape and mutilation of girls in Africa, which ilke enhanced interrogation appears to threaten no one. i can’t help but wonder that the expenses scandal is but distraction. and matters more to people because it came out of their pocket but does not affect their conscience. it’s perhaps not ethic that drives us but (love of) money. ethic should not be found on a sliding scale but this seems disproportionately scandalous… perhaps we choose our outrage by what we are willing to face. by what we are willing to pay attention to.

and in truth i fear all this is little more than a distraction from other things more personal that are pressing in unexpectedly and rubbing at wounds i thought i’d moved past. i feel the all too familiar claustrophobia setting in and i’ve been struggling not to resort to counting the hours ’til i can run. retreat to safer soil and be away from the triggers currently setting off tiny explosions of grief. it’s not funny how the total degradation of strangers never cuts quite as sharp as the mere slights of others against us. even the words and actions we choose to see as slights, whether intended as such or not. and usually not.

but it feels upsetting to feel oneself regressing and in need of retreat. especially when surrounded by lovely, beautiful people. and then grace comes in and i don’t know what to do with it either. feeling close to the brink, with it all caught up in my chest, trying to mask the twist of feelings keeping me from breathing easy…

i got to be at tuesday group last night. the unexpected chance to see mo and lynn’s soft smiles was balm. we sat and read tobit chapters 3 and 4. tobit and sarah both pray to YHWH to have their lives taken from them, believing it better to be dead than bear the insults of others. both pushed to the brink by scorn and shame. and like them, i pray. in tears. because sometimes tears are the best prayers we have next to silence. i pray perhaps not for death, but for release from shame and anger and hurt.

when i touch the tiny wooden cross at my throat, i think, this is what we do… and i am no different than the rest…

LB