.
Democtratic Faiths
The following article “Democratic faiths” is an excellent piece on roots and sustenance of democracy, however, the author exhibits his inadequacy and bias in his research.
The Muslims around the world are waking up and figuring out the effects of cold wars, the power struggles of nations to control the resources and extricating themselves from these tentacles. It is time for Muslims to wake up and figure out how to bring sustainable democracies in their nations. While the majority of Muslims want the democratic form of governance which is indeed rooted in Islam, they have been unable to speak up against their rules, we Americans also have experienced that since 2001. The Saudi King made a statement that his subjects are not ready for democracy. Is that the faith he has in his people? No one is eternal and immortal, except the continuance of human race and it is our obligation to bring sustainable governance, where people are continually involved in its checks and balances for harmonious co-existence.
Author’s bias comes through when he subtly claims superiority for Hinduism and Christianity and shows his ignorance about Islam or rather Prejudice against Islam.
This is not how you build peaceful societies by creating bias against another faith. One has to find the truth, point the specific errors and not generalize it to suit one’s bias.
Continued: http://worldmuslimcongress.blogspot.com/2009/06/democratic-faiths.html
Mike Ghouse is a Speaker, Thinker and a Writer. He is a frequent guest on talk radio and local television network discussing Pluralism, Terrorism, India, Islam, Peace and civic issues. His comments, news analysis and columns can be found on the Websites and several Blogs listed on his personal website http://www.mikeghouse.net/
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Showing posts with label Pluralist-Mike-Ghouse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pluralist-Mike-Ghouse. Show all posts
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Sunday, June 7, 2009
OBAMA : Uri Avnery on Cairo speech
Uri Avnery
I am pleased to share the article by Mr. Uri Avnery, a shining example of a Jewish man who would stand for justice. He is not alone, the moderate majority of Jews want justice and fairness, but have not been able to speak up against the mighty bulldozer of the extremist Jews.
The time for moderates has come now, the moderates who care about every soul including the extremists, thank God, the moderates are speaking up. The world would be a better place if the Neocons * put their efforts in bettering the world than creating chaos.
I am pleased to share Uri Avnery’s article on Obama’s speech, Uri is another Jewish intellectuals who gets branded “self-hating Jew” by the extremist among Jews. They do that with all who speak justice and long term peace and security for the people of not only Israel, but also the Palestinians. The moderats follow the Jewish tradition of Justice where as our Neocon extremists including the Lobby, the Netanyahu’s, Lieberman, Barak, Pipes and their likes are bent on creating further imbalance in the society and prolonging the fear and insecurity for Jews.
Indeed, this group is really the enemy of Israel and I pray that the moderate majority recognizes this and takes the right step in encouraging actions and words that will eventually bring them peace, not just for them, but for every one in the region.
Israel cannot have sustainable peace when others around her aren't. Time for the moderates in Israel and Palestine to take charge.
Mike Ghouse
# # #
The Tone and the Music
ONE MAN spoke to the world, and the world listened.
He walked onto the stage in Cairo, alone, without hosts and without aides, and delivered a sermon to an audience of billions. Egyptians and Americans, Israelis and Palestinians, Jews and Arabs, Sunnis and Shiites, Copts and Maronites – and they all listened attentively.
He unfolded before them the map of a new world, a different world, whose values and laws he spelled out in simple and clear language - a mixture of idealism and practical politics, vision and pragmatism.
Barack Hussein Obama – as he took pains to call himself – is the most powerful man on earth. Every word he utters is a political fact.
“A HISTORIC SPEECH”, pronounced commentators in a hundred languages. I prefer another adjective:
The speech was right.
Every word was in its place, every sentence precise, and every tone in harmony. The masterpiece of a man bringing a new message to the world.
From the very first word, every listener in the hall and in the world felt the honesty of the man, that his heart and his tongue were in harmony, that this is not a politician of the old familiar sort – hypocritical, sanctimonious, calculating. His body language was speaking, and so were his facial expressions
That’s why the speech was so important. The new moral integrity and the sense of honesty increased the impact of the revolutionary content.
AND A REVOLUTIONARY speech it certainly was.
In 55 minutes, it not only wiped away the eight years of George W. Bush, but also much of the preceding decades, from World War II on.
The American ship has turned – not with the sluggishness everyone would have expected, but with the agility of a speedboat.
That is much more than a political change. It touches the roots of the American national consciousness. The President spoke to hundreds of million US citizens no less than to a billion Muslims.
The American culture is based on the myth of the Wild West, with its Good Guys and Bad Guys, violent justice, dueling under the midday sun. Since the American nation is composed of immigrants from all over the world, its unity seems to require a threatening, world-encompassing evil enemy, like the Nazis and the Japs, or the Commies. After the collapse of the Soviet empire, this role was taken over by Islam.
Cruel, fanatical, bloodthirsty Islam; Islam as the religion of murder and destruction; an Islam lusting for the blood of women and children. This enemy captured the imagination of the masses and supplied material for television and cinema. It provided lecture topics for learned professors and fresh inspiration for popular writers. The White House was occupied by a moron who declared a world-wide “War on Terrorism”.
When Obama is now uprooting this myth, he is revolutionizing American culture. He wipes away the picture of one enemy, without painting another in its place. He preaches against the violent, adversary attitude itself, and starts to work to replace it with a culture of partnership between nations, civilizations and religions.
I see Obama as the first great messenger of the 21st century. He is the son of a new era, where the economy is global and the whole of humanity faces the danger to the very existence of life on the planet Earth. An era where the Internet connects a boy in New Zealand with a girl in Namibia in real time, where a disease in a small Mexican village spreads all over the globe within days.
This world needs a world law, a world order, a world democracy. That’s why this speech really was historic: Obama outlined the basic contours of a world constitution.
WHILE OBAMA proclaims the 21st century, the government of Israel is returning to the 19th.
That was the century when a narrow, egocentric, aggressive nationalism took root in many countries. A century that sanctified the belligerent nation which oppresses minorities and subdues neighbors. The century that gave birth to modern anti-Semitism and to its response – modern Zionism.
Obama’s vision is not anti-national. He spoke with pride about the American nation. But his nationalism is of another sort: an inclusive, multi-cultural and non-sexist nationalism, which includes all the citizens of a country and respects other nations.
This is the nationalism of the 21st century, which is inexorably striving towards supranational, regional and world-wide structures.
Compared to this, how miserable is the mental world of the Israeli Right! How miserable is the violent, fanatical-religious world of the settlers, the chauvinist ghetto of Netanyahu, Lieberman and Barak, the racist-fascist closed-in world of their Kahanist allies!
One has to understand this moral and spiritual dimension of Obama’s speech before considering its political implications. Not only in the political sphere are Obama and Netanyahu on a collision course. The underlying collision is between two mental worlds which are as distinct from each other as the sun and the moon.
In Obama’s mental world, there is no place for the Israeli Right or its equivalents elsewhere. Not for their terminology, not for their “values”, and still less for their actions.
IN THE political sphere, too, a huge gap has opened up between the governments of Israel and the USA.
During the last few years, successive Israeli governments have ridden the wave of Islamophobia that has spread throughout the West. The Islamic world was considered the deadly enemy, America was galloping grimly towards the Clash of Civilizations, every Muslim was a potential terrorist.
Israel’s right-wing leaders could rejoice. After all, the Palestinians are Arabs, the Arabs are Muslims, the Muslims are Terrorists – so that Israel was assured a central place in the war of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness.
That was a Garden of Eden for racist demagogues. Avigdor Lieberman could advocate the expulsion of the Arabs from Israel, Ellie Yishai could enact laws for the revocation of the citizenship of non-Jews. Obscure Members of the Knesset could grab headlines with bills that might have been conceived in Nuremberg.
This Garden of Eden is no more. Whether the implications will become clear quickly or slowly - the direction is obvious. If we continue on our path, we will become a leper colony.
THE TONE makes the music – and this applies also to the President’s words on Israel and Palestine. He spoke at length about the Holocaust – honest and courageous words, full of empathy and compassion, which were received by the Egyptians in silence but with respect. He stressed Israel’s right to exist. And without pausing, he spoke about the suffering of the Palestinian refugees, the intolerable situation of the Palestinians in Gaza, Palestinian aspirations for a state of their own.
He spoke respectfully about Hamas. Not anymore as a “terrorist organization”, but as a part of the Palestinian people. He demanded that they recognize Israel and stop violence, but also hinted that he would welcome a Palestinian unity government.
The political message was clear and unequivocal: the Two-State Solution will be put into practice. He himself will see to that. Settlement activity must cease. Unlike his predecessors, he did not stop at speaking about “Palestinians”, but uttered the decisive word: “Palestine” – the name of a state and a territory.
And no less important: the Iran war has been struck from the agenda. The dialogue with Tehran, as a part of the new world, is not limited in time. As from now, no one can even dream about an American OK for an Israeli attack.
HOW DID official Israel respond? The first reaction was denial. “An unimportant speech”. “There was nothing new”. The establishment commentators picked out a few pro-Israeli sentences from the text and ignored all the others. And after all, “these are just words. So he talked. Nothing will come out of it.”
That is nonsense. The words of the President of the United States are more than just words. They are political facts. They change the perceptions of hundreds of millions. The Muslim public listened. The American public listened. It may take some time for the message to sink in. But after this speech, the pro-Israel lobby will never be the same as it was before. The era of “foile shtik” (Yiddish for sneaky tricks) is over. The sly dishonesty of a Shimon Peres, the guileful deceits of an Ehud Olmert, the sweet talking of a Bibi Netanyahu – all these belong to the past.
The Israeli people must now decide: whether to follow the right-wing government towards an inevitable collision with Washington, as the Jews did 1940 years ago when they followed the Zealots into a suicidal war on Rome – or to join Obama’s march towards a new world.
** (extremists in all faiths – who don’t believe in dialogue, who want to see others annihilated and of course promoting hate and chaos is their source of income)
I am pleased to share the article by Mr. Uri Avnery, a shining example of a Jewish man who would stand for justice. He is not alone, the moderate majority of Jews want justice and fairness, but have not been able to speak up against the mighty bulldozer of the extremist Jews.
The time for moderates has come now, the moderates who care about every soul including the extremists, thank God, the moderates are speaking up. The world would be a better place if the Neocons * put their efforts in bettering the world than creating chaos.
I am pleased to share Uri Avnery’s article on Obama’s speech, Uri is another Jewish intellectuals who gets branded “self-hating Jew” by the extremist among Jews. They do that with all who speak justice and long term peace and security for the people of not only Israel, but also the Palestinians. The moderats follow the Jewish tradition of Justice where as our Neocon extremists including the Lobby, the Netanyahu’s, Lieberman, Barak, Pipes and their likes are bent on creating further imbalance in the society and prolonging the fear and insecurity for Jews.
Indeed, this group is really the enemy of Israel and I pray that the moderate majority recognizes this and takes the right step in encouraging actions and words that will eventually bring them peace, not just for them, but for every one in the region.
Israel cannot have sustainable peace when others around her aren't. Time for the moderates in Israel and Palestine to take charge.
Mike Ghouse
# # #
The Tone and the Music
ONE MAN spoke to the world, and the world listened.
He walked onto the stage in Cairo, alone, without hosts and without aides, and delivered a sermon to an audience of billions. Egyptians and Americans, Israelis and Palestinians, Jews and Arabs, Sunnis and Shiites, Copts and Maronites – and they all listened attentively.
He unfolded before them the map of a new world, a different world, whose values and laws he spelled out in simple and clear language - a mixture of idealism and practical politics, vision and pragmatism.
Barack Hussein Obama – as he took pains to call himself – is the most powerful man on earth. Every word he utters is a political fact.
“A HISTORIC SPEECH”, pronounced commentators in a hundred languages. I prefer another adjective:
The speech was right.
Every word was in its place, every sentence precise, and every tone in harmony. The masterpiece of a man bringing a new message to the world.
From the very first word, every listener in the hall and in the world felt the honesty of the man, that his heart and his tongue were in harmony, that this is not a politician of the old familiar sort – hypocritical, sanctimonious, calculating. His body language was speaking, and so were his facial expressions
That’s why the speech was so important. The new moral integrity and the sense of honesty increased the impact of the revolutionary content.
AND A REVOLUTIONARY speech it certainly was.
In 55 minutes, it not only wiped away the eight years of George W. Bush, but also much of the preceding decades, from World War II on.
The American ship has turned – not with the sluggishness everyone would have expected, but with the agility of a speedboat.
That is much more than a political change. It touches the roots of the American national consciousness. The President spoke to hundreds of million US citizens no less than to a billion Muslims.
The American culture is based on the myth of the Wild West, with its Good Guys and Bad Guys, violent justice, dueling under the midday sun. Since the American nation is composed of immigrants from all over the world, its unity seems to require a threatening, world-encompassing evil enemy, like the Nazis and the Japs, or the Commies. After the collapse of the Soviet empire, this role was taken over by Islam.
Cruel, fanatical, bloodthirsty Islam; Islam as the religion of murder and destruction; an Islam lusting for the blood of women and children. This enemy captured the imagination of the masses and supplied material for television and cinema. It provided lecture topics for learned professors and fresh inspiration for popular writers. The White House was occupied by a moron who declared a world-wide “War on Terrorism”.
When Obama is now uprooting this myth, he is revolutionizing American culture. He wipes away the picture of one enemy, without painting another in its place. He preaches against the violent, adversary attitude itself, and starts to work to replace it with a culture of partnership between nations, civilizations and religions.
I see Obama as the first great messenger of the 21st century. He is the son of a new era, where the economy is global and the whole of humanity faces the danger to the very existence of life on the planet Earth. An era where the Internet connects a boy in New Zealand with a girl in Namibia in real time, where a disease in a small Mexican village spreads all over the globe within days.
This world needs a world law, a world order, a world democracy. That’s why this speech really was historic: Obama outlined the basic contours of a world constitution.
WHILE OBAMA proclaims the 21st century, the government of Israel is returning to the 19th.
That was the century when a narrow, egocentric, aggressive nationalism took root in many countries. A century that sanctified the belligerent nation which oppresses minorities and subdues neighbors. The century that gave birth to modern anti-Semitism and to its response – modern Zionism.
Obama’s vision is not anti-national. He spoke with pride about the American nation. But his nationalism is of another sort: an inclusive, multi-cultural and non-sexist nationalism, which includes all the citizens of a country and respects other nations.
This is the nationalism of the 21st century, which is inexorably striving towards supranational, regional and world-wide structures.
Compared to this, how miserable is the mental world of the Israeli Right! How miserable is the violent, fanatical-religious world of the settlers, the chauvinist ghetto of Netanyahu, Lieberman and Barak, the racist-fascist closed-in world of their Kahanist allies!
One has to understand this moral and spiritual dimension of Obama’s speech before considering its political implications. Not only in the political sphere are Obama and Netanyahu on a collision course. The underlying collision is between two mental worlds which are as distinct from each other as the sun and the moon.
In Obama’s mental world, there is no place for the Israeli Right or its equivalents elsewhere. Not for their terminology, not for their “values”, and still less for their actions.
IN THE political sphere, too, a huge gap has opened up between the governments of Israel and the USA.
During the last few years, successive Israeli governments have ridden the wave of Islamophobia that has spread throughout the West. The Islamic world was considered the deadly enemy, America was galloping grimly towards the Clash of Civilizations, every Muslim was a potential terrorist.
Israel’s right-wing leaders could rejoice. After all, the Palestinians are Arabs, the Arabs are Muslims, the Muslims are Terrorists – so that Israel was assured a central place in the war of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness.
That was a Garden of Eden for racist demagogues. Avigdor Lieberman could advocate the expulsion of the Arabs from Israel, Ellie Yishai could enact laws for the revocation of the citizenship of non-Jews. Obscure Members of the Knesset could grab headlines with bills that might have been conceived in Nuremberg.
This Garden of Eden is no more. Whether the implications will become clear quickly or slowly - the direction is obvious. If we continue on our path, we will become a leper colony.
THE TONE makes the music – and this applies also to the President’s words on Israel and Palestine. He spoke at length about the Holocaust – honest and courageous words, full of empathy and compassion, which were received by the Egyptians in silence but with respect. He stressed Israel’s right to exist. And without pausing, he spoke about the suffering of the Palestinian refugees, the intolerable situation of the Palestinians in Gaza, Palestinian aspirations for a state of their own.
He spoke respectfully about Hamas. Not anymore as a “terrorist organization”, but as a part of the Palestinian people. He demanded that they recognize Israel and stop violence, but also hinted that he would welcome a Palestinian unity government.
The political message was clear and unequivocal: the Two-State Solution will be put into practice. He himself will see to that. Settlement activity must cease. Unlike his predecessors, he did not stop at speaking about “Palestinians”, but uttered the decisive word: “Palestine” – the name of a state and a territory.
And no less important: the Iran war has been struck from the agenda. The dialogue with Tehran, as a part of the new world, is not limited in time. As from now, no one can even dream about an American OK for an Israeli attack.
HOW DID official Israel respond? The first reaction was denial. “An unimportant speech”. “There was nothing new”. The establishment commentators picked out a few pro-Israeli sentences from the text and ignored all the others. And after all, “these are just words. So he talked. Nothing will come out of it.”
That is nonsense. The words of the President of the United States are more than just words. They are political facts. They change the perceptions of hundreds of millions. The Muslim public listened. The American public listened. It may take some time for the message to sink in. But after this speech, the pro-Israel lobby will never be the same as it was before. The era of “foile shtik” (Yiddish for sneaky tricks) is over. The sly dishonesty of a Shimon Peres, the guileful deceits of an Ehud Olmert, the sweet talking of a Bibi Netanyahu – all these belong to the past.
The Israeli people must now decide: whether to follow the right-wing government towards an inevitable collision with Washington, as the Jews did 1940 years ago when they followed the Zealots into a suicidal war on Rome – or to join Obama’s march towards a new world.
** (extremists in all faiths – who don’t believe in dialogue, who want to see others annihilated and of course promoting hate and chaos is their source of income)
Friday, June 5, 2009
OBAMA : Essence of Cairo speech
.
President Obama emphasized and built upon the idea of co-existence and challenged fellow humans to think in those terms. It is a change he has talked about, and has now delivered to the world wide audience who is ready to absorb it.
God wants his creation to learn to accept the otherness of other and respect the uniqueness bestowed upon each one of the 7 billion of us, then conflicts fade and solutions emerge to pave the way for peaceful co-existence. That is indeed God’s will and the message from Zarathustra, Abraham, Moses, Krishna, Buddha, Confucius, Mahavir, Jesus, Mohammad, Nanak, Bahaullah and many a spiritual masters in Native American, African and other traditions.
It is one of the most powerful speeches in pluralism ever! It brings the world towards justice and balance. No nation or community can have advantages over the other; such benefits are deleterious and are counter productive in making of the peaceful societies.
You simply cannot have peace and security when others around you don’t.
He spoke for the silent moderate majority of the people, regardless of their faith or nationality; he spoke for a very large audience. Perhaps it has happened for the first time in human history.
He did not appease any one nor did he offend any one.
He spoke what was needed to be said and he was frank and fair.
He stressed the need for a dialogue.
He assured the Israelis his support.
He was firm with the Israelis to stop settlements as they are the impediments to peace.
He acknowledged the suffering of the Palestinians
He spoke about the hopes and aspirations of all human beings.
He asked the silent majority to take charge.
Mike Ghouse is a Dallas based Speaker, Writer, Thinker and a Moderator. He is a frequent guest on talk radio and television networks offering pluralistic perspectives on issues of the day including Pluralism, Interfaith, Islam, Peace, India and Civic issues. His comments, news analysis and opinions are on the Blogs listed at his personal website www.MikeGhouse.net. Mike is a Dallasite for three decades and Carrollton is his home town. He can be reached at MikeGhouse@gmail.com
President Obama emphasized and built upon the idea of co-existence and challenged fellow humans to think in those terms. It is a change he has talked about, and has now delivered to the world wide audience who is ready to absorb it.
God wants his creation to learn to accept the otherness of other and respect the uniqueness bestowed upon each one of the 7 billion of us, then conflicts fade and solutions emerge to pave the way for peaceful co-existence. That is indeed God’s will and the message from Zarathustra, Abraham, Moses, Krishna, Buddha, Confucius, Mahavir, Jesus, Mohammad, Nanak, Bahaullah and many a spiritual masters in Native American, African and other traditions.
It is one of the most powerful speeches in pluralism ever! It brings the world towards justice and balance. No nation or community can have advantages over the other; such benefits are deleterious and are counter productive in making of the peaceful societies.
You simply cannot have peace and security when others around you don’t.
He spoke for the silent moderate majority of the people, regardless of their faith or nationality; he spoke for a very large audience. Perhaps it has happened for the first time in human history.
He did not appease any one nor did he offend any one.
He spoke what was needed to be said and he was frank and fair.
He stressed the need for a dialogue.
He assured the Israelis his support.
He was firm with the Israelis to stop settlements as they are the impediments to peace.
He acknowledged the suffering of the Palestinians
He spoke about the hopes and aspirations of all human beings.
He asked the silent majority to take charge.
Mike Ghouse is a Dallas based Speaker, Writer, Thinker and a Moderator. He is a frequent guest on talk radio and television networks offering pluralistic perspectives on issues of the day including Pluralism, Interfaith, Islam, Peace, India and Civic issues. His comments, news analysis and opinions are on the Blogs listed at his personal website www.MikeGhouse.net. Mike is a Dallasite for three decades and Carrollton is his home town. He can be reached at MikeGhouse@gmail.com
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Evolutionary Creation - 2009 Evolution Week
Evolutionary Creation - 2009 Evolution Week
Several Abrahimic Religious leaders 'assume' that evolution is in conflict with creationism. It frightens them about the unknown; which is human. They have an unquestionable need to believe that what they know is the final word of God; a different point of view is anathema to them. The non-Abrahimic faith followers need not gloat; a new idea is usually an abomination to someone or the other including some of them. Whether you are a believer in a God, or several or no God, you would still find a new idea bring insecurity, like some one has pulled the rug from under you and you are out of your comfort zone.
Continued: http://www.foundationforpluralism.com/Articles/Evolutionary-Creation.asp
Several Abrahimic Religious leaders 'assume' that evolution is in conflict with creationism. It frightens them about the unknown; which is human. They have an unquestionable need to believe that what they know is the final word of God; a different point of view is anathema to them. The non-Abrahimic faith followers need not gloat; a new idea is usually an abomination to someone or the other including some of them. Whether you are a believer in a God, or several or no God, you would still find a new idea bring insecurity, like some one has pulled the rug from under you and you are out of your comfort zone.
Continued: http://www.foundationforpluralism.com/Articles/Evolutionary-Creation.asp
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