Sunday, October 30, 2005
Just got back from watching Deborah Lipstadt give the keynote at BU's "Reconsidering “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”: 100 Years After the Forgery, October 30-31, 2005" conference. I truly wish I could have spent the entire day there listening to all the talks. It must have been fascinating, but with a family and the last really nice weekend day of the fall...I may as well have told my wife I was going to spend the day drinking at the bar as sell that idea to her, so the final presentation of the evening was all I managed.
Anyway, I will post the audio of her excellent address, probably tomorrow, so anyone can hear it if interested. I think you'll like it.
Afterward, the attendees were invited to a sneak screening of a new film that will be showing next Sunday at the Boston Jewish Film Festival -- Protocols of Zion. About twenty people or so stayed to watch. I'm going to chew this one over a bit before I consider reviewing it...I like to be positive on this blog (ahem)...but I really...well, if anyone else has seen the movie, I'd be interested in what you thought, because right now the more I think about it the worse I think it was.
Reforming Islam: The Forbidden Fruit
Daily Scorecard Reports
What makes matters worse is that many in the West, in their attempt to search for Muslim reformers, describe a person as "moderate" or "reformist" just because of the mere fact that he condemned violence or rebuked Bin Laden on September 11th.
Right after 911, many Islam haters started quoting the "violence verses" in the Quran in an attempt to prove that the 19 hijackers were carrying out Allah's orders. Muslims responded by saying that such verses should be taken "within their historical context." I am wondering why we can't take the saying of the prophet, the actions of his companions, and Shariah law in their "historical context" as well.
Islam is currently in a crisis and it is sad that very few Muslim thinkers and leaders are noticing it.
In a recent conversation, we started talking about Shariah law and I was stunned when he told me that he believes Shariah is divine and Allah's answer to all our ills. He then started bombarding me with absurd justifications for stoning, whipping those who drank a bottle of beer, and executing those who converted out of Islam. When I cornered him by detailing how his current life will change if Egypt adopted full fledged Shariah law, all what he said was "I'll give it a try."