A Student Remembers a Great Teacher

TAhmed ref. 155:
Ahmed, I don`t think PM has denied authorship of the article (Have you, PM?), so why bring that up?
I guess the part of his essay that troubles you is ``Even before Nomi one day sat himself on my lap facing me, groin on groin, and proceeded with repeated thrusting movements, did my notions of a ‘mature’ love, bereft of jealousy, fall casualty to a newfound appreciation of the romantic.``
Now, I don`t know, but it would certainly seem that PM was seduced by the boy. I have read enough literature (thank you, PM!) to know that that is not at all uncommon for boys to do these sort of thinds. Besides, there is nothing in the passage to suggest that PM encouraged this behaviour. And PM mentions in the interact that that episode lasted all of 15 seconds. Now, could it be that you actually think they had their pants off? And PM, did you?? You have repeatedly calimed that PM`s actions were motivated by a desire for the pleasure of ejaculation? This does not square with PM`s claim, in the essay, that his all his future relationships have ``not drifted into the physical realm-- and not for want of opportunity either.``
I do wonder, Ahmed sahib, whether you have not falen victim to an overactive imagination!
You also quoted PM thus: ``... Last year, to my almost apologetic query on how he feels about the time we shared together, he responded with the same spontaneity I had fallen in love with, “burra muzza aya tha``...``
Once again, Ahmed, strictly going with all that PM has written, especially his quite superb exposition of the `erotic` (``full of possibilities, of the unkown`` etc.) I`d have to say that you have chosen to see, as PM eloquently writes, ``a monster in every man`s penis``. In fact, you seem to see a penis first in every man`s (or at least in this man`s) heart.
While I maintain serious qualms about the issue of adult-child sexual encounters (though it`s interesting to see that the same is not a big deal at all in many European countries-- food for thought?), I must thank PM for bringing up this issue in such a cogent, and yes, honest, manner.
And I regret to inform you, Ahmed sahib, that you have terribly over-reacted in a way most unbecoming the rationalist you normally are.--
WildeLover

Looks like PM has really got Samina Sha in a corner here. My bet is that Ms. Sha will simply decide to ignore the fact that she`s been makng false claims and generally made a fool of herself on the Bruce Lane quotation.
PM, you really SHOULD have been a lawyer. Damn, you`re good!

Fuzair,

Are you writing about the feminization of the East by Orientalist scholarship? There are many contemporary examples of this-the last most obvious manifestation of this was a cartoon drawing of American soldiers loading missiles which had messages like ``Bend over, Taliban`` inscribed on them. This cartoon was transmitted over the AP about a year ago.

TAhmed:
``I have seen grown men break down and cry on TV when recollecting their experience years ago as children at the hands of pedophiliac priests.``
Yes, but you would never see the grown men who DON`T break down and cry over their pedophilic relationships, or indeed, speak postively about them, now would you?!?
`Guess you`re unaware that in the Land of the Free, it is actually a punishable crime to speak favourably of pedophilic relationships you were in as a `child`. Yes, really!! First Amendment ki ma ki chut!
And then, have you ever wondered why you wouldn`t find men in, say Holland, (I know you would have problems with Pakistan) making asses of themselves on public TV this way?

Fuzair:

BTW, what is your background? I am curious. I assume you are an academic of some sort with a degree in one of the social sciences (not Econ!) or the humanities.

NahiN bay.....neither an academic, nor in the social sciences. MaiN seedha saadha aadmi hooN beh.

Will reply to your other points as I get time.

PM,

I have to admit, I just dont care about the info you are demanding, and guess what, I dont have to play your games....

later.

Tahmed Sahib,

I`m afraid I`ve wasted too much time trying to reason with you. Clearly, it is impossible considering your prejudices. Salam.


MNIPhirsay, Fuzair, Mantolives,

I was going to post another excerpt from an essay entitled Beauty, Politics and Cultural Otherness by Patrick Colm Hogan from a Comparative Lit collection of essays entitled Literary India, but I think I`ll hold off on it. Fuzair, I need to know what was your understanding of Orientalism, in your own words. Thank you.

Mantolives,

Is Dr. Davis still around? If I am thinking of the Middle Eastern Dept. scholar, he was getting a bit on in age when I was at Rutgers. Btw, have you studied with any Palestinian or Indian profs at Rutgers? I might know some who were grad students back then!

Re: my polemics. You wouldn`t be the first one to accuse me of getting a bit carried away occasionally [;-)]and I do plead guilty to the charge. However, in my defence, I will say that it is one thing to make these kinds of statements in a forum like this one (essentially a couple of people talking informally) and its something else entirely to do so in the fora Said used. Or do you disagree that there is a huge difference between what/where I said and Said said?

Aaah, epistemology. I agree that Said`s point was to attempt to expose the biases, preconceptions, hidden purposes, and what not of ``Orientalists`` and to further argue that by demonizing Arabs/Islam/Muslims, to provide an intellectual underpinning to Western Imperialism. However, my point in giviing you the negative reviews of his book (btw, not all of his critics are negative about the book: as I said, one basically apologized for pointing out its errors) is that Said is apparently quite selective in which ``Orientalist`s`` work he uses. I refer you to my post #111 on the earlier Said thread.

I`ll reproduce a portion of what I wrote:

---

Malcolm H. Kerr (review of Orientalism International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 12, No. 4. (Dec., 1980), pp. 544-547) argues that
“[Orientalism is spoiled by overzealous prosecutorial argument in which Professor Said, in his eagerness to spin too large a web, leaps at conclusions and tries to throw everything but the kitchen sink into a preconceived frame of analysis. In charging the entire tradition of European and American Oriental studies with the the sins of reductionism and caricature, he commits precisely the same error.”

Kerr then goes on to list some 60 scholars, mainly French, British and American but quite a few influential Oriental ones as well, that Said deliberately ignores since they do not fit into his neat little “Orientalist” paradigm. Even I, a complete idiot according to you, had heard of a few of these “missing 60,” Hourani, Hitti, Dekmejian, Evans-Pritchard, Abu-Lughoud, Geertz, and Rodinson.

“Surely as a group,” Kerr argues, “they have exerted as much intellectual influence as Said’s select roster of ogres, and surely they have not been altogether brainwashed by the tradition.” Kerr then goes on to ask, why has Said included authors of travelogues and novels set in the Middle East but refused to include these genuine experts on the subject?

Hmmmm. What could the reason be? Is it that if Said had really done a comprehensive study of “Orientalism,” he would have found scant evidence for his thesis?

---

My point here is that Said would appear to be guilty of, at best, very selective research. His book really wouldn`t have sold as well or been as influential if he had titled it ``Bernard Lewis is a Big Fat Idiot,`` would it?

Now, I am going by my own personal experience in two major US research universities and a couple of smaller places but its pretty clear who are the people who REALLY like Said: people in the humanities and PoliSci/Soc/Anthro who have a certain mindset and worldview that I personally do not completley agree with. However, unlike the vast majority of them, I did make an attempt to read outside my own narrow graduate field (economics, but I dislike excessive formalism--really not a theorist) and take a couple of graduate coures in Political Theory and what not. What I saw did not impress me (before you dismiss this as my not knowing enough about the fields, I was an Econ/PoliSci double major with basically a History minor). You can`t hang around PoliSci/IR departments in US research universities without being exposed to enough nonsense to choke a large whale.

I know a heck of a lot more about Foucault, Derrida, PostModernism, deconstruction, etc, than they know about International Trade or Economic Development or Labour Markets or Tax Policy or Macroeconomic policy and if they can comment on these, I can certainly comment on their pet theories. Yes, I know, this is a pretty stupid argument but, what the heck, they are stupid people. So, I do understand something. I don`t dismiss Foucault out of hand. We are all, to a certain extent, prisoners of our own discourse, all criminals are anarchists and power-relationships are important BUT I don`t lose my mind when someone writes about the etymology of thawra and read all sorts of nonsense that simply isn`t there.

I know very little about Ibn Warraq, other than what one picks up on the Web, and I am not particularly impressed by him. However, he did seem to do a pretty good job on Said.... I didn`t even know he had a journal, so you`ll have to pass on your response to him yourself. Unlike him and Hamidm, I`ve even defended Islam on Chowk (not a very passionate defense, more on the lines of ``Hey, why pick just on Islam? There are equal absurdities in every religion! We don`t let these absurdities condemn Christianity or Judaism). The point is not what kind of a person is Ibn Warraq but is what he says about Said correct?

I haven`t seen you say that these are the factual errors Ibn Warraq (or any other Said critic) has made. Therefore, his criticism of Said is invalid. Please do get back to me on the NYT obituary. BUT it seems that Said has said many, many, many things like that so I doubt it is taken out of context.

I`ll repeat one I had posted earlier:

---

“The answer, I think, is that books like Miller`s [God Has Ninety-Nine Names: Reporting From a Militant Middle East] are symptomatic because they are weapons in the contest to subordinate, beat down, compel and defeat any Arab or Muslim resistance to U.S.-Israeli dominance. Moreover, by surreptitiously justifying a policy of single-minded obduracy that links Islamism to a strategically important, oil-rich part of the world, the anti-Islam campaign virtually eliminates the possibility of equal dialogue between Islam and the Arabs, and the West or Israel. To demonize and dehumanize a whole culture on the ground that it is (in Lewis`s sneering phrase) enraged at modernity is to turn Muslims into the objects of a therapeutic, punitive attention.” (http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=19960812&s=said)

---

Since this is more than one line, I doubt it is ``taken out of context`` or had its meaning twisted. As I said before, I don`t necessarily disagree with much of Said`s basic points, I just think that he carries them to the level of absurdity.

As far as Daniel Pipes is concerned, I wouldn`t believe him if he told me that Monday followed Sunday. Its a travesty that he has been appointed to the US Institute of Peace`s governing board.

BTW, what is your background? I am curious. I assume you are an academic of some sort with a degree in one of the social sciences (not Econ!) or the humanities.

Regards.

Samina,
Got you on HAHAHA! Sahib. My apologies! (take the cue, lady!)
Now, while advocating a long shower, have you still refused to siply tell me where I brought up child love without being asked?
And about five posts and timings... honey, am jsut seeing if you can take it as ell as you dish it out.
tick tock...tick tock...
Oh, and I don`t think it should take too much of your precious time to tell us what part of Bruce`s ``a substantial number of Moslems`` you had difficulty understanding either.
tick tock..tick tock...

mni:

you are missing forest for trees here. greatness of edward said lies in his eloquent, passionate and inspirational defense of values of truth, justice and non-tribalism especially at a time when you almost feel ashamed and almost like a khussy to even say these words. powerful people with a nefarious agenda hated said for being so single-minded on this and tried to discredit his work to discredit his broader agenda. i think best way to take on his detractors is to constantly emphasize his broader message.

pm:

if pakis could think rationally and without prejudice, country would not be a such a paghal khana would it?

Wildflower #150 The second link has the article. I found it a bit confusing myself because it shows up on HTML code, so what I have done is cut and paste below the second part of it which has PM as the writer, and where he is I think quite explicit about the fact that he had sexual relations with the boy:

``A Personal Account

I haven’t alwaysbeen a boylover; not consciously anyway.... It wasn’t until I was in my mid-twenties, and privately tutoring 11-year-old Nomi that I was awakened to the deeper levels of my attraction to boys. ... Even before Nomi one day sat himself on my lap facing me, groin on groin, and proceeded with repeated thrusting movements, did my notions of a ‘mature’ love, bereft of jealousy, fall casualty to a newfound appreciation of the romantic. And well before he got physical in any sense of the word, did he have my heart to do with as he wished.

... Last year, to my almost apologetic query on how he feels about the time we shared together, he responded with the same spontaneity I had fallen in love with, “burra muzza aya tha”.

...PM``

PM did not deny this article when Roohi originally brought it up (see the second link I provided), and indeed still defends the practice of adults having relations with boys (per his post referrring me to literature on the subject).

I am providing the above information since you said you could not find it. If PM wishes to deny that he wrote this, he is on this board and can do it now.

TAhmed,

You`re smart enough to know, with some effort of course, that equating my posting of literature (actual, scientific studies) in defense of my position (which at present is a case of your-word-against-mine) Is NOT the same as Samina`s plea that you read ten books of Said`s before you a can pass judgement on anything he has said in one essay. Please think through it. In one case you have someone asing you to dig deeper to justify yourself, in the other, well, you just have a classic case of evasion-through-obfuscation.

re. The `proof` you cited...
a) I don`t deny that some priests simply abused some children (let me clue you in to the numbers, though. If you`d read the articles I posted-- all by non-pedophilic researchers, i hasten to add-- you`d find that shild sexual abuse was commited far more often by non-pedophiles than by pedophiles. So, you will have no trouble finding true victims of such abuse.)

b) If that specatacle of a grown man crying was all the proof you needed, you might be surprised to read about the Saranic Rites child abuse hoaxes of the eighties and the Repressed Memory Syndrome `hoax` of the 80`s and 90`s. If you`re still disinclined to read articles, here`s a summary: `victims` acutally `remembered``, in court, with the help of their zealous psychologists, things that happened in their childhood, which were later proved to be impossible. Again, this is not to suggest that people are not abused and harmed, but you have to ask yourself what role the suggestability of `victims` (esp, i repeat, in the Land of the Perpetual Victim) plays in the creation of the `trauma`.

c) Relating experiences of actual cases of abuse to all cases of intergenerational sexual encounters is as jsutified as tarring consensual adult sex with the brush of adult rape.

TAhmed, I might add that gour years ago, when the boylove article was published, I got scathing posts from all and sundry, including temporal, bina, Ferozk, and others not around anymore. However, when all of them actually began to read and debate, their positions were softened, even if none of them can be said to boylove advocates, I think.

One poster put the whole thing succinctly: ``This makes me squelch; but then, the idea that my parents do it makes me squelch too``.

May I again submit that the idea of homosexuality would have made you squelch too thrirty years ago?

And finally, please resist the urge to view my boylove advoacy as the right to rear-end boys. If you`re interested in debate, we`ll take it from there...

PM,

Uh dude....HA!HA!HA! Sahib is a moniker...not nervous laughter....and, why are you addressing five posts to me and timing my responses? Could you perhaps take a long cold shower and chill out?

WilderFlower:
Lawyer? Hell, no... just an ordinary ``inter-pass`` sickened by the idea of government-sanctioned morality.

PM #144 Why do I need a study to tell me that adults should not be having sexual relations with children? If proof was needed: I have seen grown men break down and cry on TV when recollecting their experience years ago as children at the hands of pedophiliac priests.

You refer to the literature on this issue, like Saminasha refers to the literature on that other issue concerning Said. She hides from one reality, you hide from the other.

TAhmed, ref. 141
Ahmed, as mentioned earlier, I have already gone to the link you provided and have read PM`s boylove article that Roohi posted, and the interesting posts by Dost-mittar, AlephNull and of course PM himself. However I find no evidence of what it is you accuse him. I am presently reading--laboriously-- through the interacts of the original essay. Maybe I will find something there.
This much I`ll say for you PM, you sure know how to defend your position, and give us a lot to think about. Or re-think rather. Are you a lawyer by profession or training?
--WildeLover