A Student Remembers a Great Teacher

faisal, re #124
Without wishing to detract from the issue you point out and obviously feel close to your heart (and which is as important as it is egregrious) may I remind you, as a self-respecting Pakistani, that there are a certain 230,000 disenfranchised Pakisanis some 2,000 miles south of Karachi, roughing it out in squattter camps for the past three-and-some decades, their only sin having been patriotic Pakistanis.
On a cheerier note, how are you finding Karachi?!? See any changes?
rgds,
PM

re. Hamidbhai ;) #117
``............. he wrote a whole book in defense of islam .... the book should have been called ``covering up islam`` ``
Dear oh dear! Another one bites the dust. Oh well, maybe Shahzadi can get some her reallife Commnity College freshpersons to aid her defense. I mean, extra credit could always do when intellectuall `rigour` can`t cut it.

``Hamid Bhai, Sameer and friends, this shezadi is tired of having to do all the work. Life isnt the way it used to be when Nani at 13 had to keep house for Nana and all his sisters...``
Got issues?

Samina, in case you missed the point in the fog:
Which part of ``a substantial number of Moslems`` lends itself to an interpretation that concludes that Bruce is a generalizing bigot? Or perhaps you don`t accept the veracity of that qualification either. hello, paid any visits to Paksitan lately? Saudi Arabia? India? Iran?

---

Goddammit.. i`m on the same bench as Crummy Cretin now!

AHhh, so there you are Samina. For a while I thought you`d actually just pulled a David Copperfield on us after I asked you to do me the favour of pointing out where, exactly, I`d brought up ``child love, as usual``. Heck, come to think of it, you still haven`t done that homework, but tell you what, considering all the verbal pirouetting and mental gymnastics you`re putting so much effort into here, I`ll give you some more time. `Cause I KNOW you`re a person who values honour and would not go so low as to, like, just evade an issue after you`ve brought it up. But rest assured, some idiot-level I.Q folks like myself also have a sense of honour, if not the literary prowess that you have that oh so intimidates us, and this might prompt us to keep asking you to defend your statements. So, unless you have the sense to know what the truly honourable thing to do would be, well, be prepared for a long episode of ank-at-your-heels dogginess.

Now dear, on to your rather weak, if I might say (and this really does disappoint me, because, in a way, you put Said in a bad light), critique of that passage of Bruce WhatsHisSuranme: You write:
``Please go ahead and support Bruce`s claims. Knock yourself out. HA!HA!HA! Sahib will support you in his sneaky and covert way that makes generalizations about Islam. Buy each other drinks and go on double dates with...um...okay, I am stopping myself here from making another nasty remark.... ``
Oh no, please don’t stop... after all the silly ones you`ve made, heck, nasty would be a kind of intellectual comeuppance. (And, pssst.. you’re fooling no one with your nervous laughter either) Ok, so let me get this right... your beef with that Bruce guy (and with Chowk Cretin) is that they make sweeping generalizations about Islam. Okay, so let`s examine what Bruce said again in that passage:

````...But what’s odd about Covering Islam is that it never really gets around to the ticklish topic of Islam itself. Granted, the Western media have frequently simplified and caricatured the Islamic world – but then, they do this to everything. Besides, a substantial percentage of Moslems are in fact religious fundamentalists who despise individual liberty and sexual equality, who believe profoundly that all sorts of things should be punished by death, and who readily cheer acts of violence directed against innocent civilians in the West. Tirelessly, Said dances around or rushes past these facts. Time and again he dismisses ``fundamentalism`` as an anti-Moslem code word...”

Now, dear, in your anxious fervour to brand this another example of western generalization, which part “a substantial number of Moslems” did you encounter problems with? Does this sixth-grade teacher need to spell out your problems with consistency for you?? Even Said, in his critiques of Western Media and academia, has often been less qualifying in his ‘generalizations’. But that’s cool. You, see, normal people, not out to give each word an interpretative weight of a Foucault tome, will generally take such generalizations for granted—that is, as necessary if one is to prevent a text being deluged in qualifications.

But oh, you still haven’t told me where I brought up child, love. Remember, I’m still waiting on that one. Maybe your own sense of honour does not demand that you justify your contention, but rest assured, mine demands that I keep prodding you for one, unless of course, you do the ‘other’ honourable thing. I think you’re honour-equipped enough to know what that thing is.

rgds,
PM

Fuzair #126: ``Hamidm and Romair

Just curious about why disagreeing with your views on any subject automatically makes one an idiot? Are you two up for the Nobel Prize in everything this year?``

It is quite interested to be quoted in areas where I never stated anything. Could I request you to point out exactly where I used the word idiot, or your name for that matter.

Tahmedji!!
You accuse every one of slandering you!!
just read all those stuff that you have posted and decide who has been too emotional and personal

wildflower #127 Please see the following links:

http://www.chowk.com/show_article.cgi?aid=00002594&channel=gulberg&start=70&end=79&page=8&chapter=1&order=0#192

See post #192 from Roohi which refers to the ``boylove`` article, and post #194 from PM where he defends the practice.

The boylove article is on this link:

http://www.chowk.com/show_article.cgi?aid=00000632&channel=gulberg&order=0&start=10&end=19&page=2&chapter=1#replies

This I will say about PM: he has been honest about his preferences. Since he is on this board, I shall pass it over to him for any further response he may wish to provide. Chowk is not a court of law, and my main concern is that he should consider the emotional damage this does to the child.

don`t see either you or MNI or any other Said apologist actually addressing the points I have raised about his tendency towards hysterical polemics--how else would you describe ``Since the enlightenment, Dr. Said wrote, ``every European, in what he could say about the Orient, was a racist, an imperialist, and almost totally ethnocentric`` (this is from his NYT obituary). Or his ignoring all of the ``Orientalists`` who might have countered his very interesting take on Western study of the ``Orient:`` ignore many of the real scholars and castigate fiction authors and travelogue writers for perpetuating offensive stereotypes?


Did I say that Said didn`t have a tendency towards getting polemical? But then meray bhai..many people do that. Your own statement about Said saying nine absurdities for every sensible thing is itself a polemical exaggeration, is it not? Or that he concentrated on travelogue writers instead of real scholars? (Did he not write about Lane, Bernard Lewis, and Gibb?) The point of the book ``Orientalism`` is less to trash the whole discipline, than it is to underscore its ``geneology``.

Said is a great favorite among certain type of PoMo intellectuals (the same ones who read, edit and write for trash journals like ``Social Text``). As the reviews of his book indicate, actual scholars of the subject have some serious qualms about his work.

This passage Fuzair, is more indicative of your own biases than a commentary on Said. First of all, what is ``subject``? If Said wrote a book on the history of Arabic script, maybe these guys would count as ``actual scholars``. Said`s book is a critique of the epistemology of Orientalism, on which these ``actual scholars`` are no more qualified to comment -- maybe less because they have a conflict of interest -- than Said himself. So what are you trying to prove? That the book is badly received? If the book was this badly received, it wouldn`t be taught in so many universities, would it?

Oh but it is only a favorite amongst ``a certain type of PoMo intellectuals``. By associating this book with a certain kind of people -- whether real or a construct of your own mind, I don`t know -- with whose ideas you yourself profess willful and distasteful ignorance, you are trying to discredit the book. I`d say that this bit is not even worth refuting. Am I a PoMO intellectual? Bhai jaan this is sounding very much like: ``If I don`t understand it, it`s garbage``.

Finally, I have a suspicion that you have read the hostile reviews much more closely than you have read the actual book Orientalism. I don`t know how well you know Ibn Warraq -- or are impressed by his work -- but your mode of argument is quite similar to his. (I went and read the ``Debunking Edward Said`` article.)

Anyways, since you seem to know Ibn Warraq maybe you can convey this to him. He can consider this my response to a letter I received years ago to write for his journal. It is great that he wrote a book marshalling all the arguments against the Qur`an, and popular Islamic religious beliefs. For that he should be commended, even if the book doesn`t have any new material or original research. Believing Muslims need to read that book, despite its polemical nature, and shabby research. But he has chosen to market this book as a screed against Islam used for partisan purposes, by people whose own extremism is not much better than that of Islamic fundamentalists. Hence his alignment with the likes of Daniel Pipes, on whose book he devotes a whole chapter. Despite his professions that he seeks to bring about an enlightenment within Muslims, his book doesn`t really talk to Muslims themselves. He is not the first apostate on the planet. although he might be the first professional one. Many other people who have turned away from islam, have chosen to actually reform Muslim society from within, and not by inciting the Western public against it. Many of these good souls are intellectual progeny of Edward Said himself. And since Ibn Warraq has written a whole chapter on the Rushdie Affair ( quoting glowingly from Daniel Pipes` book with the same name) , he probably also knows that the late Edward Said insistently and repeatedly condemned the fatwa against Rushdie on multiple occasions before a Muslim audience -- including an interview with Herald magazine.


The meaning you -- and the obit writer in the NY Times -- impute to that quote from Edward Said (that every European is a racist) is so absurd that I am certain it is quoted out of context, or misunderstood. I will get back to you on this one.

Oooh.. i get it... PostModern?

Fuzair,
What`s PoMo anyway?

WildeLover,
Hey, thanks for your gracious openness. My views have been expressed clearly enough (for those with non-cretinous brains (and/or those unencumbered with an overdose of self-righteous indignation)
But I cannot deny feeling disappointed here. Maybe you will actually force Chowk Cretin to read without blinkers, and that would deprive us all of this wonderful spectacle of unadulterated moral supercilliousness in full splendour, and then I might even start respecting CC for the otherwise honest, if what somewhat simpleminded bloke that he is.
Dilemma!!

oops! faisal, that would be ``2,000 miles (acutally, maybe less) East, not South, of Karachi``, of course.

puyu #135 point taken.

TAhmed,
Since you`ve decided to talk like a decent human being again...
You write: ``my main concern is that he should consider the emotional damage this does to the child.``
Where do you get off presuming that I give no thought to these matters. Your continual prodding for an answer simply annoyed me for its presumptuousness.
Now, if you are able to approach the subject at all with any equanimity, you might consider that ALL the links I posts were to studies and other literature relating to the alleged emotional damage to the child. Comprende?

pm:

you know that i am no islamo-supremicist and in fact i would be calling for sanctions on pak should our politicians pass laws like the ones in eighties which turned you guys into second class citizens. dont see why white people should not be subjected to the same rules. and also i dont know why but this issue is of huge concern in the islamic world. i have recently had the opportunity to closely interact with muslims from s.e. asia and i am just amazed to see how much anger this issue is causing in places and among people who you normally dont associate with extremism. and btw this anger runs across class lines. and any leader who articulates these feelings with half a brain has good chance to build a huge power base across different countries. i am kind of pinning my hopes on mahatir.

also my trip to karachi got delayed. i will be there from 18-25 october, are you going to be around then?