Well I think one of the things about in the West that we have an exceptional lyst approach to ourselves before we were liberally democratic we were a very Christian civilization and we were attempting to thrust Christianity on the rest of the planet believing that that was our divined sanctioned right to do that so we sent missionaries all over the place and this is the you know this European colonialism it was quote-unquote to civilize all these savages and turn them into images of our
religious self well now that we're in a
post-christian era suddenly it's liberal
democracy but I still feel that the
impulses is the same impulse it's the
impulse of this kind of exceptionalism
this idea that somehow we're different
in the West we have Aristotle and
Socrates you know our foundations are
rational and the rest of the world the
Asians these inscrutable people over in
China and Indonesia they don't really
think the way we do and then these these
savage Muslims look at them they can't
even live civilly amongst each other
even their religion is a violent
barbaric religion so this is the type of
narrative that is constantly projected
and unfortunately a lot of Muslims and
other peoples fall into these kind of
ways of objecting to this imperialistic
tendency that's very Western imam zaid
the the narrative is certainly changing
in the Middle East much as a result of
the Arab Spring a lot of people
attribute that to discontent with
politics but I know you and shaykh hamza
think differently give us your
perspective on that
ah can you be more specific my
perspective on what the reasons that the
Arab Spring uprisings happened a lot of
people think it was political and I know
both of you have commented on it being
more economic I think definitely
economics are factor political there are
political motivations economic
motivations there are social and
cultural motivations but I think a lot
of it can be attributed to the general
frustration that prevails especially
amongst the younger population who
aren't seeing economic opportunities
that they've been believed to be waiting
for them once they finish their college
education at him well as easy was a
college graduate and he's selling
vegetables on the on the one hand I
think there's a fell so there's a
failure of politics and economics but
there's also a failure of religion in
the sense that one views ones our state
state of contentment and peace of mind
and one's ability to persevere and to
patiently endure economic and political
trials in the light of one's
relationship with Almighty God and find
a sense of self satisfaction a sense of
self-importance of one is has a solid
and meaningful and rich relationship
with Almighty God so I think when you
bring these factors together that
frustration builds up because it's not
mitigated by a rich relationship with
God and then you get into a fight and
flight situation where under the
property popular stimulus that stimulus
might be wise easiest car turned over
and being slapped by a police woman that
that stimulus might be this the likes of
this film that recently came out and you
get a fight-or-flight reaction and
sometimes where the ration takes a
rational faculties stop and then you
have an explosion if you will so I think
it's very important for us to see the
factors that are contributing to that
frustration on the one hand the factors
that are not there to help mitigate it
and construct and focus it and
constructive avenues and then
you what is constructive in the Arab
Spring there's a lot that's constructive
there's a lot that could be criticized
but i think it is i dropped you for a
second really quick and bring in our
online community i have a tweet here
from nawaz she says what just scholars
think of the cultural ethnic and
religious discrimination of Muslims in
the West why are muslims fair game i
also have a tweet here from shabad ville
he asks Islamophobia being number one we
are not politically organized at all and
barely some of us vote I also have a
video question from one of our viewers
I'd look what Sunday mom I'd like you to
answer this said I'm gonna go my name is
yes Mina and I'm currently a student at
the American University in Cairo I have
a question for both of the amounts
whether willingly or unwillingly you
both become part of a response to racist
depictions of Islam as inherently
violent that presents Islam is
inherently pacifist specifically is
compatible with Christian pacifism and
this is one of the main topics of a
common word which you both signed and so
my question is this do you worry that
the fact that the Muslim community in
the US has been forced to adopt such a
defensive posture results in the spread
of a distorted image of a stem that
downplays Islam's very real
prioritization of social action and
resistance you know I just in response
to that question I mean first of all
there the earlier question about the
depiction of the end of American Muslims
and Islam overall I mean America has
been at war in Muslim countries and so
this is a very common result of war you
tend to demonize your your enemies and
and there's people on the right that
have done that very effectively but on
the other hand it's also part of the
enfranchisement of a community in
America every community that's come here
with the exception of the anglo-saxon
community has had to duke it out
literally on the streets of America you
know the Gangs of New York the Italians
they used to be day goes and wops you
know the Jews were kikes and the you
know my own ancestors from Irish
background were mixed you know and yeah
it's my wife's Mexican so it's the
beaners and the spics I mean this was
part of the enfranchisement Muslims are
fair game right now and it's going to
take a while but they have to organize
and do the things that other communities
have done as part of a process in terms
of this the last questioner I mean first
of all I don't think either imam zaid
Nora have
presented Islam as a pacifist religion
and christianity is also not a pacifist
she's conflating peacefulness I yeah I
think exactly and I think resistance
takes on many different forms and part
of the wisdom of any religious teaching
is to use the most appropriate
resistance in the given circumstances
Christians did not passively fight
Hitler they they had preachers and
ministers and rabbis as well that we're
arguing for a just war agustin is part
of the Catholic Christian tradition and
explains just war so the Muslims do you
know we we do have a just war theory and
jihad is definitely part of Islam but on
the other hand I think the aspect of
Islam that has been sorely neglected is
the prophets Eliza nums basic and
fundamental responses to oppression and
persecution they were they were
responses when they were disempowered
his responses were to have patience he
was commanded to have patience and this
is something the Muslims view a lot of
these verses to be abrogated and I think
this is one of the fundamental problems
fahad a dino rossi the great theologian
said that to say these verses are
abrogated is to say that there's no
ethics in Islam I mean just you throw
out the ethics of our tradition so I
think a lot of Muslims very confused
about that and don't realize that that
one of the ways of resisting is actually
to shame the oppressor when you're
powerless and I think is important to a
question to understand that you're there
in Cairo there's a lot of social
activism going on here in the United
States the Muslims have been involved in
the Occupy movement and also critic
critiquing a but not shunning it in
terms of not being involved this United
for change program is dedicated to
addressing issues of poverty in the
inner cities of our of our country here
and specifically in New Haven
Connecticut masjid al islam that has a
food pantry that has a re-entry program
for prisoners muslim prisoners who are
coming out of the prison and need to be
in reintegrated into society that has
ads trying to create a youth
counseling program that has programs to
address issues that arise from poverty
so there's a lot that's happening but I
agree with shaykh hamza Einstein's
definition of stupidity was to continue
to do the same thing and accept
different responses we've had a response
to the Rushdie crisis that people flat
out into the streets they a yell and
scream and then the Danish cartoon
crisis people flood out onto the streets
and yell and scream and nothing changes
so I think we need to strategically plan
to look at these issues and develop you
know a meaningful solution yeah just a
dovetailing that you know Bernard Lewis
said that Westerners tend to forget that
the reason that they were so successful
is that they learn how to kill people
better than any other civilization prior
to Western civilization and so one of
the things about Western civilization is
they love violent responses because
those are the responses that they're
most effective at dealing with and
certainly the Israelis have learned very
well the Israelis were persecuted for
2,000 years in Western civilization but
they definitely internalized Yeah right
that you know the oppressors techniques
for squatching any type of resistance
absolutely and I think as Muslims in
this day and age there are 700 billion
people on earth they're 1.7 something
billion Muslims that's a clear minority
globally and here in the West that
minority is even smaller our strength is
our moral and ethical strength and we
negate that strength sometimes by trying
to build on the strengths we don't have
in that strategic strength we don't have
strategic strength right I'm gonna have
to stop you there a problem we are going
to put this conversation briefly on hold
shaykh hamza imam zaid in the post show
we're going to continue this
conversation in fact we're extending the
post show today at streams at
aljazeera.com now on monday us child
obesity rates they've tripled over the
last 30 years will this generation of
Americans be the first to live shorter
lives than their parents we're going to
talk about that on Monday until
MC online
welcome back the streams online
post-show joining us today shaykh hamza
yusuf and imam zaid shocker we want to
pick up our conversation not quite where
we left off I want to shift gears a
little bit for all of you who've been
with us this week you know one of the
things that we've been talking about is
the role of the media and how sometimes
the media either chooses not to cover
something or just completely misses it
che comes out how would you rate
coverage generally in terms of the
issues we've been talking about today by
the media and then specifically I want
you to talk about the area well you know
you're involved in media you understand
how it works but you know they have what
they call the media magnifying glass
that can really blow up and distort
certain images and and so people see
these violent looking Muslims with their
contorted faces on the front cover of
Newsweek and they suddenly think that
you know everybody in Cairo has a
violent orted face or wherever they are
Pakistan and if you actually go to these
places you find hey it's not all rioting
and it's not all people are just living
their lives so you know a few thousand
people end up pretty much determining
the views of millions of people about
millions of other people and so I think
the the media has really failed in
explaining and showing people the
reality on the ground and and so that
media distortion I think does a grave
disservice and all set it also sets up
the possibility of of really aggressive
and violent responses to a lot what's
happening you can see like what the
ambassador killed they didn't mention
that there were Libyans who died
defending the ambassador they were just
ordinary Libyans that were out there in
front you could see it on youtube videos
and things like that so Libyans gave
their lives to defend diplomatic
American diplomatic mission in Libya but
that wasn't pointed out so suddenly all
the Libyans are bad guys it makes it
much easier for aggressive strikes I
mean the drone strikes that are
happening all these things you know are
creating the Stanford just did a study
that was released a few days ago about
the drone strikes and the fact that
they're terrorizing civilians in
Pakistan so when you start seeing all
these angry Pakistanis you know nobody
talks about why they're angry it's
always just as this irrational
behavior it's about some movie that came
out no the movie is a trigger incident
it's it's it's just the trigger for a
much deeper problem and that problem has
to do with a lot of these misguided
misadventures that we're having overseas
bringing our online community real quick
totally picking up on the theme that you
just touched upon I have a tweet here
from zip 3 Salim he says has the
conflation of Islam and Arab culture
influence public opinion of Muslims in
the West if so how i also have Anika
she's waiting for us in our google
hangout and you could you have a
question about islamic culture yeah hi
thanks for having me thank I did have a
question that relates to a point that
we're talking about a little bit ago
having to do with her tests that are
going on is there something inherent in
Islam that makes people in Muslim
countries kind of go up in arms every
time there's something offensive like
you were talking about Imams am we lost
her we just lost hang out go ahead in
mumsy yeah no I think there there's
nothing inherent in Muslim societies
that makes muslims explode when these
various stimuli occur the as shaykh
hamza mentioned the overwhelming
majority of muslims are going about
their business trying to live dignified
lives sometimes on the extremely
difficult circumstances but there is
there are elements who are frustrated
and then these stimuli as i mentioned
earlier they serve as triggers that
bring that frustration to the surface so
i think is very important for us to look
at the underlying issues that build into
that frustration there's also something
inherently for me it is this inherit
problem with that I mean is there
something in the English psyche that
makes them riot after their football
team loses a match you know people do
stupid things you know and so I mean
seriously there's violence after
football games all the time in England
is that part of the English drinking
class culture do you know is that is
that what's going on so you know and
right this kind of goes to the bigger
disconnect though between how the west
view's must live exactly and I think
also that this idea of you know the the
idea that somehow Muslims are irrational
you know there's a strong underlying
prejudice that people have about Islamic
culture so you know I think we need to
really get out of talking about concrete
izing these these abstract things that
we talk about Muslims and is so you know
Islam in Indonesia is very different
Islamic turkey is very different
moroccan islam is very different i lived
in west africa I've been all over the
Muslim world the safest cities I've ever
been in heaven in the Muslim world I
never worried about some guy you know
walking up like I've felt in say New
York or Washington DC or somewhere I
never felt that ever wherever I went in
the Muslim world the thing Muslims are
afraid of is their governments and
that's what they're they're afraid or
American bombs dropping on their head or
drone strikes those are the things that
Muslims are afraid of they're not afraid
of their next-door neighbor you actually
have a great leader of our online
community from below I'm just going to
quickly read this Muslims in North
America are split along ethnicity
parties and home countries they are not
one block like jus so that goes to
exactly what you were saying is I agree
we're not monolithic you know and I
think also they're not the Jews aren't
one block either I think that's a gross
generalization generalization the Jewish
community has people from Eduardo Kohan
Noam Chomsky to you know po turrets and
these right-wing people you know the
Weekly Standard so you get a whole
spectrum in the Jewish community and you
know they're very liberal Jews their
Marxist Jews there are you know Zionist
Jews yeah i think is important to
introduce into this conversation that
the language of us and them this
language isn't going to advance the
human project at this point it's time to
redirect the language and think that
we're all in this together and and to
it's time for our society here in the
West it's time for us to do some
introspection it's indeed terrible that
400 4,000 or 5,000 American soldiers
light lost their lives in Iraq but it's
even more terrible that over
Iraqis have lost their lives due to the
same okay so that also also we've got
we've got ten suicides a day of American
soldier actually a it's 1818 yeah 18 a
day I mean we're using cyl intersections
here between the Islamic message in the
Christian message in the Jewish meshes
where does this all converge to to
actually change this is the human mess
it's a human message right I'll call
that bet yeah I know but the religious
look first of all you know you you've
lived long enough to know that most
people just want to be left alone you
know people don't like to have their
toes stepped on you know I once stepped
on somebody's toes imam zaid was with me
I almost got my head cut off you know
because you know people don't like to to
be a you know dist as they say in this
culture and and when you go around
denigrating people we have laws almost
every European nation has hate laws you
know first freedom speech like look look
up the the the Irish law of 1989 of hate
speech you know you have we signed on to
the United Nations we have a covenant of
political and civil rights article 20 of
that covenant says that you cannot
insight to hatred of of race nationality
or religion and a lot of what's
happening now is this is incitement to
hatred that there are people that really
have a lot invested in creating a lot of
hatred Stephen King wrote an interesting
novel called needful things you know
about this character that goes into a
town and opens a little store and
everybody wants to buy they go and they
find what exactly what they want but he
makes them do a little thing and by the
end of it the whole town is just
fighting each other and he packs up and
leaves you and that's the devil's role
whether you believe in Devils you know
these kind of spiritual beings or just
human demons it's a demonic role to
split people I have no reason to take
offense from you unless you give me
reason and and I think most people are
like that but you have people out there
that have you know just they have
agendas there are people that make money
off war there are people that make money
off weapons these are real people out
there and we should be forewarned about
them and do everything we can and we
should be presenting an alternative
Bailey agreeing with you I want to
quickly bring them in on society because
it just makes sense we have a tweet here
from war fail Oakland he says you both
keep bringing up patients us from the
third world have been dealing with
oppression occupation colonization for
200 years I also quickly want to go to
Google hangout listen we're not talking
about just gonna hang out really quickly
I'm so sorry hint oh sorry go ahead and
finish sticker I'm so sorry sir no
saying the word patients came up once or
twice in this conversation we're talking
about how we can begin to look at these
problems differently how can we
introduce new parameters to frame right
discussions are ongoing on responding
instead of reacting and I mean that's
that's a different approach and also
framing these issues in terms of human
problems so we can take remove the
ground from under the demagogues who
capitalize on these divisions rather
their religious ratio or otherwise that
we we're in this together and these
extremists on both sides and it's a part
of the problem you know they're
extremists in this country you know that
are articulating these visions you can
there's an interesting book that just
came out about the the Muslim tide and
what he argues in that book is a
guardian writer but what he argues in
there is that you know this guy brevik
in in in Finland when he went out went
berserk which is I think a Scandinavian
word when he went berserk and killed 69
people wounded 150 if you actually read
his screed which is a 1583 pages it's
all about Muslims taking over Europe
this thing that but yeah or calls
eurabia and and they've proven and
there's a TED talk that proved that
Muslim demographics are dropping
radically Iran has lower birth rates
than many European countries right now
so there's this whole myth of the
Muslims are coming the Muslims are
coming be scared be afraid that used to
be the Red Menace you know my mom grew
up with the Red Menace alright that used
to be the the you know the Communists
were coming why do we need these
boogeymen when we're dealing with real
problems we have global warming we're
being told that that the ice is
melting on the on the plant we've got
fish are disappearing from the oceans
they say that in 20 years at current
fishing rates we won't have tuna fish
you just mentioned obesity problems
we've got one out of four people in this
country is dying of cancer right one out
of three women are going to get cancer
in their lifetime why aren't we
addressing all of this human energy to
the real problems of human beings and
not all these artificially created
problems because many of these problems
are really artificially created I'm
actually going to quickly go to Google
hangout we have hens from Chicago you
have a question for us about young
Muslims him can you hear me yes I can
hear you so I take them to the Imams
thank you for your really lively
discussion I actually agree with you
that it's important for the Muslim
community to take back the narrative but
my question is more around some of the
work that American Muslims specifically
are already doing many young American
Muslims are already working in the inner
city I'm from Chicago so I know a lot of
the work that myself and my friends are
doing working in the city trying to
prevent violence I'm trying to get some
healthy food in the inner city and
addressing like the food desert
situation and I want to maybe get an
answer from both of you do you think
that this kind of work that a lot of
American Muslims are doing even though
it's not really documented in a in a
narrative sort of way do you think
that's a of the maturation of the Muslim
society here in the US and then what are
some of your thoughts in terms of
actually sharing these stories with our
neighbors thank you well we know like
Iman the inner city project Rama Rama
Mississippi and others that are doing
also you have violence prevention that's
going on former gang members that became
Muslim to do these things I think one of
the major errors of the immigrant
community was not to recognize the
importance of the African American
Muslim community in these inner cities
so a lot of the inner-city Muslims were
neglected so you have this a lot of
wealth from doctors and engineers and
they fail to recognize that actually
these people aren't immigrants there
they're a large Muslim community that
have been here for decades and in fact
you can trace it back over 100 years for
some of them
so you know these have been strategic
errors and and ethical errors in my
estimation but I think there are a lot
of positive things happening and
certainly Chicago is one of the main
hubs for a lot of some of the most
positive Muslim activity in the United
States so hats off and I think that that
this is a very important sign of
maturation that you do have the
wealthier suburban more immigrant based
communities working with inner-city
initiatives such as in Chicago amen and
other efforts we job recently had an
Oakland California humanitarian day to
provide school supplies and other goods
to inner-city children and most of those
supplies were purchased by members of
the suburban community so you see these
efforts of Muslims crossing lines that
have formerly kept them apart you see
those lines being transcended and you
see a car leasing of collective action
so I think it's a sign of maturity and
it speaks for itself we don't need
orchestrated media campaign to lend an
artificial sense of just we're doing
some let's grow organically build a
better mousetrap in the whole world
including the media will beat a path to
your door I actually want to quickly go
over to our google hangout we have a
sama you have a question to us about
zaytuna college salma I think we lost
Google and all of their you are great
can you hear me yea Somali come to you
to imam zaid and touche from the end
everybody else here I just had a quick
question about zaytuna college I know
it's not really on topic but um since
you guys are still on accredited
institution and no really educational
governing body really in the world kind
of recognizes the college of degrees
that it Awards how do you guys plan on
maintaining say to the College in terms
of financially from in its image without
the world to make sure that keeps
getting students and tap trees its
revenue to increase its like just it's
like extending well i mean first of all
we are we are our degree is recognized
by a few different universities that
will accept for instance we just signed
a
of understanding with jami al fatiha in
istanbul in turkey that the prime
minister's son was actually the host
that evening of the event and they will
take our students in their masters and
PhD programs when they graduate we also
have understanding its in its developing
but we have an understanding and our
student from a pilot program was
accepted into the Graduate theological
union which has a joint program with UC
Berkeley so we are students can go to
accredited graduate schools in terms of
the sustainability jake onson so sorry
we have about 30 seconds left in the
program for you to just more
philosophically than talking about the
nuts and bolts of the school wrap wrap
this up for us right wrap up this
discussion you know I think it's good
that you guys are facilitating
alternative voices I think al Jazeera
despite the fact that you know some of
the aspects of it are troubling in their
imitation of Western media I think it's
it's important to have alternative
voices and I certainly think that giving
opportunities for people like ourselves
we're often completely marginalized in
in other media outlets I mean I've done
pre-interviews where they just say okay
we don't want to talk to you you know so
I you know I want to thank you for
allowing this this opportunity support
our college please and imam zaid you can
close it out this is how we are out of
time with imam zaid and shake council
you so thank you so much for being with
us we do want to take one more minute
that i gave over to a new shay with a
few story leads were following
the University of California is awarding
close to 1 million dollars to students
and alumni for police violence during a
campus protest you may recall this image
of university police pepper spraying
peaceful demonstrators who are
protesting tuition hikes that's public
money paying the cost of brutality
tweets Parker Higgins our next leads
from reddit where forum users attempt to
embarrass a woman took an unexpected
turn a user posted this photo of a Sikh
woman with the caption I'm not sure what
to conclude from this but user ball
Preet Kaur who identified herself as a
girl from the picture responded I'm not
embarrassed or even humiliated by the
attention that this picture is getting
because it's Who I am yes I'm a baptized
seek woman with facial hair Sikhs do not
reject the body that has been given to
us her response prompted an apology from
the original poster he wrote after
apologizing and talking with ball Preet
I've seen how stupid this post was in
the first place it isn't funny at all
our last lead is a new website that
tracks homophobic language in real time
on twitter canadian university officials
created no homophobes calm as a social
mirror to show prevalence of casual
homophobia and society the site tracks
mentions of four different derogatory
phrases over time lastly a little red
line on Iran's nuclear program drawn by
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu is sparking online comments
speaking at the UN Netanyahu took a red
marker to a bomb diagram to show that he
thinks Iran is close to having a nuclear
capability netizens were quick to react
and Netanyahu's name skyrocketed to
20,000 mentions on twitter many of the
tweets were tongue-in-cheek sorry can't
tell you what the red line is av Meyer
tweets I can just tell you it's about an
inch and a half from the fuse on the
cartoon bomb others thought Netanyahu's
approach was effective Omri says every
single article is going to be about
Netanyahu drawing a red line on Iran
bomb message managed no you can find
links to all those leads on Twitter so
make sure to follow us at aj scream Lisa
alright that's all the time we have
thanks so much for joining us for this
extended version of this dream now on
monday us child obesity rates have
tripled over the last 30 years will this
generation of Americans be the first to
live shorter
lives than their parents tweet us your
questions and your comments or go to our
website and send us your video comments
until Monday we'll see you online
you