Monday Update

I am still very busy with moving so no Tawhid post today; look for a short version tomorrow to make it's way up onto the blog in the late afternoon. With Budget calling me and telling me I might not have a truck - a truck I reserved in May - tomorrow morning, my world may be a bit hectic the next couple of days. I take possession of the townhome on the 1st at 3:15pm. Thursday's edition of Tawhid should be up at some point but I don't know when right now.

Take it easy my fellow sprinters.

Project Delay and Weekend Plans

I can already tell that I won't have enough time in the next few days to properly start my "A Letter to..." series. Moving is going to take up too much time. I will delay it by a week and try to keep up with the Tawhid series on Monday and Thursday.

Given the new anti-terror bill, the results of the pending Asian Cup final match, and the Bush Administration's proposed arms deal with Saudi Arabia there should be plenty to talk about in the interim.

I am off to Boone to see my grandfather as he is not recovering from his heart surgery very well. Then I am back in CR Sunday afternoon to welcome Ms. Lowe back to the United States from Tanzania. Sunday evening I'm watching 300 with Reis before he heads of to law school in Kansas. If I am not doing one of the aforementioned activities, I will be packing and cleaning.

Tawhid: 26-Jul-07 ed.

Welcome to the first edition of Tawhid! Tawhid is a semi-weekly series on the Middle East, Islamic jurisprudence, and Islamic theology. The word "tawhid" (TAW-heed) roughly translates to "unity" or "oneness".

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Football and Iraq

The 29th of July will mark a monumental event for the new democratic nation of Iraq. The Iraqi national team will face off against the Saudi Arabian national team for the Asian Cup. The match could rival the 1980 Winter Olympics hockey gold medal match as an ideological tour de force: Democracy v. tyranny; religious plurality v. religious extremism; the great hope of a poor nation v. pride of an oil monarchy. The match, and the game of football, certainly means more to the Iraqi people than just the title of "Asian Cup Champions."

The Iraqi national team has won over the hearts of a war-torn country and crossed sectarian lines. The team is comprised of Sunni and Shi'a Muslims; Arabs and Kurds play together for the pride of their country. Much has been made of the team's ethnic and religious plurality in international news.

The Iraqi people have found a common bond to share among sectarian and ethnic strife. Sunnis, Shi'a and Kurds celebrated in the streets after beating Asian powerhouse South Korea on penalty kicks to advance to the Asian Cup Final; they waved the Iraqi flag and for a moment were able to forget the bloody violence that defines Iraqi life.

However, their celebration was cut short by two suicide bombings. The bombings weren't targeting American, American "puppets", or other foreign forces; instead, they were targeting the Iraqi people for celebrating a moment of national pride and joy.

The bombings only further evince the fact that the United States cannot be to blame for all of the death and violence in the country - nor can we be completely accountable for the violence that will continue once we leave. The radical sectarian groups couldn't even tolerant their fellow Iraqis celebrating something that was totally and completely theirs; only the Iraqis were responsible for this grand moment of international fame in its short democratic history, not the United States, the British, the UN, or Iran. It's as if the terrorists couldn't tolerate happiness or the brief reprise from violence that occurred as the Iraqi people - regardless of religious creeds or ethnic background - gathered together to watch the football match. The Likud party and Hamas have a similar fear of peace and tranquility; both are infamous for causing violence just for the sake of starting strife or baiting a violent reprisal from their adversary during times of extended peace.

It seems football is the only Western export that holds unquestioned legitmacy in the Middle East. If social reforms, democratic reforms, or the promise of increased personal freedoms cannot pierce the veil of Islam's prejudice against the West or rouse public support to stop sectarian violence, it's good to know that nationalism, pluralism, and communalism haven't been completely killed off yet.

I, for one, hope the Iraqi team beats the Saudis. These people deserve something to cheer about, and more importantly popular support for local sectarian groups will hopefully decrease if the terrorist groups continue to kill civilians for being guilty of nothing more than existing in a state of brief peace and joy.

Prediction:
2-1 Freedom and hope trump racism and oppresion

My Great Soccer Quest

My previous hate-hate relationship with soccer was founded upon the type of people involved with the game at my high school - okay the boys involved, most of the girls were pretty damn cute. Most of them were spoiled brats and acted the the part too; in response, most of the people I knew called them "lawn faeries." A lot of the guys that played soccer were in track and cross country with me, so I'm not speaking to their character or interactions with society without firsthand knowledge of their ass-clownery.

As I have aged and grown away from high school politics and American xenophobia, I have taken greater pleasure in watching soccer. It's no longer the sport to take a nap to, or wholly foreign to me. I always enjoyed playing the NES soccer game as a kid, and now I enjoy the FIFA 2007 game I have for my Xbox. Playing video games of sports has always given me a greater appreciation for the rules. I have learned a lot more about defensive and offensive schemes for American football through playing video games. Anyway, I have come to really enjoy watching soccer and even found myself getting involved in the matches.

I was actually outwardly upset when a referee no-called a sliding tackle by a Mexican player against the United States in the CONCACAF Cup final. Much like the Olympics, I have always enjoyed watching the United States play in matches against countries in the World Cup. However, now I actually want them to win and expect US Soccer to catch up to the global standards, whereas before I viewed it with a detached indifference or even a low standard of expectations. I hope more American fans join the soccer bandwagon in the Post-Beckham era. I recently heard that 20 million American youths participate in the sport, making it more popular amongst children than the "Big Three" (Football [American], Basketball, and Baseball). Although to be fair, girls aren't allowed to play football and are quickly escorted to females-only softball after teeball baseball.

All of the soccer education lead me to ponder the origins of the word "soccer". I couldn't understand why we were the only country to use the term and where it could have come from. Foot + ball is not fuzzy math given the rules and skill of the game; similar to Base + ball and Basket + ball. The equation falls apart with Socc + er, right? Not exactly. Evidently, "soccer" fits that equation perfectly and even has its roots from across the pond.

Wikipedia was of little help on the subject. Typing in soccer provided a vast amount of knowledge on the rules of the game and the history of football, but it did little to answer my question about where "soccer" came from. Luckily, wordorigins.org and the online etymology dictionary were of some assistance.

"Soccer" is a diminutive form of association football. Late 19th century Brits - like the youth of today - liked to truncate words; they also like to add "er" to the end of words. In an effort to distinguish between rugby football and association football they coined the terms "ruggers" and "soccer". Evidently, "assers" wasn't a viable option.

According to my research (online etymology dictionary and answers.com), the reason this British slang term was originally used in the United States was largely pejorative. Baseball was "America's pastime." Until the mid to late-nineteenth century football/soccer was a sport of hooligans and pub patrons. It was lawless and violent until the rules were codified in England. The civilized sport of baseball was chosen and modified from the British games of rounders and cricket as America's sport. Soccer was a sport of foreigners and violence. Football - America-style - became popular through Ivy League sports. The elite promoted the sport and called it "football." You can thank the ivory towers for the need to clarify these days when speaking of "football."

If you are ever harassed by a non-American fan of football/soccer about the American use of the term "soccer", feel free to point out its the Brits fault, not ours.

Biweekly Reports and a New Project

As the deadline looms for my first installment in my semi-weekly Middle East editorials and reports, I have decided on my first topic. Tomorrow will showcase a look at the impact of football (soccer) on Iraq during their current run in the Asian Cup.

However, I have greater ambitions on the horizon. It will be hard to do more than just regurgitate international news during the biweekly updates without reader participation. It will be much easier if you submit comments or ideas for issues you would like discussed. For example, I thought about using one of the days to talk about doctrines within Islamic jurisprudence or theology. I would love to hear feedback on what would be interesting to read about.

That being said, I may truncate the biweekly posts to weekly posts beginning next week for a three-part series that I am considering. The series will be titled "A Letter to..." and will have one letter each week for three weeks. A moment on the purpose and inspiration behind the series may to help to shed light on why I am taking on this project.

On October 24th, 2002 Osama bin Laden is credited with authoring an essay entitled A Letter to America. (If you would like to read the essay here is one site and a second site that have the transcript in English. Note: "Ummah" is the Arabic word for the entire community of Muslims. Muslims believe that all Muslims, regardless of nationality or ethnicity are members of this faith-based community.) The essay is the first attempt by al-Qaeda to discuss and justify their reasoning behind the 9/11 attacks which occurred just over a year prior to the release of the essay.

What made the document interesting was that it was directed at the American people, rather than the United States government or the Bush Administration. Of particular note is answer (3) to question one ("Why are we fighting and opposing you?"); here bin Laden uses our democratic process and ideals against us in order to advocate that in American there can be no "innocent civilians" or noncombatants.

My three-part series will be in the same vein as bin Laden's "letter", in so much as he was trying to appeal to a certain audience with his message. I intend to write three "letters" to three different audiences. The first "letter" will be to the American people; the second will be to the United States government/Bush Administration; and the third will be to the ummah. Hopefully I can write one each week discussing topics like the war on terror, the future of Islam and the Middle East, and democracy in the Middle East.

I would love to hear your comments and concerns as the process unfolds.

The Crisis of Islam by Bernard Lewis

Preface: Lewis is a professor emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. His works on the Middle East, Islam, and the West's interaction with Islam have spanned the latter part of the 20th century. He coined the phrase "clash of civilizations" that Samuel Huntington made infamous. Lewis is a proponent of Turkey - as the democratic hub in Islam - and largely focuses on the clash of the two monolithic religions - Islam and Christianity.

Review: The Crisis of Islam is a quick read at just under 170 pages. This Middle East primer was written in 2004 as a collection of expanded essays on the basic idea of: "What went wrong in Islam?" What Went Wrong? is actually the title of an essay written for The Atlantic in 2002. Crisis covers a breadth of topics in a cursory fashion to give the reader a better understanding of why the Middle Eastern culture/Islam harbors such hostility and antipathy towards the West.

Lewis makes some good points and "The Failure of Modernity" offers sobering statistics on the economic, educational, and social status of Islamic - or largely Muslim - countries. His brief discussion on jihad is enlightening to those that may be ignorant on the subject. Lewis points out that jihad has been adulterated by radical Islamists/terrorists; he even provides evidence of how suicide attacks and killing noncombatants indiscriminately is not only an innovation in Islamic doctrine, it's an illict doctrine.

While Lewis provides some answers to the "humiliation" felt by Islamic culture, - an element frequently cited by bin Laden, Zawahiri, and other radicial Islamists as justification for offensive and defensive jihad - the reader must remember that Lewis has spent the majority of his academic career speaking of the decline of Islamic culture at the hands of the superior West. Certainly, some of his argument rings true given the difference in GDP and economic development -aside from oil money. However, Lewis places more stock in his belief that Islam's Western envy has more to do with decline than the impact of imperialist rule and poor management after imperialism left the region.

The book has a lot of good nuggets one can take from it and I would recommend it to anyone interested on the subject. It's not a definitive work on the subject of Islam or Islamic relations with the West, but it's a decent jumping off point.

Update

Sorry for the delay in postings. I have been busy helping with Valerie's wedding and getting ready to move. I hope to have a review of The Crisis of Islam by Bernard Lewis up soon. I also intend to start a biweekly commentary on the Mideast/World politics to be posted on Mondays and Thursdays.

In between the Mideast postings I will throw out any banter or musings I come up with or find of import.