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AR 22:25 - "the regressive left" Southern Poverty Law Center
In this issue:
ISLAM - one moderate Muslim advocate's uphill struggle
YOGA - "I am that, you are that, and all this is that ... however you wish to define that" -- Got that?
Apologia Report 22:25 (1,345)
June 29, 2017
ISLAM
"Radical Ambition" by Thomas Chatterton Williams -- asks: "Can a former Islamist make it cool to be moderate?" and follows with a complex answer. Williams profiles Maajid Nawaz, and before much explanation, remarks of Nawaz that it is his very "chameleon quality, [an] at-homeness in disparate roles and spaces, that has earned him a reputation as something of a charlatan, a preening opportunist cashing in on his own sensational travails by means of society's abundant anti-Muslim bias."
Nawaz has a book, Islam and the Future of Tolerance [1], "(co-written with the prominent 'new atheist' <www.goo.gl/V4hFrk> Sam Harris), insisting that Islamism does have something to do with Islam and that ISIS in fact possesses a plausible if terribly ungenerous interpretation of the Quran. ...
"He is finishing a documentary based on his book with Harris, but foremost on Nawaz's mind these days is the 2017 opening of the first new chapter of his anti-extremist organization, the Quilliam Foundation, in the United States. 'Lots of Muslims in America are basically liberals, but if you don't have a visibly anti-extremist presence, then the Trumps of this world win' through fear-mongering and misrepresentation, he says. ...
"Despite [his] deliberate affirmations and qualifications, there is nonetheless confusion as to where Nawaz's sympathies actually lie. [T]he Southern Poverty Law Center <www.goo.gl/wXLB8U> took the incredible step of including him <www.goo.gl/wsHnBx> on a Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists....
"[H]e and his allies, and even some of his opponents, have complained to the SPLC - there is a change.org petition to remove him and the Somali-born atheist Ayaan Hirsi Ali, which has garnered almost 12,000 signatures - the group has not wavered on its position...."
Williams covers the backstory of how Nawaz became an Islamist and then quit followed by examples of the confusion over his views. "Nawaz argues that the distinction between violent and nonviolent Islamism is far less rigid than many liberals would like to think."
In 2004, "Nawaz co-founded the Quilliam Foundation, ... named for William Quilliam, a British convert who opened one of Britain's first mosques in the late 1880s. ...
"Quilliam is a standard left-of-center think tank: a body of experts conducting research and providing advice and ideas on specific political or social problems in support of liberal democracy. The group works to shape public opinion from the top down, making frequent media appearances, publishing reports that aim for the highest levels of government ... and periodically advising government ministers and heads of state on matters of terrorism. But they also engage ordinary Muslims and non-Muslims alike through outreach work, organizing debate and training programs in Europe and the Middle East. ...
"A term that you will hear with frequency from Nawaz is 'the regressive left,' as in purportedly progressive institutions like the S.P.L.C. that, often starting from a legitimate concern that Muslims en masse not be persecuted for the actions of a few, nonetheless embody a perplexingly backward mind-set when it comes to Islam. 'It's an Orientalist fetish,' Nawaz says, 'a deeply socially conservative Muslim who is medieval in their outlook is a 'real' Muslim, and anyone who's challenging that status quo is a sellout.' ...
"A core idea Quilliam espouses is that space must be claimed for secular identities within Islam; the measure of Muslim authenticity would then be a matter of individual imagination and will, not a test to pass or fail."
Williams notes: "Arguments, when unsound, can be negated, but who can negate another person's lived experience? It is a rhetorical tactic that is, in fact, most at home on the left, where personal stories of grievance and oppression are typically set in opposition to the status quo in the wider society. [T]he bind he has made for himself is a real one: He has to prove that liberal, moderate Islam can be 'cool,' while not coming off as too hip to convince the left of his Muslim authenticity. He runs the very real risk of satisfying no one. ...
"Though Nawaz himself is a star, there is something both noble and perilously square about this kind of eat-your-peas forced secularism." New York Times Magazine, Apr 2 '17, p25-29. <www.goo.gl/QqKrgS>
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YOGA
"Discover Your True Potential" by Deepak Chopra, who "explores how yoga can help us understand our role as co-creators." Begins: "Although I grew up knowing about yoga, as every child in India did, and I later practiced a set of asanas as part of my meditation practice, the real revelation that the physical practice of yoga can serve as the doorway to expanded consciousness didn't occur to me until fairly recently. The change of heart that turned me from primarily a meditator into a dedicated student of hatha yoga [the practice of coordinating physical yoga postures with breath]...." He found that "practicing asana could help me access the universal life force that unites us all. ...
"What is a loaf of bread made of? The currently accepted answer in quantum physics is 'nothing,' because all matter and energy (along with time and space) emerge from a void, the so-called quantum vacuum. But we know a lot about this nothing. We know it contains the potential to create everything....
"The possibility of a new genetic mutation or of a new supernova being formed or of a new piece of music being created can be traced to its source. In every case, the source is pure possibility - 'pure' meaning that there is no matter, energy, or physical trace of any kind."
Chopra <www.goo.gl/8Mzq7u> appeals to consciousness studies and observes that "When consciousness emerges from the void - whether in the form of the human mind or in the consciousness of other beings - the experience registers as meaningful. ... Without getting complicated, let's just say that 'knowing' is always united with 'consciousness.' ...
"[E]verything you consider real is actually a reflection of what you know. ... This knowing is the leaping-off place for all creativity, because new knowledge is infinite. ...
"The inspired genius contained in yoga - meaning its entirety, including meditation, pranayama, philosophy, and hatha yoga - was to restore human beings to the status of knowers, a status that is literally godlike. ...
"The only difference between a yoga master and someone else is their degree of knowing. Before discovering what yoga is about, a person may not feel like the creator of their own personal reality; but through yoga, they absorb that this is true. ...
"When you reach the source and know it personally, it dawns on you that 'I am That, You are That, and All This is That.' ... Everything is an activity in consciousness, originating in consciousness, and made of consciousness. This realization is considered the ultimate liberation. ... More importantly, we can embrace the glimpses we get of life in liberation, glimpses that come any time we feel joy, love, compassion, safety, a sense of meaning, and the touch of 'the light,' however you wish to define that." Yoga Journal, May '17, pp4-6. <www.goo.gl/1hrpQm>
Any questions?
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SOURCES: Monographs
1 - Islam and the Future of Tolerance: A Dialogue, by Maajid Nawaz (Harvard Univ Prs, 2015, hardcover, 144 pages) <www.goo.gl/npA3hf>
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