Samstag, 26. August 2006
Edward Said
“In an essay […] I attempted to show how it is secularism, rather than fundamentalism, that held Arab Muslim societies together, despite the wild exaggeration of the sensationalist and ignorant American media, most of whose ideas were taken from anti-Islamic, careerist publicists who had found a new field for their skills in demonology. At the very least one should say that in the contest between the Islamists and the overwhelming majority of Muslims, the former have by and large lost the battle. […]"
But such reasoned, well-researched views have been barely in evidence; the market for representations of a monolithic, enraged, threatening, and conspiratorially spreading Islam is much greater, more useful, and capable of generating more excitement.”´
“[...] anyone can learn about either ‘Islam” or the world of Islam and about the men, women, and cultures that live within it, speak its languages, breathe its air, produce its histories and societies. At that point, humanistic knowledge begins and communal responsibility for that knowledge begins to be shouldered."
"‘Islam’ defines relatively small proportion of what actually takes place in the Islamic world, which numbers a billion people and includes dozens of countries, societies, traditions, languages, and, of course, an infinite number of different experiences. It is simply false to try to trace all this back to something called ‘Islam,’ no matter how vociferously polemical Orientalists [...] insisted that Islam regulates Islamic societies from top to bottom, that dar al-Islam is a single, coherent entity, that church and state are really one in Islam, and so forth. My contention in this book is that most of this is unacceptable generalization of the most irresponsible sort, and could never be used for any other religious, cultural, or demographic group on earth. What we expect from the serious study of Western societies, with its complex theories, enormously variegated analyses of social structures, histories, cultural formations, and sophisticated languages of investigation, we should expect from the study and discussion of Islamic societies in the West.”
“I am not saying that Muslims have not attacked and injured Israelis and Westerners in the name of Islam. But I am saying that much of what one reads and sees in the media about Islam represents the aggression as coming from Islam because that is what ‘Islam’ is. Local and concrete circumstances are thus obliterated. In other words, covering Islam is a one-sided activity that obscures what ‘we’ do, and highlights instead what Muslims and Arabs by their very flawed nature are.”
Wer eine kleine Lese- und Denkübung zur Ertüchtigung mag, der findet sie hier Macht euch nen Kopf, auch darüber, inwieweit diese Ausführen in der Gegenwart zutreffen und tauscht euch aus:)
But such reasoned, well-researched views have been barely in evidence; the market for representations of a monolithic, enraged, threatening, and conspiratorially spreading Islam is much greater, more useful, and capable of generating more excitement.”´
“[...] anyone can learn about either ‘Islam” or the world of Islam and about the men, women, and cultures that live within it, speak its languages, breathe its air, produce its histories and societies. At that point, humanistic knowledge begins and communal responsibility for that knowledge begins to be shouldered."
"‘Islam’ defines relatively small proportion of what actually takes place in the Islamic world, which numbers a billion people and includes dozens of countries, societies, traditions, languages, and, of course, an infinite number of different experiences. It is simply false to try to trace all this back to something called ‘Islam,’ no matter how vociferously polemical Orientalists [...] insisted that Islam regulates Islamic societies from top to bottom, that dar al-Islam is a single, coherent entity, that church and state are really one in Islam, and so forth. My contention in this book is that most of this is unacceptable generalization of the most irresponsible sort, and could never be used for any other religious, cultural, or demographic group on earth. What we expect from the serious study of Western societies, with its complex theories, enormously variegated analyses of social structures, histories, cultural formations, and sophisticated languages of investigation, we should expect from the study and discussion of Islamic societies in the West.”
“I am not saying that Muslims have not attacked and injured Israelis and Westerners in the name of Islam. But I am saying that much of what one reads and sees in the media about Islam represents the aggression as coming from Islam because that is what ‘Islam’ is. Local and concrete circumstances are thus obliterated. In other words, covering Islam is a one-sided activity that obscures what ‘we’ do, and highlights instead what Muslims and Arabs by their very flawed nature are.”
Wer eine kleine Lese- und Denkübung zur Ertüchtigung mag, der findet sie hier Macht euch nen Kopf, auch darüber, inwieweit diese Ausführen in der Gegenwart zutreffen und tauscht euch aus:)
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