[CTRL] Shakespeare with Shariah
-Caveat Lector- Assalamu'alaikum Shakespeare with Shariah by Daniel Pipes National Post http://www.nationalpost.com/commentary/story.html?f=/stories/20010809/639961.html A fundamentalist Muslim once said to me, I listen to Mozart, I read Shakespeare, I watch the Comedy Channel -- and I also believe in implementation of the Shariah [Islamic law]. This unlikely combination may sound eccentric, but it is not. The founder of Islamic Jihad, an arch-murderous fundamentalist (or, more properly, Islamist) organization, boasted of reading and enjoying Shakespeare. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the most powerful figure in Iran's Islamist government, has a well known fondness for the Bard of Stratford. More broadly, Islamic radicals tend to be well acquainted with the West (the main exceptions are those in Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan), having learned its languages, studied its cultures, or lived there. A disproportionate number of them (such as the heads of the Turkish and Jordanian Islamist organizations) are engineers. In a statement from his Manhattan jail cell, the mastermind of the World Trade Center bombing pointedly cited Newton's laws of physics. This points to an important, if little known fact: However much Islamists hate the West, they are deeply connected to it. They are not peasants living in the remote countryside, but urbanized, thoroughly modern individuals, often university graduates. As Westernized individuals coping with modern life, they seek the West's learning and admire its efficiency. Contrarily, Islamists hardly know their own culture and often disrespect it. Aziz al-Azmeh, a specialist on Islam, notes that they are entirely inattentive to the historical experience of Muslims and to the historical character of their law. Plans to recreate the prophet's society notwithstanding, they care little and know less about traditional Islam -- the immensely rewarding faith of nearly a billion adherents. The vast corpus of Koranic scholarship leaves them cold, as do lyric Persian poets and beautiful Egyptian mosques. For them, no less than for a Swedish aid bureaucrat or a World Bank development economist, the Muslim world is a backward place which urgently needs overhauling through the adoption of Western ways. That Islamists seek not a traditional Islamic order but an Islamic-flavoured version of Western life can best be seen in their views on religion, politics and the law. Their ideas about women are perhaps the most striking; despite their insistence on veiling and on punishments for extramarital sex, Islamists actually espouse an approach more akin to Western-style feminism than to anything Islamic. Traditional Muslim men took pride in their women staying home -- in well-to-do households, females almost never went outside. In contrast, Islamists proudly speak of liberating women and the leading organization of Muslim states calls for full respect for the dignity and the rights of Muslim women and enhancement of their role in all aspects of social life. A veil once served only to preserve a woman's virtue; today it also facilitates the feminist goal of pursuing a career. And it's even more to some Islamist men, who claim to find the veil sexy; Shabbir Akhtar, a British writer, sees it creating a truly erotic culture in which one dispenses with the need for the artificial excitement that pornography provides. Even Islamist restrictions on women derive from Western models. As As'ad Abu Khalil of California State University points out, What passes in present-day Saudi Arabia as sexual conservatism is due more to Victorian puritanism than to Islamic mores. Despite themselves, then, Islamists are Westernizers. Whichever direction they turn, they end up looking westward. The men wear T-shirts reading Islam is the solution. The women wear blue jeans under their chadors and shout Death to America. Even while ostensibly rejecting the West, they accept it. This state of affairs has two implications. However reactionary in intent, Islamism adopts not just modern, but Western ideas and institutions. The Islamist dream of expunging Western ways from Muslim life is doomed. But, second, the resulting hybrid is more robust than one might think. Opponents of Islamism, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, too often dismiss it as a regressive effort to avoid modern life, comforting themselves with the prediction that it will be left behind as modernization takes place. This expectation is mistaken, because Islamism appeals most compellingly to Muslims coping with the challenges of modernity, its totalitarian utopianism, yet has huge potential to do damage. Islamism will remain a force for some time to come. Its adversaries cannot simply sit back and await its collapse, but must actively combat what has become a nearly worldwide scourge. Daniel Pipes is the director of the Philadelphia-based Middle East Forum. ININ List
Re: [CTRL] [[CTRL] Shakespeare]
-Caveat Lector- John Taylor [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snip A new computer analysis of stylistic features provides fresh testimony that all but the more obscure Shakespeare plays (Merry Wives of Windsor, etc.) were written by Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford (1550-1604). snip This reminds me of the old story of the German scholar who spent fifty years proving that the *Iliad* and the *Odyssey* were not written by Homer -- *but by another Greek of the same name*. What does it matter *who* wrote the plays? They are the crowning glory of the English language, and they transcend the centuries so magnificently that I don't give a tinker's damn whether they were written by Shakespeare, Oxford, Bacon, Marlowe, Queen Elizabeth, or Attila the Hun! I thank God that we have them at all. Bob = Robert F. Tatman [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Remove "nospam" from the address to reply. NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml POSTING THIS MESSAGE TO THE INTERNET DOES NOT IMPLY PERMISSION TO SEND UNSOLICITED COMMERCIAL E-MAIL (SPAM) TO THIS OR ANY OTHER INTERNET ADDRESS. RECEIPT OF SPAM WILL RESULT IN IMMEDIATE NOTIFICATION OF THE SENDER'S ISP. More than just email--Get your FREE Netscape WebMail account today at http://home.netscape.com/netcenter/mail DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substancenot soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
[CTRL] Shakespeare
-Caveat Lector- Shakespeare (Independent, 5 xi '98) A new computer analysis of stylistic features provides fresh testimony that all but the more obscure Shakespeare plays (Merry Wives of Windsor, etc.) were written by Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford (1550-1604). The supply of astronomical references in the plays dries up after 1604; and the last ten years of actor-manager William Shakespeare's own life -- though he by then enjoyed great affluence and leisure -- produced only Pericles, Cymbeline, Winter's Tale, The Tempest and (with John Fletcher's help) Henry VIII. Just how William Shakespeare (1564-1616) could have written the world's greatest plays has long puzzled historians and psychologists. There is no documentary evidence that William ever attended Stratford's excellent Grammar School -- though the civic status of his father [a glover and wool dealer] would have entitled him to do so. At age 18, William married his pregnant girlfriend, Anne Hathaway, 26. By age 20, he had become the father of three children, including two twins [a boy and a girl] so sought work with a theatrical touring company which took him to London. Essentially, the question has been one of whether largely untutored Shakespeare could have been sufficient to the writing of plays involving a good knowledge of Greek, Roman, Italian and English history -- together with awareness of the latest advances in astronomy (as in Hamlet, where a starburst is mentioned that had only just been observed by English courtiers). The Italianate Englishman, Edward de Vere, came from a distinguished military family. Though violent and spendthrift, he was a highly regarded Elizabethan courtier-poet. His lyric poem 'What cunning can express' is the best of those securely attributed to him (Chambers Biographical Dictionary). DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substancenot soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
Re: [CTRL] Shakespeare
-Caveat Lector- In a message dated 12/8/98 10:48:59 AM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Just how William Shakespeare (1564-1616) could have written the world's greatest plays has long puzzled historians and psychologists. There is no documentary evidence that William ever attended Stratford's excellent Grammar School -- though the civic status of his father [a glover and wool dealer] would have entitled him to do so. At age 18, William married his pregnant girlfriend, Anne Hathaway, 26. By age 20, he had become the father of three children, including two twins [a boy and a girl] so sought work with a theatrical touring company which took him to London. Essentially, the question has been one of whether largely untutored Shakespeare could have been sufficient to the writing of plays involving a good knowledge of Greek, Roman, Italian and English history -- together with awareness of the latest advances in astronomy (as in Hamlet, where a starburst is mentioned that had only just been observed by English courtiers). It is even more difficult to believe it if one reads an example of his writing at the same age as his marriage and then compares it to the material attributed to him just a few years later. No one can improve that much in so little time. Prudy DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substancenot soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
