Roger Federer has the worst luck with the French Open. He is caught between losing it to Nadal, or potentially, losing it to the man who eliminated Nadal. Last weekend, he must have breathed a huge sigh of relief when Robin Soderling (like, who?) defeated Rafael Nadal in the fourth round. This weekend, he’s up against the very same Soderling in the final. In addition to that, he’s up against the challenge of tying Pete Sampras’s 14 Grand Slam wins. Talk about pressure, eh?!

We can only hope that this match yields tears of joy of Roger.

Does the idea of genetically modified food bug you, but you don’t really know what it’s all about or how exactly it is impacting life as we know it? The movie, The Future of Food, found now on hulu.com pulls together information on the patenting and modification of food in a way that is easy to fall. I’m watching this very informative film right now. I’m wondering, if the seed companies like Monsanto can sue farmers for growing plants that literally blew in by the wind, why can’t the farmers sue the companies for trespassing on their properties and violating the sanctity of their crops with the very same seeds? Perhaps it’s because the farmers don’t think in such devious ways…but they damn well should.

If you can watch this movie in your country (don’t know if hulu is restricted to serve only US viewers), then do so. I’m going back to the film now

If religion interests you at all, then you’ll appreciate this interview with Karen Armstrong. It’s this week’s Bill Moyers Journal episode, and I found a lot of truth in it. You may find portions disagreeable to you, to which I say: take the good and investigate the bad…or ignore the objectionable altogether.

Parts I found interesting:

BILL MOYERS: One of your peers, a friend of mine, the scholar of religion Elaine Pagels told me many years ago in an interview like this that, “There is practically no religion I know of,” she said, “that sees other people in the way that affirms the other’s choice.”

KAREN ARMSTRONG: Yes. And this is a great scandal. There used to be. Islam, for example, the Koran is a pluralistic document. It says that every rightly guided religion comes from God. And there must be no compulsion in religion. And it says that Muhammad [sallallaahu alayhi wa sallam] has not come to cancel out the teachings of Jesus [alayhis salaam] or Moses [alayhis salaam] or Abraham [alayhis salaam].

Now, Muslims have fallen into the trap that Jews, Christians, and others have done, of thinking that they are the one and only. This is ego. This is pure ego.

BILL MOYERS: But it’s inspired, is it not sanctified by religion?

KAREN ARMSTRONG: Well, no, I mean, the idea is that you all have to be Muslim, is actually going against the explicit teaching of the Koran, in which God says to Muhammad [sallallaahu alayhi wa sallam], “If we”– using the royal we – “had wanted the whole of mankind to be in one single religious community, we would have achieved, we would have made that happen. But we did not so wish. This is not our desire. So you, Muhammad [sallallaahu alayhi wa sallam], leave them alone.” And everybody says the Koran has their own din [deen]. Their own religious tradition, their own way of life.

Now, this is getting lost to the modern world. But that was also Muslim practice for the first 100 years after the death of the prophet [sallallaahu alayhi wa sallam] when in the empire that they created, conversion to Islam was actually frowned upon. Because Jews and Christians and Zoroastrians and, later, Buddhists, had their own din, their own religion. And that was to be respected.

And this:

KAREN ARMSTRONG: I learned a vicious form of rhetoric from my religious superiors. and also, from my teachers at Oxford. You know? And people used to say to me, “I would really hate to be your enemy,” because I have this very sharp tongue that I knew how to use it. And I get in first before someone put me down. That kind of thing.

I found that, in my studies I had to practice, what I found called in a footnote the “science of compassion.” There was a phrase coined by great Islamist, Louis Massignon. Science, not in the sense of physics or chemistry but in the sense of knowledge, scientia, the Latin word for knowledge.

And Latin–the knowledge acquired by compassion. Feeling with the other. Putting yourself in the position of the other. And this footnote said that a religious historian, like myself, must not approach the spiritualities of the past from the vantage point of post enlightenment rationalism. You mustn’t look on this in a superior way and look at the author of “The Cloud of Unknowing,” a 14th century text as, poor soul. You know?

And you had to recreate in a scholarly fashion, all the circumstances which had resulted in this spirituality or this teaching and not leave it, or certainly not write about it, until you can imagine yourself putting yourself in that position. Imagine yourself feeling the same. So when I wrote about Muhammad, for example, I had to put myself in the position of a man living in the hell of seventh century Arabia, who sincerely believed he had been touched by God.

And unless I did that, I would miss Muhammad. I had to put clever Karen, edgy Oxford educated Karen on the back burner. And go out of myself and enter into the mind of the other. And I found, much to my astonishment, it started changing me. I couldn’t any longer be quite as vicious as I was or dismissive as I was in the kind of clever conversations-

BILL MOYERS: Why? This is the first time I’ve heard of a born again experience beginning with a footnote. Was it your imagination that said, “I have to see this world the way Muhammad saw it and experienced it?”

KAREN ARMSTRONG: I said that this footnote is right. If I go on writing, as I had been doing up to this point for saying, “This is all rubbish.” You know, I know it all. These poor benighted souls in the past didn’t know what they were talking about. I was not fulfilling my job as a historian.

It was my job to go in and recreate it, enter into that spirit. Leave myself behind and enter into the mind and society and outlook of the other. It’s a form of what the Greeks called ekstasis. Ecstasy. That doesn’t mean you go into a trance or have a vision. It means– ekstasis means standing outside yourself. Putting yourself behind. And it is self, it’s ego that hold us back from what we call God.

And this:

KAREN ARMSTRONG: Okay. Not to treat other nations or other… in a way that we would not wish to be treated ourselves.

BILL MOYERS: Unless they’ve attacked you.

KAREN ARMSTRONG: Even so, I mean, there was a chance after 9/11, you know, when something different would have been done. The religions have generally developed, as the Koran does, a theory of just war. You know? That you can fight only in self defense. But a lot of the policies that we created helped to, you know, first of all, let’s leave America out of this. Look at the British, and their colonial policies.

Many of the problems we face in the Muslim world date back to that colonial period, to British behavior, and arrogance, and the abuse of democracy. For example, in Egypt, between 1922, when Egypt was granted a modicum of independence, and 1952, when you have the Nasser revolution. There were 17 general elections in the country.

All of them won hands down by the Wafd party, who wanted to see reduced British influence in Egypt. They were only allowed to rule five times. On every other occasion, the British made them stand down and put more congenial people in power. This made the whole idea of democracy a bad joke. Now, would we wish to be treated like that ourselves?

Basically, I enjoyed the whole thing, and rather than write down what I liked in my own words, I decided to not reinvent the wheel and just be lazy. Watch the video, you won’t be wasting your time. InshaAllah

Last night, Bill Moyers’s Journal featured a film called Beyond our Differences. The film explored the commonalities of the major religions/philosophies in the world today, and used current day events to highlight how the practices of the peoples of faith contradict the principles of their faith. As a person of faith, I watched this film with much interest, and several scenes moved me to tears. The film is punctuated with saying from Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, and perhaps a few other -isms that I missed too.

Would I recommend this film? Yes. Do I have issues with some of the scenes? Yes. Do I think it could have been more complete with the inclusion of certain other scenes? Yes, again.

One of the primary scenes I took umbrage to was one in which the Taliban were depicted flogging the women of Afghanistan who were said to be out and about, conducting daily chores like going to the doctor. Perhaps such things did happen…perhaps they did not; perhaps, in reality it was not so much of a flogging as a tapping; perhaps, the activities were not so innocent as a trip to the doctor. Really, Allah knows best. Some may say, “Well, the proof is right in front of your eyes, are you too blind to see it? Have you been brainwashed? Are you one of them, a Taliban sympathizer?”  To them, I would say, yes I may be too blind to see it, but not in spite of the fact that it’s “right in front of my eyes.” No, I have not been brainwashed, I am quite the free-thinking individual when free thought is required. And no, I am not a Taliban sympathizer. However, the scene that was “right in front of my eyes” did not appear to be a real scene; it seems to be a re-enactment, and a dramatic re-enactment at that. Drama’s fine, but when you’re talking about real-life events, it’s best to stick with authentic footage; with a dramatic re-enactment, there are many biases introduced into the scene: bias of the producer, the director, the cameraman, and perhaps even the actors. I doubt there were very many Taliban running around with huge Rodeo Drive sunglasses. The flogging seemed too severe to be reality, although Allah knows, anything is possible, and was shown in crystal clear clarity with slow motion and evocative black and white. Moving, but lacked a certain essence of “in the moment.”

Moving on to the next issue that left me with a sense of bereftness: the lack of certain contextual scenes. I found it enlightening to see footage of Chinese troops abusing Tibetan citizens/monks in 1951; the footage was raw and somber and stirs something in the soul–seeing human beings beaten senselessly is really heart-wrenching, and these are images that need to be shown. I waited for the correlative images of Israeli-on-Palestinian violence. I waited for the images of  Indian/Hindu-on-Kashmir/Muslim violence. I waited for the images of Indian/Hindu-on-Gujarat/Muslim violence. I waited for images of Serbian-on-Bosnian violence. There were a few more from recent Muslim history that I waited for, but the waiting was futile.

I wondered why it bothered me so much, why I should care to once again see images that I am already aware of. I came to the realization that showing Muslim on Muslim violence, even if it must be re-enacted with other inserted biases, real or perceived, is noble. Showing Chinese on Tibetan violence is noble, especially as the footage is no re-enactment. Showing Muslim (and non-Muslim Arabs) being violently violated? Well, that is neither necessary nor noble. At the end of it all, I was a bit surprised, and certainly very thankful, that images of the recent Mumbai rampage was not included.

The lack of certain footage with the inclusion of other images broke this film for me. Rather than being a film on the similarities of our collective spirituality, it became a film on the weight of our politics–not because of the images included, but because of the footage that is not considered. But then, isn’t it always about politics?

All I see at the end are our differences.

Well, by now, the entire world has watched the stunningly creative and majestically orchestrated extravaganza that China wowed us all with. Every time something happened, we’d all clap madly, as if we had a hand in it or something I kept reading around the blogosphere that it was going to be amazing, but deliberately didn’t stick around for details, because of course, I wanted to be as surprised as they had been. And I was! From the countdown with the flashing light-drums, I was so hooked. It was hard to pick a favorite part of the night: the drums/lights, or the printing press/blocks weaving signs of harmony, or the paddle show, or the Tai-Chi demonstration? Or could the effects and animation be the most amazing thing, with the Olympic rings being peeled off the ground and floating in the air? Or was it the little Chinese boy who was a survivor of the Sichuan quakes? Whatever was my favorite, I don’t know….but it was all certainly a fitting way to lead up to the lighting of the Olympic cauldron. The poor Queen of England must be choking on her jewels hoping that London can match this show from her former colony.

Which countries athletes had the best Opening Day costumes? I really liked the traditionally-inclined outfits (Gambia, most Arab/African countries, India {woohooo}, Lesotho {my favorite, for style alone}) more than any others. Sweden surprised me (pleasantly) with their Chinese-styled garments. And it was awesome seeing a few hijabed heads, from places like Iran and the Maldives. The one I liked best of all, though, was the Palestinian’s: the kaffiyeh printed shirts, and that one girl’s dress, which was just wowzers! It was a small delegation, but done well with pride. Oh, and I discovered that Belarus has a gorgeous flag.

And of course, in true Nomadic style, I have to complain about something. Please, stop your groaning…you know this is the part you were waiting for And here it is: Why did the NBC announcer have to say the same predictable stuff about Saudi Arabia when their athletes paraded by? Really, was it entirely necessary to bring up, yet again, that KSA is the only country where women are not permitted to drive, and have no female athletes in their delegation? Don’t you guys ever get tire of repeating the same stuff about the same countries at the same predictable moments? Ever?! I noticed that they neglected to mention that Kuwait and Iraq also don’t have any women on their teams; and how come it was not an equally big deal that Iran, a notoriously conservative Muslim country, does have a couple of female athletes? Just curious! It was nice to hear other interesting bits about other countries (Vietnam has 150 medals for mathematics, but just 1 medal from the Olympics; Central African Republic is in…Central Africa) but really, the same drivel about KSA had to bear repeating? Ok then.

I’m watching the men’s final at Wimbledon, and I just wanted to say, it’s inspiring. Mr. Federer just swung his way out of the biggest hole, certain death, and he and Nadal are doing it with style! Woohoo!!!

And just when you get into it, England decides to give us a rain break…the second rain break for the match. Sheesh. How do people live in that country without drowning from all that rain?!

—–

Ohhhh, Roger Federer lost At least, he lost with class and spirit. And Nadal won with class and spirit. That was a fun match to watch, probably the most exciting tennis I’ve watched ever.

What is happiness? Well, of course, we would all like to be happy all the time. Maybe we are overall happy, but then we have moments of unhappiness…or we are in general, most of the time, unhappy but have brief moments of happiness. It would not really be possible, with the trials and tribulations of this life, to always be happy, but I was watching PBS, and they are doing their fund-drive; as part of the fund-drive, they were playing something by Deepak Chopra, and I immediately ran away, leaving my mom to it. Well, she called me about half an hour later, and was like, “This is actually pretty interesting, watch, it won’t kill you or anything.” So, I watched. And then, because it actually was pretty interesting, I took notes when he was talking about what he calls “The Happiness Prescription,” basically a 10 step recipe to happiness. These are what he mentioned, and my comments are in italics.

1. Listen to your body’s wisdom. Your body and mind are in touch with the universe, and the universe is talking to you…you body perceives what the universe is saying, and you have to pay attention to what it is saying, so you can respond accordingly. We are all connected to the universe, and what does universe mean? One song. We are all part of the same song.
2. Live in the present. Seriously, how important is this?! It’s the one thing on this list that is very very true. The past is dead; let it go, let it rest in peace. Make peace with it, learn from it, and move the heck on. Man, when people are constantly recounting their past ordeals, it seriously makes me unhappy…so imagine how unhappy they are?
3. Something…I got lost because I was looking for the bowl of popcorn. Something about meditation, giving your mind a break, letting it heal and recover.
4. Relinquish your need for external approval. It does not really matter who loves/hates you, it really does not matter who accepts/rejects you, when you have accepted yourself, and what matters to you. To be honest, the only people whose approval I work for are my parents, mainly because it is their right over me for having raised me and given me the best they had. I love to be loved, but being rejected is just fine. I love this one.
5. Relinquish feelings of anger and unhappiness. Seriously, what good do these emotions do? Sometimes, they are worth having, when they motivate you to do something, to reverse the anger or to reverse the unhappiness. But is their really such a thing as feeding off your anger/unhappiness? Perhaps, but not for very long.
   • “Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.” — Nelson Mandela
6. Know yourself, by which you will know the world. To me, this really ties back to number 1. And, knowing yourself is really a journey; I know myself now, I know myself of yesterday, but will I know myself tomorrow? Or will I do something that is totally out of the ordinary, and think, “Was that me?!”
7. Don’t judge yourself or others. Be aware of shadow energies, your shadow is the thing that is behind you, waiting to embarrass you. You must have a best friend in whom you can confide your shadow energies to, so that the friend helps you overcome these negative energies.
   • Well, this is a tough one. For me personally, I think you are either judging yourself or you’re judging someone else. It’s difficult to eliminate judgment altogether. I guess the journey of life is to take us to the point where we judge events/situations before we judge people. After all, that is Allah’s job, and He really hasn’t outsourced it just yet.
8. Eliminate toxins from your body and your emotions. The main toxins are found in food, relationships and emotions.
9. Replace fear with love. You give love, you get love. You give hate, you get hate. Sometimes, it’s difficult to isolate who is giving to begin with, though.
10. Cultivate a witnessing energy. Be a witness to your yourself, to your actions. Be able to say “I am not my past, I am a *witness* of my past.” Ties into number 7, to me.

Note: There are a lot of Sufi principles that I see in this, which is what made it particular relevant/interesting to me.

Friday night, ABC had a special about the life of Billy Graham, Pastor to the Presidents. He was around for Dwight D. Eisenhower’s death, Kennedy’s, Johnson’s, and Nixon’s presidencies, Reagan’s Cold War stand-off with Gorbachev and that wall, George Bush’s Gulf War, the Clinton nonsense, and much of the current Bush White House. So he was around for a long time…and ABC was doing a special documenting the role he played with each presidency. The only reason I really watched this thing was because the Clinton’s were interviewed, and as usual, they always have some interesting things to say. Others, like Nancy Reagan, also were quite interesting: when Mrs. Reagan asked the Rev. Graham whether “Ronnie” would be there when she dies, he said, “Yes, he would be.” The interviewer asked if she believes it to be so, and she said, “Yes…Billy said so!” That was quite interesting. From the Islamic perspective, we are taught to believe in what God tells us, and for us to give the reasoning “Allah said so, that’s why we do/believe xyz…” is not uncommon…and rarely an acceptable explanation.

The part though, that was quite odd, was when Mrs. Clinton described how she invited the Reverend to the White House for a meeting with her when William Jefferson Clinton first was elected. Upon receiving the invitation, the Reverend stated his condition: he does not meet with women alone, and of course Mrs. Clinton, champion of the rights of Afghani women, respectfully accepted his decision. Taliban-esque, anyone? That didn’t raise any eyebrows, no calls for the women of America to be liberated from such heinous ideology? Interesting, indeed. There are standards, and then there are double-standards!

A few months ago, there was an article in the LA Times about the new Canadian show, “Little Mosque on the Prairie,” depicting the lives of a few Muslims living as minorities in a small town in Canada. Somebody (can’t remember who) had a few youtube clips of this show on their blog, and so I watched it for the first time…even though the review I had read had filled me with a few misgivings, which I can’t quite remember anymore.

In short, it was interesting. I watched a few episodes and, after the stereotypical airport and journalist scenes, which I totally related to, I found myself going “this is bad news.” Why? Because of the imam’s character: Why is he clean-shaven?! And why did episode 5 have instances of him and the single female daughter of the mosque founder gazing into one another’s eyes, albeit with entirely innocent smiles? There was just something wrong with that picture!

Then there were the scenes of the conflicts Muslims face over moon-sighting issues, whether to have barriers in mosques separating the genders, and whether to Halloween or to Halal-oween. At first blink, I was like, but these are non-issues! Nobody I know cares about having a barrier or a separate room for women! Everybody I know goes ahead and does Halloween to whatever extent they are comfortable with! What’s the big deal?! And then I stopped and realized that of course these are the issues our parents had to overcome when immigrating west-ward. Of course, some of the newer issues (like barriers in mosques) will gain momentum. There is such diversity in our thought processes!  Sometimes, you get so used to the diversity, that you don’t even recognize it as diversity anymore…until a screen-writer spells it out for you one after the other!

But I am still not down with the imam and the chic looking all admiringly and compassionately at one another. Thats just plain weird. For an imam? Come on. Is that even realistic/probable?