Learning to Live with Islam

(This post is reprinted from this blog, with due permission of course.)

The veil is not the same as the suicide belt. We can better pursue our values if we recognize the local and cultural context, and appreciate that people want to find their own balance between freedom and order, liberty and license.
--- Fareed Zakaria. Learning to Live With Radical Islam. Newsweek: February 28, 2009.

Sharia demands death for the adulteress
I am not an adulteress
I can learn to live with Sharia.

Sharia demands death for the gays
I am not a gay
I can learn to live with Sharia.

Sharia demands death for the blasphemer
I am not a blasphemer
I can learn to live with Sharia.

Sharia demands death for the apostate
I am not a Muslim
I can learn to live with Sharia.

Islam demands Sharia for everyone
I am no one
I learned to live with Islam.

An adaptation of "First they came...", a poem attributed to Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984).
By, The Rational Fool

Comments : One of the reasons I like Desipundit is that it regularly introduces me to posts such as this. Something about the poem grabbed my attention when I read it. The wikipedia entry on Pastor Martin Niemoller and his poem was rivetting too. Am copying below the 1976 version of his poem.
- Zen

First They Came (1976 version)

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I was not a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

French Horn

By Jane Hirshfield


For a few days only,

the plum tree outside the window

shoulders perfection.

No matter the plums will be small,

eaten only by squirrels and jays.

I feast on the one thing, they on another,

the shoaling bees on a third.

What in this unpleated world isn't someone's seduction?


The boy playing his intricate horn in Mahler's Fifth,

in the gaps between playing,

turns it and turns it, dismantles a section,

shakes from it the condensation

of human passage. He is perhaps twenty.



Later he takes his four bows, his face deepening red,

while a girl holds a viola's spruce wood and maple

in one half-opened hand and looks at him hard.

Let others clap.

These two, their ears still ringing, hear nothing.

Not the shouts of bravo, bravo,

not the timpanic clamor inside their bodies.

As the plum's blossoms do not hear the bee

nor taste themselves turned into storable honey

by that sumptuous disturbance.


Comments : A friend forwarded this poem to me a few days ago and I knew I would post in on the blog over the weekend. The beginning of the poem grabbed me and drew me in - 'for a few days only, the plum tree outside the window shoulders perfection'. Lovely image !
For more poems by Jane Hirshfield, check this.
Zen

Still I Rise

By Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.


Comments : The backdrop to this poem is Federer’s defeat at the Oz Open yesterday at the hands of his nemesis Nadal. Fed wept yesterday as this is the third Grand Slam final where Rafael has thrashed him in one year, and he is very close and yet so far at equaling Pete Sampras’ record.
A poem to console fedex…. he shall rise from the ashes yet again …. :-) the poem is not v appropriate but it captures the spirit rather well..
- Sachin

Julie Andrews on Maturity

To commemorate her birthday , actress/vocalist, Julie Andrews made a special appearance at Manhattan 's Radio City Music Hall for the benefit of the AARP.

One of the musical numbers she performed was 'My Favourite Things' from the legendary movie 'Sound Of Music'.

Here are the lyrics she used:

Botox and nose drops and needles for knitting,
Walkers and handrails and new dental fittings,
Bundles of magazines tied up in string,
These are a few of my favourite things.

Cadillacs and cataracts, hearing aids and glasses,
Polident and Fixodent and false teeth in glasses,
Pacemakers, golf carts and porches with swings,
These are a few of my favourite things.

When the pipes leak, When the bones creak,
When the knees go bad,
I simply remember my favourite things,
And then I don't feel so bad.

Hot tea and crumpets and corn pads for bunions,
No spicy hot food or food cooked with onions,
Bathrobes and heating pads and hot meals they bring,
These are a few of my favourite things.

Back pain, confused brains and no need for sinnin',
Thin bones and fractures and hair that is thinnin',
And we won't mention our short shrunken frames,
When we remember our favourite things.

When the joints ache, When the hips break,
When the eyes grow dim,
Then I remember the great life I've had,
And then I don't feel so bad.

Comments : A friend forwarded this to me as it fitted the theme for the month (thanks N). I had to run it on the blog - it was funny, plus I loved the movie as a kid and still do.
- Zen

When I'm 64

The Beatles

When I get older losing my hair
Many years from now
Will you still be sending me a valentine
Birthday greetings, bottle of wine?
If I'd been out till quarter to three
Would you lock the door?
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I'm sixty-four?

You'll be older too
And if you say the word
I could stay with you

I could be handy, mending a fuse
When your lights have gone
You can knit a sweater by the fireside
Sunday mornings go for a ride
Doing the garden, digging the weeds
Who could ask for more?
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I'm sixty-four?

Every summer we can rent a cottage in the Isle of Wight
If it's not too dear
We shall scrimp and save
Grandchildren on your knee
Vera, Chuck & Dave

Send me a postcard, drop me a line
Stating point of view
Indicate precisely what you mean to say
Yours sincerely, wasting away
Give me your answer, fill in a form
Mine for evermore
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I'm sixty-four?


Comments : Have liked this song for many years - it is just too cute. And a very different kind of lovesong too - soppy though it is. The minute Anita submitted a poem on 'turning 30', I knew ageing and the various aspects of it would be the theme for the month and that I would post 'When I'm 64'.
- Zen

A Lady Who Thinks She Is Thirty

Ogden Nash

Unwillingly Miranda wakes,
Feels the sun with terror,
One unwilling step she takes,
Shuddering to the mirror.

Miranda in Miranda's sight
Is old and gray and dirty;
Twenty-nine she was last night;
This morning she is thirty.

Shining like the morning star,
Like the twilight shining,
Haunted by a calendar,
Miranda is a-pining.

Silly girl, silver girl,
Draw the mirror toward you;
Time who makes the years to whirl
Adorned as he adored you.

Time is timelessness for you;
Calendars for the human;
What's a year, or thirty, to
Loveliness made woman'?

Oh, Night will not see thirty again,
Yet soft her wing, Miranda;
Pick up your glass and tell me, then--
How old is Spring, Miranda?

Comments : Turning thirty was a frightening experience. Very much like Miranda, I woke up and checked the mirror next morning fully expecting to find an old, shrivelled woman. Friends all around me who have turned thirty have displayed similar reluctance to crossover into the threshold of 'old and greying'. Which is why I loved this poem of Nash, which displays none of his trademark sarcasm, just plain sweet kindness which the newly minted thirty-year old requires. And just as Nash says, is age really that relevant?
- By Anita

Reflection on a Wicked World

Ogden Nash

Purity.
Is Obscurity.

Comments : Loved this for being concise, tongue-in-cheek and such a deliciously wicked observation itself.
- Zen