“43” hosted an Iftaar dinner at the White House yesterday, the fifth time that Bush has held one in the State Dining Room. Ambassadors Ronen Sen and Bernard Goonetilleke attended, as did other diplomats and prominent Americans who practice Islam. After the Imam’s prayer, the President announced a “first” which seemed especially appropriate; a Koran is now part of the White House Library.
The President used the occasion to express his gratitude towards Muslim nations who have assisted in the WoT. As for the rest:
“I believe the time has come for all responsible Islamic leaders to denounce an ideology that exploits Islam for political ends and defiles your noble faith,” he said at the White House, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP). [link]
so this is my russell peters allusion, but really it makes sense here. he cracked this joke about how it pisses him off when uberliberal white people get pissed off at his race-based jokes that targeted minorities laughed at. he believed that it was like white people saying “you’re too dumb to understand how this offends you, so i’m going to get offended for you.”
when i read this post anna, i thought of that exact joke. who is bush to come out and speak about what defiles islam? i hope the ambassadors gave him a nice dose of “stfu, we know our religion you bumbling fool”. instead of telling islamic leaders what they should do, why doesn’t he praise previous efforts by islamic leaders that did condemn extremism? it’s not like they’ve been silient this whole time….
sigh
i think anna’s title is apropos. g.w. bush has to play politics and blather that ‘islam is a religion of peace.’ doesn’t matter if it is a religion of peace, communism is after all (originally) about the withering away of the state, but only morons lectured the NKVD on the “true meaning” of das kapital before they were shot. who cares what ideal elite practitioners hold up as the “authoritative” version of belief x, there is something to be said for the contention that you shall know the belief by the believers (i don’t think religious beliefs have much reality beyond the beliefs and actions of religionists in any case). on the other hand, no matter that a prominent subset of muslims harness their religion to violent ends (and who am i to tell the man with the bomb that his interpretation of the religion is not correct? :), political leaders have to pretend like it isn’t so, all the while targeting muslim nations in a low-grade clash of civilizations. iz all about playing politics….
heyyy, Bernie’s moving up in the world…Don’t know a damn thing about him, but something’s got to be fishy, somewhere south of the Palk Strait for this to be happening..
i noticed the same thing cicatrix. then i went and wiki’d and found out that SL has as many muslims as christians (7%). i learned something new.
/wholesomeness
ah, let’s just be blunt. bernie’s brown. of course he should come to iftaar stuff. 😉
Not only does SL have a large number of Muslims, but the Muslims (many of whom are Tamil) have been heavily penalized by the LTTE for their lack of political enthusiasm for the cause of “Eelam.” Indeed I seem to recall that the LTTE “expelled” 75,000 Muslims from areas that it controlled around the mid-1990s in a rather notorious incident.
http://www.freeindiamedia.com/current_affairs/21_oct_current_affairs1.htm
The forcible expulsion of the Muslim minority from the Jaffna peninsula – virtually ethnic cleansing – the savage attacks on the Muslims in Kattankudy, Eravur and Kurukkalmadam – all these have created a wide divide between the Tigers and the Muslims. Adding insult to injury, the Tigers tried to defend their anti-Muslim policies. According to Mr. Balasingham, “The Muslim situation has to be viewed differently. In the East, there was lot of violence by armed Muslim groups and to prevent reactive violence in the North, we had to ask them to leave, but we have told them that once the situation becomes normal they will be allowed to come back.”
but the Muslims (many of whom are Tamil)
PS– according to a Sri Lankan acquaintance, it’d be more accurate to characterize the Tamil Muslims as Tamil-speaking, as apparently most are not ethnically Tamil…
Does anyone else think the angle of the photo is a bit unfortunate, with regards to the gentleman in the hat? I seriously had to blink twice to make sure it wasn’t a Santa Claus cap. I mean, that’s ludicrous, but still.
No I agree– I thought this gentleman was absconding with a weird little cushion…
PS– according to a Sri Lankan acquaintance, it’d be more accurate to characterize the Tamil Muslims as Tamil-speaking, as apparently most are not ethnically Tamil…
my parents had some good muslim friends from sri lanka. they were thoroughly confused as to the couple’s ethnic identity, as both were tamil speakers, ergo, to my parents they were tamil, but both of them asserted that they weren’t “really tamil” when my parents would make a comment which implied that they were. this couple in fact spoke english with their children, who didn’t know any brown language. and to be clear, i didn’t get the impression that either was insulted by the contention that they were tamil, they simply were trying to communicate a distinction which my parents had a difficult time comprehending, as for them language defines their ethnicity….
anna’s wiki link says sl muslims are mostly of arab/malay descent
also umair, were the quotes around Eelam really necessary?
The quotes around “Eelam” were there because: (i) that’s not a concept the Tamil-speaking Muslims appear to be buying, and they were the subject of discussion here; and more importantly (ii) “Eelam” is not a geo-political fact (although the LTTE movement obviously is) in the way that nation-states are; hence in my book “Khalistan”, as a no-state, gets quotes, whereas Pakistan does not; (iii) I’m generally liberal with the quotes!!! (e.g. other comments I’ve posted on Sepia, most recently on “liminal” communities).
No offense was intended.
waits for Vikram
Anyone pick up on the eagle pun? Don’t know if it’s intentional or not. Eagle = America but it also symbolizes the apostle John when present on a Church lectern. A bit ironic for an Iftaar speech 🙂
Hmmm. I wonder when he’ll “express his gratitude” to the Muslim civilians whose homes have been destroyed by his Christian crusade.
In a parallel universe Dubya said: “I believe the time has come for all responsible Christian leaders to denounce an ideology that exploits Christianity for political ends and defiles your noble faith” – as he expressed his gratitude towards followers of the word of Jesus ben Joseph who have assisted in the WoPCN (war on pseudo-christian nationalism).
There’s some interesting political analysis out there by Mark Crispin Miller that says Bush and his team like to denounce the EXACT same thing they’re all about with no hint of irony.
It’s like someone who points out faults in everyone around them, but has very little insight into oneself.
The other side of that is that Bush is VERY aware of using religion to sell politics – and feels he needs to denounce it to throw the scent off himself.
I can’t wait for the tell-all on this Administration – it could be written by Karl Rove from federal prison.