As I was sifting through the net for free Camel Turkish Gold coupons and free Newcastle promotions for “drink three, get one free” stubs, I found a gem of a short from Memri-TV with an interview with the Bahraini Intellectual, Dhiyaa Al-Musawi. You can find the short video here.
The dialog of the interview was mostly about the state of the Arab culture and how it has become a backward society in the light of modern society.
As Dhiyaa Al-Musawi states:
I do not believe in the gallows of Ideology. Our problem in the Arab World is that we have many gallows of ideology, and of accusations of social betrayal, on which we try to hang an intellectual, a thinker or a poet everyday, just like in the case of Naguib Mahfouz and others. We, I’m sad to say, are against creativity and civilization, and against any language that seeks common ground in society.
This blew my mind as it also seems the Right wing conservative also try to do the same to our poets, thinker and musicians today.
We must have the courage to get rid of the “backward” cholestorol of ideology,accumulating in the arteries of Arab awareness and the Arab mind. We suffer from backwardness. This is masochism- the kind psychologists talk about- or self-flagellation. This is the truth. We have not developed even to the point of admitting defeat.We (have to) admit our cultural defeat. In the past, we had a civilization in Andalusia and in many other places, but today, we are regressing- we export violence, we terrorize whole countries, we threaten national security, and many other things.
Wow.
Dhiyaa Al-Musawi- We need to reform and to reshape religious thinking, because, in all honesty, the pulpits of our mosques have begun to “booby trap” the public.
Host- In what way?
Dhiyaa Al-Musawi- They booby trap them by generating hatred towards “the other”. We have claimed a monopoly over Paradise, and each of us has recorded it in the land registry in his name.
Host- But the pulpits are under government supervision.
Dhiyaa Al-Musawi- Some of them are under government supervision, but in some Arab countries, although they are under government supervision, the government itself encourages the booby trapping. This problem has political reasons… But who pays the price? The country, society, civil society, and the young man, who is being told that the black-eyed virgins await him at the gates of Paradise, and that all he has to do is to kill himself, to slaughter himself. he might blow up his family and children to get the virgins of Paradise. This is the language and culture of death. We were not born into this world in order to die this way. The beauty of Man lies in his living for the sake of his homeland, not in dying while booby trapping others.
So Dhiyaa Al-Musawi is a free thinker, loves his faith, desires to see the love in his faith and despises the backwardness of the old fire and brimstone indoctrinations of the radicals. This sounds a lot like some American Bible thumpers we have here in America that he is talking about.
Al-Musawi goes a bit further with the issue of faithful Muslims-
Dhiyaa Al-Musawi- In the Arab world, we have religious clerics who are beacons (of knowledge), but I think the problem is that we are constantly intimidating the public. We talk about Hell, and not about Paradise at all. The Koran is balanced. It talks about the fire of Hell and about the fruits of Paradise, but we constantly preach about the horrors of Judgment Day, saying that a bald Satan, or a bald serpent, would visit them in the grave. It is constant terror. It is always a dark picture. Why? That is the problem. Unfortunately, some young men- out of a wrong interpretation of religion… The moment he becomes religious he ceases to smile and to greet others. He accuses some people of heresy and others of sin. he begins all that discourse. he hates music and to dress neatly. His mind is abducted into the dungeons of ideology, I’m sad to say.
Host- Let me ask you a question. If a Shiite, or even a Sunni, becomes a religious cleric, yet he listens to music, can the Arab public possibly accept him?
Dhiyaa Al-Musawi- In my view, the Arab disposition suffers from many problems. We have destroyed many things, including the beauty of the general disposition. Music is a beautiful thing…
Host- Do you listen to music?
Dhiyaa Al-Musawi- Yes I listen to music. I listen to classical music, and I think Beethoven’s symphonies are very beautiful. They are among the masterpieces of human art. I believe that music develops the spirit of Man and humbles him. What is wrong with that?
So they have the same type of religious zealots in the mosques as we do in our pulpits here in the United States who dress in their suits, preach and become the over-righteous zealots who knock on our door, give us a smile and a pamphlet and wake you out of a drunken stupor on Saturday while watching your favorite episode of the Munsters…
Lets go on-
Dhiyaa Al-Musawi- As for the policy of non-violence, I’d like to give you the example of Gandhi, whom I consider a hero. if only we could obtain some of Gandhi’s genes, and plant them in the brains of our youth in the Arab world…
Host- In your home, you have pictures of Martin Luther King and Jesus on the wall.
Dhiyaa Al-Musawi- In my home, I put up a picture of Jesus, because whenever I look at his picture, worlds of peace and love open up before me. It was Jesus who said: “Love thy enemies, bless them who curse thee.” We need this beautiful language in our society. I also have a picture of Gandhi, whom I consider to be a very fine person, and whose (image) we should plant in the minds of our youth.
Dhiyaa Al-Musawi does not believe in violence. I like this guy!
Some of us say: “May Allah curse the Jews and the Christians, the offspring of apes and pigs.” Is this the language of progress? Is this the language of enlightenment and tolerance? If you had been born in Rome, you would have been Christian, if you had been born in Tehran, you would have been Shiite, and if you had been born in Saudi Arabia, you would have been Sunni, and so on. How wonderful it would be if all these people could gather in love around the table of humanity.
This is an incredible statement.
Nations that read more are the nations that are most respected, like thew Western nations, where people read… When you travel to Switzerland, everywhere you go- on thew bus or wherever- you see people reading books. Do you see such sights in the Arab world?…
…The problem of the Arab youth is that they do not read. As Gustave le Bon wrote in The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, the Arab youth sometimes smile while they are taken to the slaughterhouse. Why? Because they lack awareness. We suffer from illiteracy. Today, the Arab world has, according to a UN report, close to 70 million illiterate adults- in other words, 70 million people whom you can booby trap, against their country and society, because they do not read.
This is an apparent issue that unfortunately is saddening. Educating the people is important for any society and one way to control the masses is to keep them uneducated. This has been seen in the past cultures of our world and sadly it stilll exists.
I see something here and its this: We have a lot in common with our brothers of humanity in the Middle East. We need to have this type of open dialog where we can discuss things, our difference, our strengths, our love of life and the pursuit of happiness. We do not have to look at any culture through shades of prejudice, intolerance or a gun.
We have to be open to listen, learn and see how we can get past the prejudices our society has against the Middle East. People are people regardless of dress, manners and language.
And thank you, Dhiyaa Al-Musawi. You have enlightened this foreigner and have given me hope for a better tomorrow in this sad time here in the West towards future endeavors with our fellow man in the Middle East.
Last Free Voice 
What a beautiful interview. The Muslim world needs more people like this, more libertarian thought as well.
Digg it!
True. There is a sort of fetishizing of ignorance and illiteracy in American culture as well
(cold war era conservatives called intellectuals “eggheads,” and in many of the schools I went to as a kid, doing well in school was called “acting white,” which was not a good thing, especially for anyone so unfortunate as to actually be white).
The parallels between Christian and Muslim fundamentalists are chilling; we have the same thing among some Hassidic Jews e.g. in Israel and Brooklyn, although they are much more oriented towards book learning. I’m sure a lot of the same problems exist among the Hindu fundamentalists formenting strife with the Muslims is the Indian subcontinent, and so on.
The biggest recruiting tool for Islamic extremists is the actions of the neo-Crusaders in the middle east. Otherwise, the vast majority of Muslims would never give them the time of day. The actions of the neo-Crusaders are intentionally calculated to extremify and radicalize the Muslim world as much as possible. The more terrorism and extremism the more money they can make through munitions, Halliburton, war booty like petroleum, and the more domestic power they get through further developing authoritarianism at home. They are manipulating both sides of a chain reaction in their own favor.
They have done it before through their not so subtle support of European fascism, Marxist socialism, and narcotics smuggling. Playing both sides of a war is smart business for those whose business is war.
The war is evil, to promote imperialism and line the pockets of certain regime partner corporations (e.g., munitions, reconstruction and petroleum). War is a racket.
Blowback, for them, is a plus, because it justifies more wars. Some blowback is direct, like terrorist attacks, the rest comes in the form of Ex-GIs traumatized by their war experiences, the future generations of brutal cops and prison guards, violent gang members, mentally ill, homeless, wife beaters, etc.
But that all feeds the police-prison-industrial complex, and fear of crime, just like fear of terrorism, is another justification used to keep incraesing the power of the state at our expense.
Economic and social systems built on coercion go against human nature and will destroy themselves, like Hitler’s Thousand Year Reich and all the rest. Bush-Clinton will be no different. Neither will Islamic theocracy.
Let’s just hope they don’t destroy all of human civilization, or perhaps the whole Earth in their conflict.
This man is my hero !!! NO ONE IN THE WHOLE MIDEAST CAN SPEAK this type of conversation. I wish if ALL the muslim world thinks that way, I guarantee you 99% of problems WILL disappear.
i think this is a noble and interesting speech from an enlightened muslim thinker.
i was also quite moved by the fact that this blog used it not to hammer home problems in the arab world, but to point to failings in his own society. this is a great post.
i must say this to pierre (comment above) though: if you think that all the problems in the world are caused by muslims, as you imply, you obviously either did not read or more likely did not understand the point being made in this post.
there are many problems in the arab world, and musawi spels out some of the most important, but all societies have a lesson to learn from this type of analysis.
This one sentence says all one needs to know about what is going on in our world, today:
“Playing both sides of a war is smart business for those whose business is war.” — pauliecannoli
Mr. Cannoli has brilliantly condensed the real-world situation in that one little sentence.
Amazing, and exactly what I needed / was looking for. I’ll have to blog about this immediately!
(Most of my knowledge of the Muslim world obviously came from very biased sources, and I was aware of this. What I needed was the perspective of a “thinking person” talking from within that culture. Dhiyaa Al-Musawi seems to be exactly the person who’s perspective I was looking for!)
[…] Anyway, a friend, Francois sent me a link to an interview with Bahraini intellectual Dhiyaa Al-Musawi. For some highlights and an excellent commentary, please look at this post on “Last Free Voice”. […]
Dhiyaa Al-Musawi’s voice should be heard -and assimilated – by all of us. It applies not only to Muslims but also to Jews, Christians and to people from all other denominations.
He deserves a place of recognition along with the likes of Ghandi and Martin Luther King.
“Imagine all the people… Living life in peace… ” (John Lennon)
i need a contact of musawi because when i watch his video, i just can say it’s amazing to find today one chief shia with his open minded, dhiya musawi it’s a pround of muslim, because real muslim is free thinking