Sister Jabou,

Thank you for your insights.
You know that I am quite familiar with the imperialist agenda, drawn out 
largely by policy scientists in Washington. If their objetives are clear to 
us, as you rightly outlined, then muslims ought to avoid falling into a trap 
of self-pity and uncritical modes of defensive posturing, so that in the 
process of acting out that defense, Islam is brought into contention. The 
effect is to cloud both Islam and the political and historical questions 
that lie at the roots of all these conflicts.

In my mind both Wafa Sultan and Alieu Jawara seem to have fallen into this 
fallacy. Attempting to locate the roots of suicide bombing or violence 
perpetrated by muslims on jews or even other muslims in Islam is to obscure 
the historical and political contexts that produced such violence. It is an 
attempt to try to explain a people's political behaviour by examining their 
culture. It is generally referred to as Culture Talk, and even if Samuel 
Huntington is perhaps its best known proponent in intellectual circles, 
Bernard Lewis seems to have advanced the theory more cogently. Their work 
forms the ideological basis of contemporary American policy in the Middle 
East.

On the other hand, equating the wearing of hijab by muslim women with their 
opression I think is an easy way of looking at their political rights in 
muslim societies. In my view, Islam itself will remain prone to cause 
conflict if muslim societies prove incapable of political modernisation. 
That muslim women have little political or social rights in most of the 
Middle East is one reason why many educated arab women find cultural solace 
in the west, even if they fall short of becoming anti-islamic propaganda 
celebrities.

As for Condi Rice, I find her immensely repulsive in her role in providing 
intellectual and politcal muscle to the U.S imperial project all over the 
planet

Many thanks,
sidibeh 

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