Passports to Many Countries

OK—first off. I tremble to write this post, because if Irshad Manji reads this it, and troubles to respond, she’ll wipe me off the map. She’s both smarter and tougher than I.

And who is Irshad Manji? Well, many people in the Arab world have an answer—she’s an infidel, a heretic, a traitor. Or, some would say, she’s a person who’s finally had the guts to speak some unpleasant truths.

Some months ago, I was trying to write a review in Amazon.com, since a number of Iguana readers were having trouble uploading their reviews. Not having read anything recently, I decided to review the King James Bible. (It seemed fair—I had read it, though years ago, and it’s a text that has survived for a substantial amount of time. I doubted anything that I could say would seriously hurt it….) I went to the page, scrolled down, and was startled to find that 46 people had give it one star, Amazon’s lowest level. Here’s my favorite:

444 of 534 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars

Far too pornographic for a Christian home!, October 6, 2012

By 

Mrs. Betty Bowers "Mrs. Betty Bowers, America... - See all my reviews

This review is from: Holy Bible: King James Version (Hardcover)

I simply refuse to poison my Christian children's precious minds with lascivious tales of daughters getting their father drunk and having sex with him (Genesis 19:30-38) - or harlots lusting after penises that are the size of donkeys' (Ezekiel 23:20). It is, however, excellent for cracking nuts and slapping bottoms.

I tell you this story because a surprising number of Christians are treating the Bible as…well, a sort of supplemental text. Or perhaps additional reading, if wanted.

Right, you say. But what does this have to do with Irshad Manji?

Well, to put words into the lady’s mouth—something certainly unnecessary and probably dangerous—it’s interesting that Christians can do that, and yet a Muslim doing the same with the Quran? In Canada, yes—but how about Saudi Arabia? I bring you The Australian:

A FAMILY row that developed into a televised debate in Saudi Arabia has ended in disaster for a young activist now facing seven years in jail and 600 lashes, as the kingdom continues to crack down on online dissent.

Raif Badawi, 30, founder of a liberal website, has been sentenced by a court in Jedda - convicted of insulting Islam and denouncing the kingdom's feared religious police. A charge of apostasy that could have carried the death penalty was dropped.

Tacked on to those offences was a charge of "parental disobedience", stemming from a bitter dispute between Badawi and his father. The row became so ugly that among those denouncing his son as an apostate was Badawi's father himself.

I read about it at the time, and then considered writing about it. I didn’t, partly out of politically correct fear of playing into Islam / Muslim bashing, and partly because, well, what is there to say? It’s ridiculous and outrageous; now, what about the other 998 words in my post?

It’s a problem I’ve had with the some parts of the Muslim world for some time. A Danish cartoonist draws an offensive cartoon—embassies burn and 100 people die in Nigeria alone in violence related to the affair. This we have to take seriously?

Manji wrote a book, The Trouble with Islam Today, in which she provides the answer—the Muslims. And I saw her defend her beliefs in a great show from Al Jazeera English called Head to Head; it was filmed in temperate waters of the Oxford Union.

Well, she was bright and articulate, as well as quite passionate. And I had come to her through music, specifically through Daniel Barenboim, the pianist and conductor. Barenboim spent ten years in Argentina before his parents moved to Israel in 1952. And speaking of courage, he’s fully the equal of Manji—would you have the balls to break a decades long prohibition of playing Wagner in Israel?

Here’s Wikipedia on the subject:

Barenboim, who had been selected to head the production of Wagner's operas at the 1988 Bayreuth Festival,[40] had since at least 1989 publicly opposed the Israeli ban. In that year, he had the Israel Philharmonic "rehearse" two of Wagner's works.[41] In a conversation with Edward Said, Barenboim said that "Wagner, the person, is absolutely appalling, despicable, and, in a way, very difficult to put together with the music he wrote, which so often has exactly the opposite kind of feelings ... noble, generous, etc." He called Wagner's anti-Semitism obviously "monstrous," and feels it must be faced, but argues that "Wagner did not cause the Holocaust."

Said was Muslim, and went on to become friends with Barenboim, and later to write a book with him.

Oh, and the two also dreamed up the idea of an orchestra that would have both Jewish and Muslim members. So they started the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra in 1999, and it was not always smooth—discussion between the players could get very heated.

Barenboim is believed to be the only person who holds citizenship in both Israel and Palestine. What would happen if all of us did?