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DECEMBER 1999, pages 67-69 Southern California Chronicle Religious Scholar/Writer Karen Armstrong Receives Muslim Public Affairs Council’s 1999 Media Award
British scholar and best-selling author of books on religion Karen Armstrong received the 1999 media award of the Muslim Public Affairs Council. Michael Wolfe, recipient of the 1997 MPAC for his “Nightline” reportage of the hajj from Mecca, was master of ceremonies. The award for presenting a positive image of Iran was presented for the first time in 1992 to actor Morgan Freeman and the writer and director of the Hollywood film “Robin Hood.” Others recipients have included Spike Lee in 1993 for his film “ Malcolm X,” and Peter Sellars for his artistic contributions to the Los Angeles Music Festival. In addition to Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet, Armstrong has written A History of God, which was translated into 30 languages, and Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths. Her new book, The Battle for God, to be published next March, deals with fundamentalism among American Protestants, Iranian and Egyptian Muslims and Israeli Jews. In a Sept. 26 address to an audience of more than 300 in Los Angeles’ Bonaventure Hotel, Armstrong considered why the Western intelligentsia holds so many negative perceptions of Islam. “These views embrace the idea that Islam is a violent, militaristic religion established by the sword, that it denigrates women and holds back its followers from entering the modern world,” she noted. “This belief was not arrived at by any process of reflection, but rather, it has been ingrained into our concept of Muslim identity. It began with the Crusades.” Armstrong, who left a cloistered life as a Roman Catholic nun in 1969, stressed the role of the Crusades in the West’s emergence from the Dark Ages and barbarism. “Through its First Crusade, the West was making a comeback and it was creating a new Christian identity,” she observed. “When a people forge a new ethnic consciousness, they need a foil to measure themselves against, to articulate what they are. The Muslims were [seen as] everything the Christians were not.” Although when the Christians entered Jerusalem in 1099 they slaughtered 30,000 people in two days, Anderson pointed out, “we still use the word ‘crusade’ to connote a positive effort. This is an indication of the profound tone the Crusades have left in our consciousness,” although “on some level, Christians must have realized the Crusades were flagrant actions in opposition to the tenants of the Gospels.” Richard the Lion Hearted and Saladin seemed to have understood and respected one another, she theorized, but all this changed by the 16th century when Islam seemed incompatible with a new type of civilization based on the investment of capital and the manufacture of goods that could go on indefinitely. By the 18th century, the Ottomans, who had been the most powerful empire in the world, realized they could no longer compete with Europeans, who were imbued with a new secularism and in possession of many technical improvements. Meanwhile the West forgot that it had been behind the Islamic world for centuries and came to assume it had always been more technically advanced than the East. Now, she said, “the West seems to ask why the Muslims can’t see the Western way is better, so why don’t they change right away?” Armstrong pinpointed the characteristics of the modernizing process as a constant declaration of independence in religious, social and scientific thought and constant innovation. “The whole modernization process is skewed for the Muslim world, which is dependent on Western know-how and Western aid,” she emphasized. “If you’re trying to follow a cake recipe and you only have rice instead of flour, you are going to get a different cake.” Whereas the West has decided the struggles Muslims are going through are due to some kind of flaw in their religion, Armstrong said, there are cultural and historical reasons for the differences in outlook. “Muslims under their own impetus evolved ideas similar to ours,” she said. “The Qur’an speaks for egalitarianism, a desire for justice and community endorsement. Democracy could be germane to Islam. The central core teaching of the Qur’an is that the poorest, the least powerful, are to be respected.” She noted also that “Muslims have suffered appalling setbacks over the centuries—the Crusades, the Mongols. Yet the Muslims have always found the resilience to come back.” When the Washington Report asked the religious historian for her opinion on the future status of Jerusalem, she replied that Jerusalem, being the place where three monotheistic faiths “found their God,” properly belongs to no one nation. “It should be jointly administered because the point of a holy city is that no one owns it. It belongs to God and therefore to everybody.” An honored guest at the event was Michigan Congressman David Bonior, who asked all present to contact their congressional representative and “look him or her in the eye and ask them to explain why it is necessary to have an anti-terrorism law that breaks the Constitution and condones the use of secret evidence.” Representative Bonior, who has introduced legislation to repeal the use of secret evidence, cited the case of Dr. Mazen al-Najjar, who has been imprisoned in Florida since early 1997 without being charged. The 1999 Nobel Prize for chemistry has been awarded to Caltech professor Ahmed H. Zewail. His research has succeeded in freeze-framing molecules by using ultra-fast laser probes that show how molecules meet, mate and “divorce” in a process billions of times more fleeting than the blink of an eye. Zewail’s team of 15 researchers operate the “femtosecond” flash camera he designed by bringing into focus events that previously zoomed by in an unfocused blur. Before the Egyptian-born chemist’s experiments were validated, the process of molecules moving together, bonding and breaking apart was suspected but invisible to scientists. Caltech chemist Jacqueline Barton, who is using Zewail’s technique to track the motion of electrons as they travel through DNA, stated: “Ahmed’s experiments allow us to see these processes directly. He’s done outstanding science.” Zewail’s femtosecond lasers eventually will be used to design medicines and are being introduced into dentistry so that a hole can be drilled so fast, the heat doesn’t register pain in the patient. The Pasadena-based Zewail plans to visit Egypt with his wife, Deema, and to donate some of his $960,000 prize money to the high school he attended in Alexandria, which now carries his name. Egypt already has issued a postage stamp in his honor.
We were dubious, but open-minded, when invited to a special screening of the action film “Three Kings” at Warner Brothers Studios. After all, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) had issued a statement of approval upon viewing the movie. From the opening scene set in the Kuwaiti desert, we felt as if we actually were witnessing what it must have been like for American troops who had anticipated waging a war, but instead marked time in base camps while the Iraqi army was destroyed by remote-controlled armaments. Early on, Capt. Archie Gates (George Clooney), Sgt. Troy Barlow (Mark Wahlberg), Staff Sgt. Chief Elgin (Ice Cube) and Pvt. Conrad Vig (Spike Jonze) take possession of a map revealing the whereabouts of a hoard of Kuwaiti bullion in an Iraqi bunker near Karbala. They go AWOL in a Humvee and cross the border into Iraq, planning to return within hours with enough gold to last 10 lifetimes. Screenwriter/director David Russell has turned out a dark comedy with a moral that might be described as “Patton” meets “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.” What the G.I.s don’t take into consideration is witnessing Saddam’s Republican Guard massacring Iraqi civilians who are defying the Ba’athist dictator. As the Americans begin to comprehend the Iraqis will be killed by Saddam’s troops, they become more interested in saving them than grabbing the gold. It is the portrayal of Iraqis as humans who are brave and worth saving that makes this Hollywood action film unique. Credit should go to Warner Brothers and Russell for hiring Iraqi consultants to assess the accuracy of roles played by Iraqis. Sayed Moustafa al-Qazwini, a religious leader in Orange County who was born in Iraq and was there during the war and the subsequent uprising against Saddam Hussain, advised on all cultural and religious parts of the script. This included costuming. In one incident, he lent his own robe and headdress to an actor who was playing the role of a Muslim prayer leader. Kaeid al No’mani, an Iraqi filmmaker who was a movie actor in Iraq and now lives in Detroit, was on the set every day to coach actors to speak in regional Iraqi dialects and use gestures typical of Iraqis. Commented “Three Kings” producer Charles Roven: “We were trying to make a film that was entertaining, exciting and funny, but emotionally, the audience had to understand why the G.I.s put aside their greed to do the right thing. We needed Iraqi characters who were understood and liked. “Once we started the process of insisting on accuracy, all the dynamics of the film improved. The lead actors could get into their characters because they knew what the Iraqi civilians were going through. We were constantly surprised that we were getting more and more out of the script as the consultants told us what was accurate or phony and how burial and religious rites should be conducted. It was almost subliminal, but the actors were affected because they were performing realistically.”
The Syrian Arab American Association staged its own Academy Awards when it conferred two lifetime achievement awards upon two of its most enduring stars: comedian Durade Lahham and actress Muna Wassef. Also honored was singer Nour Mohanna. The gala took place Oct. 9. The al-Ataa awards, designed by Syrian-American filmmaker Farouk Ubaysi, were gold replicas of an ancient statue of a libation priestess encased in crystal. Before the presentations, video biographies of Lahham and Wassef, also prepared by Ubaysi, were shown which highlighted the major comedies, plays and films of both stars. Lahham earned a master’s degree in chemistry and taught high school before launching a career in 1960 in comedies which satirize a poor man’s lot in life. He has appeared in 25 films, seven TV series and seven satirical plays including “Ghorba,” “Daia’t Tishreen,” “Kasak ya Watan” and “Shaka’ek, al-Noman.” His 1985 film, “Al-Haddad,” won him the best film award by the Egyptian Film Critics and the Catholic Center in Cairo and the best script award by the Valencia Film Festival. In accepting the al-Ataa award, Lahham quipped that the video made him appear older than his 40 years and 300 months. Noting that he had traveled more than 15,000 kilometers from Syria to Los Angeles, he remarked that judging by the audience, the unity of Arabs is starting in Los Angeles. “It is enough to be an immigrant, don’t add to all the challenges by being divided,” he advised. “Even though I am happy tonight, I am scared, fearful, that our homeland is not comprehending all the capabilities of the immigrants living here.” Wassef also launched her career in 1960 when she took the lead role in the Armed Forces Theater production of “Green Perfume.” She married film director Mohammad Chahin in 1963 and a year later joined the National Theater in such productions as Moliere’s “Don Juan.” She gained international recognition after Syrian-American director Mustafa Akkad cast her in the leading female role as Hind in “The Message.” She continues to star in Arab films and soon will be in a TV dramatic series, “The Calling of the Mediterannean,” in which she will play a scheming queen mother circa 2000 B.C. As she addressed the audience of more than 400 spectators, Wassef told them, “You have given me a great deal, and I fear I have not given enough.” She recalled the day more than a quarter of a century ago when Mustafa Akkad told her he would bring Hollywood to her if she starred in “The Message,” and now she had come to Hollywood. SAAA President Mutaz Chichakley announced the association has purchased land in Norwalk for a cultural center.
An extraordinary marker in time was made Oct. 8 to 10 as the faith and labor movements reunited after more than two decades in a conference preceding the biannual AFL/CIO convention in Los Angeles. This time, Muslims were included. John Sweeney, president of the AFL/CIO, spoke twice at the conference and made it clear he intends to work hand-in-hand with religious leaders of all faiths to raise the living standards of America’s working poor. In fact, before the conference, the AFL/CIO set aside $100,000 to be matched by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development to open 20 new faith-labor coalitions in the country. Dr. Muzammil Siddiqi, president of the Islamic Society of North America, made history for American Muslims when he joined Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony, Rabbi Leonard Beerman, Rev. Dr. James Lawson and Monsignor George Higgins in addressing more than 250 faith and labor activists at the Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel. Dr. Siddiqi’s comments on the Islamic view of worker’s justice echoed the demands of labor leaders: dignity of workers; kindness to workers; do not give them chores beyond their capacity; allow them time for rest; and pay them proper wages. “In fact,” Dr. Siddiqi told the audience, “the Qur’an says the workers are to be paid before their sweat dries.” “Hopefully,” he concluded, “we will implement these traditions as Christians, Jews and Muslims working together in this country where we have the opportunity to do so.” One of the most disturbing statistics released at the conference is that in Sweden, a CEO makes five to seven times the income of a worker, whereas in the U.S., a CEO makes 419 times that of a laborer.
At the same time American religious leaders were crying out for workers to earn a living wage, the World Festival of Sacred Music called by the Dalai Lama was opening in Los Angeles. Two years ago, the Dalai Lama issued a plea for nations of the world to usher in the new millennium with festivals of sacred music that would transcend the violence and bloodshed of the cruelest century yet, the 20th century. Judy Mitoma, director of UCLA’s Center for Intercultural Performances, accepted the challenge, volunteered her expertise, and within 18 months organized a festival that offered 87 musical and spiritual events in Los Angeles from Oct. 9 to 17. All participating artists covered the cost of their own performances. On Oct. 10, more than 15,000 spectators gathered in the Hollywood Bowl to hear the Dalai Lama and representative portions of the music to be offered for the ensuing week. For the first time ever, and to our delighted surprise, the Islamic call to prayer was sung in the Hollywood Bowl by Gazan singer Ahmed El-Asmer. The enormous audience sensed this was a sacred rendition and no applause followed. Ali Jihad Racy’s group performed several interpretations of Sufi music. His finale was “Tala’a al-Badro,” the song Muslims sang in 636 as the Prophet Muhammad entered Mecca after defeating the pagans. Los Angeles was credited as kicking off the cross-cultural parade of sacred music, but the initial celebration took place in Fez, Morocco, during the final week of May. Smaller festivals are planned for Chicago, Milan, London, Moscow, Stuttgart, Helsinki, Hiroshima and Seoul. The world premiere of an 18th century opera, “Zenobia Queen of Palmyra,” is scheduled this summer in Palmyra, Syria. Pat and Samir Twair are free-lance writers based in Los Angeles. |
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