El Invierno de vino rojo...

Yes it is the winter of wine. This morn, as ice forms across my placid dream- a saddle weary drunkard honors that sacred elixir dropped from civilization’s cradle…

The complexities are beyond me. Just so it is clear that I absolve myself of the incriminations bound to pounce at me. I have been attempting to understand some of the woes of a troubled world. The Ummah- The world of Islam.

Last night I researched and wrote of a group who many, fearing the loss of their own precious power, have labeled a terrorist group. Hizb-ut-Tahrir, it would be outrageous after one night of research for me to claim a deep understanding of this group. Yet, I can say this they sprung up in 1953 in Jerusalem, they have taken root across the middle east and central Asia, they have at least some presence all across the world from the Americas to south-east Asia. Today they are strongest in Britain. They have an Idea, embodied by a slogan- ‘Secularism has failed the world’ The primary Aim of Hizb-ut-Tehrir is to reestablish the Islamic Khilafah (caliphate). The group reasons that only the establishment of a modern caliphate can bring Islam back to the forefront of civilization and truly restore dignity to the Islamic world. This goal is seen as a solution to most of the problems faced by the world today. The group’s views do not end with a vague ideas. It states that its purpose specifically is to reverse the acute decline of the Islamic Ummah, which it links to the dominance of the west.

Hizb-ut-Tahrir views Islam itself as political. The goal is not simply a massive united state presided over by a Muslim. It envisions a pan-Islamic state living in strict accordance with Shari’ah rules. Arab and non-Arab Muslims of all races and nationalities are welcome to become members of the group. Members are urged to liberate the Ummah from its domination through rejection of all things that anger Allah.

Hizb-ut-Tahrir calls for struggle against both non-Islamic governments and Muslim rulers who have not been true to the Ummah. Activists of the group operating in central-Asia have disseminated books and pamphlets that are extremely critical of the regions governments. Their agenda is seen as a threat to stability, especially in central-Asia where calls for a unified religious government may potentially undermine fragile existing governments. Tough leaders of the region have described the group as a terrorist threat they have found it difficult to eliminate its operatives. The group has employed several tactics to elude government forces including a semi-autonomous cell-based structure and an underground meeting network.

Hizb-ut-Tahrir was not brought to Britain until 1986, when it was founded there by a Syrian named Omar Bakri Muhammed yet, today it finds its headquarters in the United Kingdom. Within the United Kingdom the group seems to be most focused on the removal of Musharraf as Pakistan’s President. It is known that roughly 8,000 souls attended Hizb-ut-Tahrir’s 2003 annual conference in Birmingham, however, because of the group’s proclivity towards secretiveness it is difficult to accurately estimate the size of the group within the UK. Although the group is considered by many the most controversial Islamic group operating in Britain today, the British government has not yet followed the advice of German interior minister Otto Schilly to ban the group as Germany did in 2003.

So then, I found out these things and more, Hizb-ut-Tahrir is thus far a non-violent group. It seems to be popular on campuses and such- places where one is prone to find individuals willing to challenge a power structure. This then brings me to the nut of this missive:
I have been reading this book ‘Reading Lolita in Tehran’ it is more or less about a female college professors thought’s feelings, and reactions to the ’79 revolution in Iran. Before the revolution she carried placards with hateful slogans defaming all that is associated with the west. But after the revolution as she became horrified by the realities occurring as a result of the real implementation of the slogans she realized it was too late to go back. As the stern ayatollah, created a new hash reality out of what had been for many a convenient opposition ideology she lost nearly all she new to be freedom.

What I wish to ask of the friars is their thoughts on slogans. We all have cleverly worded phrases that we cling to for simplification of a greater understanding. What slogans and quotes do we embrace without really considering the effects of their physical application? What truisms have we accepted forgetting to question what they truly imply?

-- el chivo


response to el chivo's (El Invierno de vino rojo...) and call for thoughts on slogans:

SEMPER FI: the slogan of the most dedicatedly pro-U.S. organization that walks the earth. And they could be in a town near you within 72 hours, and most of that time is for the pre-flight inspection. This is their reward for having attributed to their government the power akin to a distant and incomprehensible god; who through their sacrifice is made real in the world- a fervent and secular aberration of the monotheistic impulse to enforce a “Divine authority”. “The few, the proud;” an invitation to a moral aristocracy-monks with guns, the lightening bolts.

I myself find it difficult to resist. But the cost is exacted as a debt from one’s personal liberty, a selfless sacrifice. Isn’t it interesting that a country generating the mythos of “Freedom” to the world, demands that within its organized force that there is an ideology, the theology even, of: “Freedom isn’t free”? Their hero’s are fallen; they died so their unit could survive; they loved their buddies, would not let them get left behind- something civilians may never understand.

On the battlefield, there are men trying to stay alive. The better organized the unit, the better chance you got. And friends are never left behind, never forgotten: SEMPER FI.

And there is a mystical allure to the motto, almost irresistible; of being subsumed by the whole, a unified force, being one with god. (Secular and divine are as arbitrary as race, and we should instead look to observable behavior before deciding what is part of a cultural ritual, and in regards to love and death, especially so.) But as far as mottos go, SEMPER FI has a special place in my heart. I get it, though it’s not my way; I respect it… even as I think their purpose is destruction. It is an absolute contradiction for me. Sometimes I like to think about things in odd ways, like thinking that that news is a poetic image of ourselves...

Ubi dubium, ibi libertas

article of interest: Japan’s Kamikaze Pilots and Contemporary Suicide Bombers: War and Terror:
http://www.japanfocus.org/article.asp?id=458

and yet another: Corn, Labor, and Chicha: The “Energetics” of Empowering Feasts in the Prehistoric Andes: http://titicaca.ucsb.edu/cotahuasi/jennings/papers/jenningsAAA2002.html

and one more yet: The Role of the City in the Formation of Spanish American Dialect Zones:
http://arachne.rutgers.edu/vol2_1lipski.htm

-- el adventureo