Mamihlapinatapai

 

“Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and man’s enemies will be the members of his household.” – Matthew 10:34-9

I am writing this post as I desperately search through the BBC world news website to find a recent article (perhaps 1 week, max 2) on the ensuing peace talks of a two state solution between Israel and Palestine in the Paris summit and how Israel refuses to attend the talks. How can the keyword Palestine not link to the article? How is it easier to find something written years ago and not find something that literally happened NOW? It is precisely such reasons that so much confusion and violence can continue to be perpetuated without end. Perhaps, one might not even know what the significance of Palestine and its role is in the general unrest in the Middle East. Palestine is only one of the giant pink elephants that Western goggles fails to see. Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s Heretic perfectly captures this paradoxical nature of our current political times. In trying to open up discussion on the topic of Islam’s need for a reformation, Ali inadvertently creates further confusion and extreme viewpoints which further obscures the systematic violence enacted on a global scale. In removing social and historical context of modern history from her arguments, Ali’s proposition, regardless of how sound and rational it maybe, becomes distorted, contradictory, hypocritical even perverse to the point which one can consider her view points to be racist and islamophobic.

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