Dear Mohamed and colleagues - these conversations are fascinating - thank
you so much;  I do not have anything informed to add.
I expect others have observed this before - but isn't 911 the American
version of 999? - the number dialed in an emergency - its a very strange
emergency - and like you i agree that some words are better understood as
verbs not nouns - emergency gives us (to) emerge or emerging - in continual
renewal/change.  
Best wishes, Jane


-----Original Message-----
From: Mohamed Moustakim
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: 28/06/05 13:57
Subject: Re: Start o the Review Process - Responding to Mohammed's Posting

Dear Paulus (Ahlan wa Sahlan - meaning Hello in Arabic) and everyone,


The richness of your experience and your life journey remind me of my
own hyphenated identity.  My 3 children have a much richer cultural
heritage than me.  My partner is an Irish Catholic and shares my
values of fairness and social justice.

I am not a practising Muslim.  Despite my familiarity with Islam I
never really practised.  I began to question the notion of submission
to god at a very early age.  I do not submit to anyone and question
why a god would expect anyone to submit to him/her/it.  I hope I do
not cause offence to anyone by my words.  I have great respect for
people's right to be different and free, but like Rousseau I think
that freedom can not be absolute, it certainly has for limit the
freedom of others.  I note what you said about submission, but
submission reminds me of slavery which I abhor. I respect people of
all faiths and those of none.

I hear what you say about the changing landscape of civil rights post
911.  Western hegemony reins supreme worldwide.  I know that implicit
in this statement is that the west is homogenous, which it is not.  I
was on the streets of London campaigning against the war in Iraq and
I was humbled and comforted by the diversity of the crown:  men,
women, children of all ethnicities and creeds.  This mosaic of people
restored my faith in humanity.  It was great to think that the human
race has the capacity of being good, of wanting good things for
others.  Like Rousseau I think that 'humans' are naturally good but
it is society which corrupts them.

What is happening in the world right now is orchestrated by a handful
of very powerful men who are pursuing their own political motives as
they watch the blood of humanity spill in the streets of Baghdad and
Fallujah.  I regularly watch the news on Aljazeera TV, French TV and
the BBC.  The truth is always somewhere in the middle. 
Interestingly, a commentator on Al Jazeera said the other day that
the death of the pope John Paul ll marked the beginning of
postsecularism.  An interesting perspective given the guest list
which included Bush, Blair and countless others, and of course the
Iranian delegation.
 
I am not naïve Paulus and I hear what you say about colonialism and
the necessity to pursue postcolonial practices.  I have first hand
experience of French colonialism which brought men and women to their
knees, in submission to the colonisers.  When in France, French
colonial discourse is 'in your face'.  When I was a student, I
remember a French woman holding the shirt colour of a friend of mine
and saying to him "You complain about French colonialism, if we had
not colonised you, you would not be wearing this shirt...you would
still be riding camels and donkeys in little streets and sipping mint
tea in the Kasbah all day!'  My first reaction to this was to burst
out laughing.  I thought what she said was funny.  I did not feel
insulted.  I just said 'I wish you had not colonised us.  I would
love to ride a camel and to sip mint tea in the Kasbah without the
burden of the baggage of modernity that you bestowed on us'.  Like
Freire's analysis of power relations between the oppressor and the
oppressed, I think that the colonised and the coloniser are in
'connivance' as they both negate their humanity by engaging in an
asymmetrical power relations.  Like Foucault I believe that power is
a verb, not a noun, therefore it circulates and is not something that
the powerful can possess.  One can not possess a human being.  People
are born free.  Slavery is unnatural, hence its demise.  Colonialism
is unnatural but is subtle and nuanced.  It has persisted in many
forms throughout the world, including former colonies.

Postcolonial / inclusional discourse is necessary to counter the
hegemonic neo-liberal strain and to purge social life from the
vestiges of the colonial past.

Salam

Mohamed

Mohamed Moustakim
School of Education
Education & Employment
Room E218
Tel. 020 8240 4380