From: as5h+@andrew.cmu.edu (Azleena Salleh)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asean
Subject: Re: Algeria and the West
Date: 14 Apr 92 05:42:04 GMT
Organization: Sophomore, Social & Decision Sciences, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

On 10-Apr-92 in Algeria and the West         
user ST101019@brownvm.brown.e writes:
>I agree with what Azleena said about Algeria. I think many times,
>the West has a very negative view about Islam that is heavily
>influenced by a minority of hotheaded individuals in places like
>the Middle East. The US media is especially bad about this. For
>example, most of the American media has painted a picture of fanatical
>Muslim fundamentalists in Algeria, when the Islamic Salvation Front
>is the democratically elected government. Compare this to Thailand,
>where a NON-ELECTED Prime Minister, with a history of unconstitutional
>coup d'etats is endorsed by the State Department because, as their
>spokesperson Margaret Tutwiler says, they are confident that economic
>ties will not be affected, and also that "it is the choice of the
>Thai people". I'm appalled by such hypocrisy but hardly surprised.
> 
>I am also bothered by the way the Western media
>consistently tries to portray events as non-Muslims against Muslims.
>Many reports about East Timor emphasised the conflict between the
>"Christian East Timorese" and the "Muslim Indonesians" which is
>NOT the point at all! Indonesia, after all, has its own Christian
>minority whose religion is respected under Pancasila.
> 
>I saw this extremely disturbing TV show in New York where these
>people sat around and talked about how dangerous it was that
>"Moslem" republics (btw, is it Moslem or Muslim?) in the former
>Soviet Union had their hands on nuclear weapons. I don't think the
>US or any other country is any more morally responsible than
>Kazakhstan.
> 
>-----------------------
>SU-LYN SEAH '94  K'91
>BOX 109 BROWN UNIVERSITY
>PROVIDENCE RI 02912
> 
> 
>                 MASOCHIST : "HIT ME!"
>                  SADIST   :  "NO!"


Thanks for your refreshing impartiality, Su-Lyn.  I think those of us
who know and mix with Muslims can give us the benefit of the doubt, as
opposed to those who know Muslims only out of a gun-weilding terrorist
image, or the submissive, black-veiled stereotype.  One of the benefits
of a multi-racial country is that you get to understand and recognise
human nature for what it is, instead of classifying people and their
actions purely as a result of a particular race or religion, regardless
of the particular circumstances surrounding their actions and practices.
...  <Did the hijackers happen to be Muslim?  Was the revolt in a
country with a  Muslim majority?  Add in their religious affiliation so
that the readers will understand why they won't have democratic
elections>...

I can understand how Islam is probably better understood and better
respected by the non-Muslims in Malaysia than anywhere in the Western
world.  What with all the negative press from the West, it's no wonder
Muslims tend to catch the "us-against-them" syndrome. 

In a way, I pity the Americans for their mono-culture of sorts (yes it
is, no it isn't).  Yes, I have met people from many different cultural
and ethnic backgrounds in the US, but American culture is still
dominantly Western, and definitely lacking the free cultural and (not
forgetting) culinary, exchange we Malaysians take for granted... 

Ever see an American enjoy a foreign film or a TV series in a foreign
language, like how the Malays religiously watch the Cantonese soaps and
the Hindi films back home?  And how many Americans know how to pronounce
all three types of Indian, Chinese AND Muslim names correctly?  We've
learned inter-cultural and inter-religious ethics that comes only by
knowing that a Hindu does not eat meat and a Muslim eats halal meat, and
you can't serve a multi-racial guest-list with just anything from your
fridge...(an Eastern faux pas!)... 

Here's to the weird, wild, wacky mass confusion that makes up Malaysia.
A cultural mess indeed.


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Azleena Salleh
Carnegie Mellon Univ.
Pittsburgh.

"It is a world completely rotten with wealth, power, senility,
indifference, puritanism and mental hygiene, poverty and waste,
technological futility and aimless violence... and yet I cannot help
but feel it has about it something of the dawning of the universe."
- Jean Baudrillard

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