sajia_kabir

 Yesterday was a dull day, fell in and out of sleep. I'd been wanting to go to a yin class at Bonsor but it was dark and rainy.
Why is yoga so powerful? Why does stretching in a certain way affect people so deeply? I like pilates but it doesn't affect me at such a mood level.
I talked to Ma. "Ya Nabi Salam Alaikha" is a staple of milads in Bangladesh, though it wasn't played after Maghrib azan in the old days of BTV, as I had mistakenly thought.
Watched some improv last night. It's interesting to see the cultural assumptions in "apolitical" comedy.
I derived some morbid satisfaction from reading a female reviewer in the NYT give Rushdie the hammering he so richly deserved. It made me think of how differently Pratchett had conducted himself in his private and public life.

 Yesterday I played the melody of Tori Amos's "Spark" on harmonium and worked on parts for "Unfold". Failed to record "Me and My Seashells" successfully. I played some riq. J said that she had a problem playing darbuka that I also have on the riq, making the dums and teks clear. She said we might be hitting our instruments too hard. I want to play with her one day.
I went to zikhr after a long time. I'd been absent due to exhaustion and the gloomy evenings. When I whirled last night I could feel the music like I never have before; usually I'm focusing on my own movement and singing, but last night I was beginning to get lost in the drumming and the singing of others.
I felt peaceful as I came home; often I'm manic after zikhr because I'm overstimulated by the sensations, but last night I felt calm, at peace with my vulnerability. Although it did take some time to fall asleep.
It's snowing this morning here in Coquitlam. The first snow of the season? Despite the dark evenings there's been less rain this fall, compared to the last year.

 For those of my friends reading this on FB, (because everybody on LJ and DW has heard of this by now), Elizabeth Moon is an award-winning scifi novelist who recently made xenophobic and Islamophobic remarks on her blog, specifically targeting the NYC Islamic community centre that is actually quite a few blocks away from Ground Zero and is not, in fact a mosque, and was only built in that location because it was the most affordable place in the city considering that particular Islamic community's budget. One of the things that she's been blathering about is Islamic imperialism, and I think this needs to be addressed - but it also ties in with the modern Western right's overall insistence on holding its opponents, be it feminists, anti-racists, anti-war activists or just plain old white male leftists, to a higher standard of behavior than it holds itself.
  Is invading a country in the name of spreading a religion or ideology a bad thing? Absolutely, no doubt about it. Saladin is held to be among the noblest of Muslim leaders and even under his leadership violence against women took place when his soldiers took back Jerusalem. In war, bad things happen - which is exactly why the left opposed the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. War is destructive of civil society, of industry, and of the family, which is why I am surprised that more conservatives of all countries are not anti-war.
  But here's the thing: until Gandhi, war was considered an acceptable way of resolving international disputes. Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism, among the Old World religions (delux vivens and unusualmusic, please comment on Africanist and First Nations attitudes) have pacifist attitudes but in practice their hierarchies have either gone along with militarism or actively encouraged it. Judaism and Islam have generally had pragmatist attitudes towards violence. (Islam could not have survived a thousand years if it had constantly and ceaselessly gone through the incessant violence that is afflicting Afghanistan and Iraq. Most of the myths about constant warfare among Middle Eastern tribes, or at least the kind that's taking place in Iraq, is a myth; there have usually been interludes at least of peace with some minor gangsta-style trouble).  "Everybody does it" is not a rational moral excuse, but when the expectation all over the world in male society is that you settle your differences with your fists, it is not surprising that Muslims have waged war to enhance their power, just as Christians, Hindus, and yes, Buddhists have.
  Gandhi and his followers like MLK were great men, and necessary men, not just for mere moral glamour, but more practically because non-violence activism is one of the best ways of building an egalitarian civil society, which after all is what liberation is supposed to be about. But a completely unintended consequence of their successes is that the left was expected to be morally pure, to refrain from any action that might even remotely resemble violence, to remain enslaved to a ballot box system corrupted by corporatism. And not only that, they were either too white and male to adequately represent the oppressed or they were reverse oppressing white men; either they were too frivolous in their love of music and litcrit theory or they were humorless types who couldn't see the fun in "politically-incorrect" asshatry; they were too poor and therefore were preaching "politics of envy" or they were too rich and therefore hypocrites who had nothing to complain about. The connection between singling out Islam as uniquely imperialistic and oppressive and attacking the moral character and personalities of the left may not be obvious, but they are linked in the way that the modern Western right gives itself the freedom to be douchebags and denies others the freedom to be human.
(It is worth noting that no Muslim country has actually invaded with an occupational force a (culturally) Christian country since the days of the Ottoman Empire)
ETA: this was inspired bysarasvati 's piece sarasvati.dreamwidth.org/31766.html.