"What will Arab journalists say after they see Xinjiang themselves?"

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/2436007

I don't normally like Vox.

But this was a good article, if a bit liberal.

The only author I know of is Ali Shariati, and I have trouble finding his work. I linked his essay "Red Shiism vs. Black Shiism" as an example of what I potentially am looking for. Sorry if this is a bit if an odd request, this us my first Lemny post. Anything linked would be helpful.

For context, I'm a USian who became interested in Islamic cultures as a young adult, and from there found something magnetic about the faith of Islam.

I have many LGBT friends, and whenever I've reached out to mosques, the answers I get are rather disappointing. The best one I've gotten still invalidates homosexual relationships. I'm cishet, but as I said I have many LGBT friends, and I'm also poly. I have a comrade who is trans and converted to Islam, and I see that many LGBT Muslims exist, but this confounds me, too. Even the most open-minded of them will say something is "what Muslims believe" and then clarifies that it is from a Hadith, not strictly from the Quran. The comrade I know is a "Quranic" Muslim - one who follows the Five Pillars and the teachings of the Quran itself, and I know the Hadith are controversial outside of the majority of Sunni Islam.

I want to be a more spiritual person, but the type of Islam I encounter promotes teachings I know in my heart to be wrong. I know, too, that many Christians, Muslims, and Jews have this odd personal combat with God, for lack of a better term - a struggle with the divine, wherein they work out various personal sins/failings or disagreements with the scripture. I know Jews that eat pork, Muslims who drink, Christians who don't pray. I sense there's a spirit to the faiths that is more important than adherence to prescriptions of the text.

I am white (part Native American, but this isn't visible in my appearance or culture). No part of my lineage comes from any land associated with Islam. It feels like appropriation for me to want to convert to a faith, but then pick and choose which parts of it I want to believe and follow. I dabble in tarot and the occult. I'm poly. I believe all consensual love is valid and sacred. So, I guess my question is aimed more towards the Muslim comrades here who are LGBT or allies, who balance the secular with the spiritual, who might be able to show me the way:

How can I call myself a Muslim without compromising my beliefs? Is there a sect or denomination I can seek guidance from? Am I just wasting my - and your - time?

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/3548223

“Why the US wants to separate Xinjiang from China? Because its location is too crucial for them to destabilize Eurasia. In this video, I laid out the strategic location of Xinjiang, and how CIA experts planned long ago to destabilize China by playing the "Uyghur card."”

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/1700782

Yeah...

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/3374505

How is Life of Muslims in Xinjiang | The Xinjiang they don't want you to see | 新疆真实穆斯林生活是什么样的？| 他们不想让你看到的新疆

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/1504698

Well, as Comrade Zelda might say:

Good.

I've seen people supporting Saddam and I guess it could have been just a mistake or something, but it seems like such a shitty decision to make, and he also received support from the US, so I don't really know what to believe there.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/1035177

Check it out.

Let me know if the link works.

I was born and raised Catholic (Western Belarusian and Irish parents) and I went through a once-a-week religious class, but never felt especially attached to Christianity. I became an atheist over time and have been going through difficulties currently and I find that I still have a faith deep down. I’m interested in Islam because I read a tiny bit of the Quran as a kid out of curiosity (during the height of Islamophobia in the US, George Bush, early Obama era) and found that it wasn’t “terrifying and inhumane” as Fox News would say on the TV set at my grandparents’ condo. What resources would you point to for a beginner/ on the fence person to learn about Islam? Thank you in advance.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/1009861

By Vijay Prashad.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/1009698

From an AP journalist guest-writer.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/1009299

Not the best article as it's mainly meant to appeal to liberals, as I was told recently, and convince those sitting on the fence. People's World does this from time to time as it has 2 million subscribers, at least, so the audience is much broader. Hopefully, you'll understand, though I know many will criticize this article, rightfully for certain things.

Victor Grossman was someone that defected to the GDR (or DDR) and defended the GDR/DDR as well as the wider Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries.

For the record, I do not believe that what happened on October 7th was reported accurately at all.

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/2486849

Western media & government's pivot from constantly convincing you there are Muslims somewhere that need your help & military intervention, to suddenly providing excuses for the massacre of thousands of innocent Muslims is one of the more spectacular pieces of hypocrisy we've seen in a while. Particularly when you consider they are still today pushing flimsy stories of persecuted Muslims elsewhere, desperate for you to diver your attention away from Isr*el.

According to official data, in February, Tunisian authorities arrested a large number of Ennahdha party leaders, including its president Rached Ghannouchi, his deputy Ali Al-Arayedh, and former Minister of Justice Noureddine Bhiri, on charges including conspiracy against state security.
Ennahdha, with the Shura Council being its highest-ranking body, was the largest party in the previous parliament that was dissolved by Tunisian President Kais Saied in July 2021.

I didn't know that b.t.w. :
In Tunisia, Habib Bourguiba ruled from the independence in 1957 until a coup by Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in 1987, who stayed in power until the tunisian "Jasmine" revolution of 2011 which eventually put Beji Caid Essebsi in power in 2014(, after banning the islamist party Ansar al-Sharia in 2013).
And since 2019 it's Kais Saied.

There's a lot of anti-islamic propaganda about islam supposedly teaching that women are subhumans, so it may be worth mentioning that :

In the 2014 Tunisian parliamentary election, Ennahda candidate Jamilia Ksiksi became Tunisia's first black female MP.

And, also :

Ennahda became the largest party in parliament in the 2019 election(, so until 2021 according to Telesur)
The Tunisian government has detained at least 17 current or former members of the party, including its head, and closed its offices around the nation since December 2022. Tunisian authorities apprehended Ghannouchi and searched his headquarters in April 2023.

In American Muslim Poll: Amid Pandemic and Protest, the Islamophobia Index was recorded mere months before an election where the incumbent was widely seen as fomenting anti-Muslim sentiment as an electoral strategy, both with rhetoric and administration policies like the Muslim Ban. Most notable among our results is the consistent decline in Islamophobia among Jewish Americans from 22 in 2018 to 18 in 2019 to 16 in 2020.

2022

In the American Muslim Poll 2022: A Politics and Pandemic Status Report, for the fourth year, we measured the Islamophobia Index, a measure of the level of public endorsement of five negative stereotypes associated with Muslims in America. The general public scored 25 (on a scale of 0 to 100), on par with 27 in 2020. American Muslims scored 26 on the Islamophobia Index, higher than Jewish Americans who scored the lowest at 17.

The situation stems from a 2009 arrest and a 2011 conviction that claimed four individuals—​all of whom are of the Islamic faith—​were plotting to use stinger missiles to shoot down military airplanes flying out of an Air National Guard base in Newburgh, New York, and blow up two synagogues in Riverdale. (New York Times, July 27)

Evidence now suggests that the FBI, along with an informant named Shahed Hussain, was responsible for the whole fiasco. Hussain is a Pakistani businessperson who had been working with the FBI prior to the sting operation. Records show that he was paid a generous salary of $100,000 by the FBI to “seek out Muslim radicals” at local mosques. (The Guardian, Dec. 12, 2011)

Hussain’s provocative rhetoric and flashy appearance raised suspicion among the Islamic clergy at Masjid al-Ikhlas, the Islamic Learning Center in Newburgh infiltrated by Hussain, where he met the four individuals who became FBI scapegoats.

Masjid Imam Salahuddin Muhammad was leery of Hussain’s reactionary and forceful demeanor from the time he first stepped foot into the Newburgh community mosque. “This guy said ‘women should not be heard, not be seen.’ I thought that was strange,” Muhammad told The Guardian. Hussain presented himself in a cartoonish manner, reinforcing negative stereotypes, and that raised suspicion among several members of the Mosque.

I was debating whether to insert this within LGBT+ or Islamic Leftism but I do think ultimately it might fit here better because it covers the specific experience of French indigènes, which makes it more relevant here.

I feel like in these sort of online Islamic “progressive” spaces, there’s no genuine discussions happening. These spaces are often almost defensive in nature - like the existence of this community is just to prove to disapproving whites that Islam isn’t this, or isn’t that. This is a result of being in a Western dominated space in general.

Gender and sexual minorities is a very important phenomenon that must require a response, yet it is almost ignored or never spoken about because this muslim-homophobia dichotomy is so engrained that people are (rightfully) scared to even talk about it, especially across the White left.

I’d of course invite everyone to treat this article critically, and contribute if you have any qualms against their conclusions, although I will admit my opinions have slowly drifted closer to the article as the years went by.