Crises religious, geopolitical, and extraterrestrial.

This past weekend I went on a program trip to Nakhil with the 7ish other students who signed up. It’s a small town near Muscat with huge date farms. We coffeed with some families in their Majlises before heading to a Helwa factory, fort, and hot spring. It was a good group of people and a low key day. Highlights included playing with Soltan’s kids and climbing a date palm with the rope/harness used by the harvesters.

The week has been rolling regularly. Yesterday we had a lecture about religious tolerance in Oman. Sunni, Shia, and Ibadhi all get along fine. In fact, there is no friction between Muslims, Christians, and even Hindus. Christians and Hindus here are just about exclusively Indian immigrants. I was surprised to hear about the tolerance for polytheistic Hindus and no mention of Jews, I guess because there simply aren’t any Jewish residents and it’s a non-issue. But then I started thinking, in a community that is allegedly 90% Muslim (according to the lecturer) and whose law is Sharia (which defines the punishment for a Muslim leaving Islam to be execution), why is religious tolerance even a good thing? In fact, why should any religion ever interact with other religions other than to proselytize or crusade? I entered into another deep religious debate with some American friends (one of the themes of this summer) after the lecture. Disclaimer: my challenges are as devil’s advocate and very facetious because I don’t actually like inquisitions… But my challenge was why should we follow any religion if other religions are alright? Shouldn’t we either be all secular believers or trying to religiously cleanse the earth? Spicy.

In Media class the past two days we’ve watched interviews with Aiman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s number two man, architect of Anwar Sadat’s assassination, all around antagonist. He makes very legitimate complaints against America and Israel, although they’d be a little more palatable if he got rid of the epic colorful language like “spears of American crusaders” and such. I guess you can’t blame him with President Bush himself said “We’re gonna conduct a crusade…” But al-Zawahiri and I tend to click our tongues at the same irresponsible and greedy choices America has made in foreign policy. The difference, of course, is that his train of thought results in violence. He says “I don’t ask the oppressed to give up his resistance. I ask the aggressor to stop.” As if we are either oppressors or resisters. It is somehow encouraging on a self-esteem level to be able to look down on a man so learned, white-bearded, influential, and wrong. I made the point in class today that I have no inherent problem with extremism. It’s a risky business but hey, if you have convictions, sing them out. Gandhi was an extremist, right? But violence is for the weak.

The consistent solution we find in the widening gyre is that the US get off oil completely. This is a point that was hit home for me today when I realized the impression of many Arabs in Oman, at least, and in the broader gulf is that there is an American occupation of the Gulf. Well yeah, an American presence, but would you really call it an occupation?! We have frigates and bases, and the impression here is that we compel local governments in certain ways as to guarantee lower oil prices stateside. That might be true. Further, the impression is that as America controls the gulf, Israel controls America. Meh, if we had big solar and wind farms on American Indian reservations and hydrogen cars all the above would be moot and all America’s problems solved, right? Isolationism. Except a little bird told me that water is the new oil, which makes our hydrogen car idea kaput. So ride bikes and eat local. Wait – the crazy Vermont hippies have it right?!

So in the car today I was scheming with some friends about finding a new Earth-like planet and leaving it all behind. How’s that for a week of pontification? Crises religious, geopolitical, and extraterrestrial. I need a dose of provincialism – good thing it’s back to New England soon.

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