Making sense of Maher?

Against better judgment, I watched a clip of Bill Maher bashing Islam and Muslim men. It is a truly hateful and bigoted tirade he spews, but somewhere deep in the mess Maher actually does have a point - at least if you cut him a lot of slack.

Vi gör våld på oss själva

(This will be in Swedish as it indirectly concerns the upcoming Swedish elections.)

Vi lever i ett samhälle som i hög grad präglas av kontroll och dominans. Det ligger inbäddat på en väldigt grundläggande nivå, och präglar oss både medvetet och omedvetet i nästan allt vi gör. Jag är övertygad om att vi måste bryta med det förhållningssättet om vi ska ha någon framtid på den här planeten, åtminstone en framtid som jag vill leva i och som jag vill se min dotter, och framtida generationer, växa upp i.

The Allah dilemma

An article in Swedish newspaper DN reports about the attacks on Christian churches. It is thought that these attacks are in part a response to a court ruling stating that Christians may use the word "Allah" for "God" as well, and the subsequent use of "Allah" in Catholic Malay newspaper The Herald. The article further talks about the recently growing tension between religious groups in the country, as well as the Malaysian government's efforts to keep these tensions low. The article is probably one of the more balanced ones on Islam that I've read in DN, but there's one important dimension that I feel is missing.

The dominator shift

I'm currently reading Riane Eisler's The Real Wealth of Nations, a highly recommended book building on her ideas of a dominator vs. a partnership view. In short, she identifies two views or orientations - dominator and partnership.

Inaugurating the Apophenaeon

Apophenia, to see patterns and connections in random or meaningless data. An apt concept for this blog I think.

Seeing patterns and connections where others do not can, at best, open up new perspectives and shed new light on old problems. Riane Eisler, for instance, identifies two orientations or strands of thought that to a great extent has shaped the world we live in - that of the "dominator" and "partnership" society, with roots as far back as ancient Babylon and the myth of how Marduk slew Tiamat and fashioned out of her the world. Thus providing a myth of how we can tame nature by dominating her, teaching us that either we dominate or we're dominated.