Yo! it’s all about you – inner/outer, whole self

July 3, 2009 by yahala

… just read Umar Lee’s blogsite http://umarlee.com/rise-and-fall-of-the-salafi-movement-complete/ & had an interesting lesson on one segment of Muslims in America & in particular the fate of many African-American Muslims who fell into a cult-like trap of so-called”Salafi” Islam, a form of Puritanical xenophobia, albeit with many reasons for its rise & fall.

My understanding of Islam in America & American / Immigrant Muslims dates from the early 1960’s era of Malcolm X (al-Hajj Malik al-Shabazz), various Black consciousness & Africanist cultural & political trends, along with a diverse spiritual movement of Sufi & “cross-over / all-is-one” unitarian types of movements, in addition to immigrant Muslim communities, as diverse as the American quasi-melting pot … same as it ever was … As a scholar, I have studied history in all its facets as applies to Islam as one of the Monotheistic (Abrahamic) tradition that characterizes post-Roman Western civilization, albeit with roots in the Tribal tales of Hebraic tribes & Egyptian Pharonic cults, and understand the interweavings among those traditions that characterize their common roots & ongoing borrowings & sharings, however much denied by each.

America is based on discourses of Faith & Religious practices, Spanish adventures & missionaries set the stage, followed by Jesuit Blackrobes throughout the French domain from Atlantic to Rockies, then Anglo-Saxon Puritans & a smattering of Germanic Protestants, all merging into the making of a genocidal ethnic cleansing of aboriginal American peoples, cultures 7 ways of life. More recently (1850’s) Irish then later still Italian Catholics brought their religious systems & institutions into Anglo-America, at first pariahs within a Calvisist WASP social hierarchy. While Jews were a secret subtext within Catholic New Spain, Marano / Morisco / Muhajar converts including a few former Muslims, they slowly appeared within a no less intolerant WASP world. Post 1960’s immigration policy opened the door to East Asians but subtly selected & privileged Christians from Buddhist / Confucian/ Taoist, whether Chinese or Korean .. but roots were there in 19th century appearance of Chinese railroad workers & other classes, not to mention the Punjabi Sikh labourors also with their own temples & traditions.

Within all these potentially mixing flows of immigrants little cross fertilization actually took place other than WASP institutionalism affecting all. Now is the time for more widespread barriers to break down as Buddhists & Sikhs find converts from amongst WASPs as fast as Born Again movements find converts from other ethnic traditions.

But ironically in a globalizing world order, more boundaries seem to be arising than falling.

What is to be done?

http://yahala.wordpress.com/