Travel, conference, disutility of war
Posted by Helena Cobban
November 1, 2006 7:50 PM EST | Link
Filed in Antiwar , HC's travels, general
The conference in Amman on nonviolent leadership was incredibly moving and absorbing. So much so that I didn't get a moment to blog for most of that time.
I'm on my way back home (Atlanta airport.) As I get back into reading the news more closely I have-- not surprisingly-- been having some big thoughts on the disutility of war and other forms of state violence. The situations in Iraq and Palestine are both quite tragic and completely illustrative of this...
But surely, it is time for us all to go out quite explicitly in public and say: Military violence doesn't "work"... There has to be-- indeed, there is-- a much better way to build a more secure world.
Anyway, I'm still pretty tired now. I'll try to get some lengthier, more analytical posts up here in the days ahead...
Re: a better way
From the obituary of anthropologist Clifford Geertz, who died yesterday, a quote from his 1988 work, "Works and Lives, The Anthropologist as Author": "The next necessary thing...is neither the construction of a universal Esperanto-like culture...nor the invention of some vast technology of human management. It is to enlarge the possibility of intelligible discourse between people quite different from one another in interest, outlook, wealth, and power, and yet contained in a world where tumbled as they are into endless connection, it is increasingly difficult to get out of each other's way."
"It is to enlarge the possibility of intelligible discourse between people quite different from one another in interest,
يقول الله تعالى في كتابه العزيز:
"يَا أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ إِنَّا خَلَقْنَاكُم مِّن ذَكَرٍ وَأُنثَى وَجَعَلْنَاكُمْ شُعُوبًا وَقَبَائِلَ لِتَعَارَفُوا إِنَّ أَكْرَمَكُمْ عِندَ اللَّهِ أَتْقَاكُمْ إِنَّ اللَّهَ عَلِيمٌ خَبِيرٌ"
صدق الله العظيم
الآية 12 من سورة الحجرات
O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other (not that ye may despise each other). Verily the most honoured of you in the sight of Allah is (he who is) the most righteous of you. And Allah has full Knowledge and is well-acquainted (with all things).
http://quran.al-islam.com/Search/SrchHits.asp?SearchText=tribes&TotalCount=7&lang=eng&Option=1&pageID=1&flag=1&ID=4625
Al-Hujurat _13