Friday, March 02, 2007

In texts I meet...

Genuine thoughts; people who generously share aspects of their lives with you and perhaps, without them knowing, become figures of an inner dialogue/a monologue possibly but with the ethos of discussing with people you can appreciate. Here in Jordan, or far away, in geography, in experience. Today, after a long time, I found again Imaan's blog or, better, I found thanks to her kind response her old/new blog. Once, many months ago, she had commented on one of my entries concerning what is spoken and what is kept in shadow in a blog. A Swede, who chose Islam, married a Palestinian man and devoted her days to her family, work and raising up their beautiful children; she tries to keep some time in order to share ideas about how she experiences, as a western muslim woman the many boundaries she has been crossing and the other she discovers. A personal voice, an honest one. Gaza, Stockholm, relatives from the one and from the other side, her frustration for the aggression of many anonymous comments. And through her blog I can hear various other voices. People that our generalizations leave aside.
On the other hand, a friend always shining with sparkling ideas, took the flag of questioning religion, in a general sense, and commenting on the case of Islam and Jordan in particular. Well, I disagree with the selective arguments of Pheras in most of his analysis this time: I believe his greed for change and improvement makes him oversee several open issues nowadays for many western societies concerning equality, respect and cultural openness. He is frustrated from his immediate surroundings, but this does not make the West of 2007 less confused, conservative and retreating to "Restoration" behaviours.
Nevertheless, despite their almost thorough split in worldviews, I find in these texts the quality of a real discussion. What are the features of a real discussion then? May I suggest? Personal courage, willingness to share, a target that exceeds the person alone and aims at a general improvement within a narrow or the broader community. Ideas that sound strange, or even provocative, but they are uttered with honesty: A rare combination of values, to cut the long description short. Instances like those mentioned above encourage me to keep on blogging, or reading blogs, which is the same. Only that in a discussion all parts would be better contributing their bit, even if they consider it marginal or unimportant.

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