God, Diabetes, and Death in Wisconsin

March 30, 2008 – 7:16 am

A few days ago, in Wisconsin, 11-year-old Madeline Neumann died from undiagnosed diabetes. Her parents prayed over her as she deteriorated, instead of taking her to the hospital.

According to most reports, the Neumanns are a normal American family. They are not members of some weird death-cult. They didn’t show up at military funerals with signs that read “God Hates Fags.” This is, in a way, all the more troubling.

My initial response to this story cannot be published here on account of the vast number of obscenities it involved. I was shocked, and outraged, and demanded immediate removal of the Neumanns’ other children from their home. While breaking up a family in the wake of a tragedy is grim business to say the least, one does hope that law enforcement will keep an eye on the Neumanns. Imposing probation and ordering counseling is the least that can be done.

The fact that the Neumanns’ other children have indeed, for now, been removed from their home may ultimately serve to educate the parents on the fact that their actions, or, rather, their inaction, was indeed wrong.

I am not Christopher Hitchens, and do not wish to use this death to score a point. Let’s put it this way, most parents, religious or not, would take their child to a hospital at the first sign of serious trouble. When it comes to religion, the Neumanns are the exception, not the rule.

As a person of (some) faith, I find that the Neumanns are the perfect illustration to the saying that “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.” Clearly, the Neumanns “knew” certain passages from the Bible concerning God’s omnipotence and power to heal, etc. And yet did they also not realize that if God allowed His or Her children to create life-saving penicillin, He or She might just want us to use it? Considering that life is a gift and all? Read More »

By Natalia Antonova | Posted in Columnist, Current Affairs, Religion, christianity, family, north america | Comments (5)

Politics and Tragedy

January 13, 2008 – 11:28 am

Wherein lies the tragedy of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination?

Common wisdom holds that the implications surrounding the demise of one of Pakistan’s major democratic leaders are tragic. Others hold that her killing reveals the sinister confluence of wicked forces at work in Pakistan.

Others hold that that the tragedy lies in the fact that she comes from a family that has lost far too many of its sons and daughters. Others hold that the tragedy lies in the loss that will be felt by her young children.

But what if we simply refused to assign any form of tragedy to Bhutto’s killing? What if we said: it is tragic that another human being has been killed, and that is all I have to say.

Why should I exalt the tragedy of Bhutto’s death, when I rarely exalt the tragedy of anyone else’s death? Why does she get this preferential treatment? Simply because she was involved in politics?

Nietzsche said that most ancient Greeks didn’t care about politics. They believed that they were utterly incapable of affecting the decision-making in which the powerful engaged, opting, therefore, to busy themselves with other things: things upon which they could have direct influence, namely art.

Why do we modern people think that politics have changed? Read More »

By Ali Eteraz | Posted in Columnist, Current Affairs, south asia, terrorism | Comments (3)

Dirty Old Men

December 10, 2007 – 12:58 am

This article was originally published in Jordan’s Living Well magazine

How could I not write about this? Would I let this one pass and be able to live with myself? You know me too well by now. This is too classic to let go of.

You see, Arabs and Muslims have solved all their intractable problems. They live in peace with each other and in harmony with the rest of the world. Poverty and illiteracy are things of the past. Unprecedented economic prosperity is coupled with an individual drive for scientific innovation that dwarves all the inventions of Thomas Edison and Leonardo Da Vinci combined.

Our universities are oozing with hordes of promising generations, our factories are exporting marvels to the world, our theatres are beaming with cultural talent, and our cities are virtual gardens of earthly delights. Foreigners are queuing at our embassies begging us to live in our midst. The new UNDP report is composed of only one paragraph that describes us as a perfect people.

We’ve conquered life and grabbed our destiny by the balls, and we have become a model for all nations to emulate.

But there is one lingering problem that we are yet to overcome before we herald the inauguration of heaven on earth. Our men and women are mixing at the work place, and this blasphemy is abominable in the eyes of God; it may actually threaten to destroy everything we have achieved so far. But Dr. Izzat Atiyeh, the Chief of the Hadeeth Department at the Azhar University, would not sleep at night before unearthing a way to deliver us from evil. From his influential post at the Vatican of the Muslim world, salvation would be rendered. Rejoice, for redemption is forthcoming.

You may be familiar with this story already, but it deserves a retrospective look. Read More »

By Zaid Nabulsi | Posted in Columnist, Religion, humor, islam | Comments (6)

Anyone Out There?

April 10, 2006 – 9:34 pm

(This article was first published in Jordan’s Living Well magazine)

One day this teacher walked into the classroom with an unusually somber look that I shall never forget. As I discovered in due course, he had intentionally put on that deeply solemn face because he wanted to tell us a cautionary tale, one that required special dramatic effects.

The teacher, whose name I shall withhold, began his Oscar-winning performance by telling us that his next-door neighbor died a week before. Miraculously, however, he told us that she was given another shot at life and that he just had a chat with her in the staircase of their building where he accidentally bumped into her. He asked her what she witnessed in her brief afterlife encounter and she told him that she saw many women hanging by their long hair which was tied to ceiling rails made of hell fire. This was, she revealed to our mesmerized, almost tearing teacher, their punishment for not covering their hair while they were alive. Read More »

By Zaid Nabulsi | Posted in Columnist, Religion | Comments (0)

A Pope For Life

May 9, 2005 – 6:54 pm
    The last Pope could have done more to change the world

The passing of a Pope is not meant to engender a universal response such as we have witnessed recently. This response suggests to us that Pope John Paul II was a person for all people, and not the exclusive domain of Catholics. His numerous travels over a 25-year span to places difficult to locate on maps, but also to most seats of civilization, created bonds between he - the leader of the largest Christian community- and people of other religions and faiths. Now we must ask whether this love-in has been transmitted to the Church as a whole. Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in Religion | Comments (0)

A Very Thin Moral Line

September 4, 2001 – 9:55 pm

Many of the most venerable intellectuals and commentators of the left are unwittingly these days committing a grave error by falling into the elusive trap of implying some sort of an understandable causal linkage between what they rightly perceive as America’s arrogant foreign policies and the recent attacks that ravaged it.

Even though very careful never to condone what took place, nevertheless, these otherwise uncompromising humanitarian icons are inadvertently coming too close to crossing the apologist line by attempting to explain and place in a political context what can only be described as the most incomprehensible and futile acts of homicidal/suicidal insanity. Read More »

By Zaid Nabulsi | Posted in Columnist, Current Affairs | Comments (0)

The Day We Accused Ariel Sharon

February 28, 2001 – 9:57 pm

As the world watches with trepidation the daily scenes of murder and outrage in the West Bank and Gaza strip, there is one thing we can all agree about. This particular escalation would not have taken place if it were not for good ole Ariel Sharon. His visit to the Holy Al-Aqsa compound on 28 September sparked the chain of tragic events that have claimed the lives of several hundred innocent civilians, almost all of whom have been Palestinian. It seems that Mr. Sharon was not happy to enter history merely for the war crimes he committed in Lebanon in 1982; he wanted to crown his record of disgrace with more innocent blood.

And quite remarkably, Sharon is now trying to run for the post of Prime Minister. There seems to be no limit to the audacity of this man! But I for one trust that the Israeli population will reject this war criminal at the polls, if he managed to get that far. I know first-hand that a substantial segment of Israeli society is as scathing about this man as all Arabs are. I witnessed this as a university student nine years ago. Read More »

By Nasser Ali Khasawneh | Posted in Columnist, Current Affairs | Comments (0)

The Disgraceful Children of God

February 28, 2001 – 6:56 pm
    God is not to blame, we are

If this often preached conciliatory statement is true - that Muslims, Christians, Jews, and the rest of humankind are all, metaphorically speaking, the children of God - then we are indeed a bunch of incorrigibly spoilt kids with a very bleak future.

True, our ‘metaphoric’ Father left us His will inside more than one mysterious and ancient covenant. But one thing over which no doubt can be cast is that all have essentially sought to attain the same goal: peace on earth and equal justice for all. It is incredibly ironic, therefore, how these holy scripts managed over the centuries to become so diametrically conflicting with each other to the point that they are today totally irreconcilable.

Even the fundamental shared command against the grave act of taking an innocent human being’s life has found its detractors in the very name of the Giver of this life. The resulting endless strife among God’s agonizing children everywhere has led this humble sibling to sometimes honestly wish that the Almighty never bothered to entrust us with anything at all.

Before you slit my throat with knives of blasphemy, I invite you to take a quick tour of the world’s major conflicts today. Start in Palestine, go east to Afghanistan, take a detour to Chechnya, and then come down to Kashmir and India. Stop over in Indonesia, visit the Philippines, then travel west back to Sudan, and from there on to Algeria. Cross to Europe going over north Cyprus, then passing through Bosnia and Kosovo, head all the way up to Ireland. What do you notice? What lies at the heart of all the persisting troubles that you see? More precisely, what is it that makes all these human beings think they are so different from the people they seek to murder? Read More »

By Zaid Nabulsi | Posted in Columnist, Religion | Comments (0)