www.muslima.com
“Total submission is a kind of freedom.”
…says a billboard at schipol airport. I noticed as I waited, yet again, for KLM to put me back on the plane they forgot I was supposed to have a seat on. The proverb made me think about arranged marriages. An acquaintance of mine once had a discussion with a Sri Lankan chef, during which he presented her with the following questions in argumentation for arranged marriage.
• When was the last time you were happy with your dating life?
• Why do you get in relationships, and why do they usually end?
• How often did your relationship not end well and why?
• What do you expect from a relationship? What is truthfully your ultimate goal in dating?
The essence of this claim is perhaps that with too many choices we are never satisfied. We always dream of something better, thus nothing is ever good enough, and we miss our ultimate relationship target, which for many people is security. Imagine not having to stress around with all this dating bull. When we get to pick ourselves, how large are the odds of picking wrong? We are amazingly young and dumb after all. The chef proves how submission can be liberating in certain situations. Paradoxically, some of the experiences that make us feel most free involve giving in to forces we cannot control. For example acting on intense emotion, like screaming at your parents after all these years, crying till you pass out or kissing someone as if to say yes, you going on that exchange for the next three months is the end of the world and the universe as I know it.
Love is arguably the strongest of these uncontrollable force. There is no fighting true love say the fairytales. We nurse secret dreams of ‘the one’ - a someone who, by divine design, compliments us in every way. Now if there really is such a one, which I must say I believe even the most cool and calculating of us secretly hope that there is, and you and the one are by the universe itself designed for one another, then nothing can be done to stop it. If love is invincible, and you are in love, then you are in effect controlled by love. Love is the greatest submission. Further, however indefinable love is it is still on this view a force that makes you be with someone whether you like it or not. We are not free from love, and further we do not want to be. The whole set-up seems suspiciously similar to an arranged marriage. In both cases it is not your choice who you come to love. We love submitting to love as a wholly dominating force, yet we loath the idea of anything else forcing people to marry.
Of course there is a vital difference. In arranged marriages you are being told what to do by other persons, a concept which goes against liberal principles. Yet our secret belief in pre-destined love may be seen as a repressed yearning for the freedom we feel when we completely submit ourselves. Maybe, on some level, we miss that kind of freedom, existent in childhood, before the infinite line of choices appeared in the distance and blocked our horizons. We find consolation in the eternal dream of love by design, and look to submit ourselves to the inevitable dominance of that ever-elusive ‘one’. Which I guess is not such a bad thing to search for; all these choices are driving me crazy.
tirsdag 11. mai 2010
lørdag 27. februar 2010
torsdag 18. februar 2010
Fastelaven een meestreech
Its carnival break in maastricht. Jesus hold me please.
carneval survival log: Day 1. Constumes aquired. The crowds are growing, though most mateys have left. They couldn't take it, but I believe we can make it unless bodies give in before the end. Wedding imminent.Still in good shape, motivation top. No major accidents. Alcohol/frites intake excessive. Hopeful for the night. Out.
Carneval log: Day 3...or 4. I believe im still alive. Which is a plus. Going out again. No longer understand why im here. Or anyone else. Resources getting scarce. Motivation mainly alcohol-based. 14 crewmates severly injured on the journey. Do NOT walk outside without alcohol intake. Serious risk to mental health. Watch out for guys dressed clockwork orange style.
Day 5. ...
Day 6. I know all you people bugged out to london or brussels or wtv but I stayed and you know what? That makes me better than you. Highlight: clockwork orange guys, newkids, tetrisblock guys, everybody with a ship on their head, Watching stoned superman feel up drunk frites-girl outside our window and barely escaping being peed on by a gorilla.
carneval survival log: Day 1. Constumes aquired. The crowds are growing, though most mateys have left. They couldn't take it, but I believe we can make it unless bodies give in before the end. Wedding imminent.Still in good shape, motivation top. No major accidents. Alcohol/frites intake excessive. Hopeful for the night. Out.
Carneval log: Day 3...or 4. I believe im still alive. Which is a plus. Going out again. No longer understand why im here. Or anyone else. Resources getting scarce. Motivation mainly alcohol-based. 14 crewmates severly injured on the journey. Do NOT walk outside without alcohol intake. Serious risk to mental health. Watch out for guys dressed clockwork orange style.
Day 5. ...
Day 6. I know all you people bugged out to london or brussels or wtv but I stayed and you know what? That makes me better than you. Highlight: clockwork orange guys, newkids, tetrisblock guys, everybody with a ship on their head, Watching stoned superman feel up drunk frites-girl outside our window and barely escaping being peed on by a gorilla.
onsdag 9. desember 2009
mandag 30. november 2009
Read all about it!
UCMAG is out: the sustainable issue!
Buy it in the common room from tuesday for 1,50(worth it). If you happen to forget don't worry...but there will be consequences lets just put it that way...
Buy it in the common room from tuesday for 1,50(worth it). If you happen to forget don't worry...but there will be consequences lets just put it that way...
fredag 23. oktober 2009
As to Refresh Headscarf
This is Fatmah Yakub (friend from school) on why she put on her headscarf.
sorry horrible quality but you get it.
We interviewed her for our sociology presentation "Hijab: a rising trend among western-raised (2nd or 3rd generation) young muslim women?"(ish.) It went ok. Just ok. Its an interesting question though.
For example, Fatmah never wore the veil when we were growing up although most of her family did. She only put it on when she moved to London for university.
Why?
Fatmah answers that she wears it to put a "barrier" between her(and her religion)and the things she finds bad (corrupting) about western society.
...But, on a larger scale, why?
Is it a counter-reaction to the extreme liberty of women in western society? Has the overdose of baby-oiled skin on TV driven the moderate to conservative? Is all the attention islam is getting in media, creating a sense of religious coherence?
Or is all of this perhaps the symbol of the hijab changing from one of religious modesty to one of defiance of a dominant culture?
I think all of the above. But then hey forced me to read Huntington's Clash of civilizations in stupid intro to academe but it made me bring my business to an EVEN larger scale:
Maybe the hijab trend is the intensification of cultural practice as we draw nearer the apparently looming clash of "western" and "Arab" civilization. Maybe people are (on some level) being forced to take sides, and further to show their loyalty to either. To tell the world that they belong to one, and therefore, according to the way things are looking now, defy the other.
...Well I don't know. There is no need to be dramatic, and this is of course no reflection on individuals.
You know the weird thing about theory, especially in social science, is that you can sit around for ages and ages and read all the Big Guys and try to find the answer and come up with out-of-this-world theories and debate them forever with other people who stayed up all night comming up with their own heavenly-blessed ideas,
OR you could call someone who is part of that trend and they tell you the answer right there just like that.
Of course its important to do the theory but really, sometimes it feels like science is just a roundabout, much longer route to all the things we somehow already know.
sorry horrible quality but you get it.
We interviewed her for our sociology presentation "Hijab: a rising trend among western-raised (2nd or 3rd generation) young muslim women?"(ish.) It went ok. Just ok. Its an interesting question though.
For example, Fatmah never wore the veil when we were growing up although most of her family did. She only put it on when she moved to London for university.
Why?
Fatmah answers that she wears it to put a "barrier" between her(and her religion)and the things she finds bad (corrupting) about western society.
...But, on a larger scale, why?
Is it a counter-reaction to the extreme liberty of women in western society? Has the overdose of baby-oiled skin on TV driven the moderate to conservative? Is all the attention islam is getting in media, creating a sense of religious coherence?
Or is all of this perhaps the symbol of the hijab changing from one of religious modesty to one of defiance of a dominant culture?
I think all of the above. But then hey forced me to read Huntington's Clash of civilizations in stupid intro to academe but it made me bring my business to an EVEN larger scale:
Maybe the hijab trend is the intensification of cultural practice as we draw nearer the apparently looming clash of "western" and "Arab" civilization. Maybe people are (on some level) being forced to take sides, and further to show their loyalty to either. To tell the world that they belong to one, and therefore, according to the way things are looking now, defy the other.
...Well I don't know. There is no need to be dramatic, and this is of course no reflection on individuals.
You know the weird thing about theory, especially in social science, is that you can sit around for ages and ages and read all the Big Guys and try to find the answer and come up with out-of-this-world theories and debate them forever with other people who stayed up all night comming up with their own heavenly-blessed ideas,
OR you could call someone who is part of that trend and they tell you the answer right there just like that.
Of course its important to do the theory but really, sometimes it feels like science is just a roundabout, much longer route to all the things we somehow already know.
tirsdag 6. oktober 2009
mandag 5. oktober 2009
søndag 4. oktober 2009
As to change the channel
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Everybody loves MTV.
We may as well admit it. Stupid americans with ridiculous dramatics? Bring it on. Beyonces ass? Never looked better. Some random guys gravely offending chinese culture in a library? ...what?
Seeing these silly billys makes us all feel just a little bit better about ourselves.
But i still think its getting a bit out of hand. We should really find something better to do.
...But then when I've done that I'm tiered from doing all the better-to-do things, and then its just so relaxing to see Heidi scream at Spencer: you can't use your brain all the time can you.
When an option like MTV is put out there, there's no turning back. Our generation is doomed to watch Paris pick fights, and there's nothing we can do about it.
Its not a question of most of us being weak and pathetic and the few remaining being strong and coughcoughweird, its about...speaking through the medium of our times!
Our revolution shall be staged through MTV.
For our parents, it may have been the back of a van somewhere, covered in flowers and other plants, but for us it is through media: internet, print and even tv:
Collectively we are in control of what is shown on tv because it is answering to our demands. Which means we are actually controlling things by lying around! So don't be embarresed next time you watch Run's House reruns: by not changing the channel, you are in fact changing the world! Up and away! Yes we can!!
haha, no im just kidding. We're full of shit.
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