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Solace of the Shadows
Saturday, November 26, 2005
One of those random moments of deliberation where its a struggle to try to stop from thinking about another thought before i'm finished with the current one. Like trying to catch something thrown amongst a whole mass of other similar objects.
Religion is allegedly the focal point upon which every established civilization hinges and a significant element in human existence. In the face of secularism among rapidly modernizing states, the science, pragmatism and rationalism of it all can never exist without the co-existence of religious beliefs and practices.
It is, however, hard to believe that modernization has caused a revival in the populations of the various religions of Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Orthodoxy largely due to the individual's need for a stronger sense of identity.
"The most obvious, most salient, and most powerful cause of the global religious resurgence is precisely what was supposed to cause the death of religion : the process of social, economic and cultural modernization that sweapt across the world in the second half of the twentieth century. Long-standing sources of identity and systems of authority are disrupted. People move from the countryside into the city, become separated from their roots, and take new jobs or no job. They interact with large numbers of strangers and are exposed to new sets of relationships. They need new sources of indentity, new forms of stable community, and new sets of moral precepts to provide them with a sense of meaning and purpose. Religion, both mainstream and fundamentalist, meet these needs."
The immediate implication from this seems to be that religion is indeed an offspring of humanity and a creation above anything else to pacify the need for identity and direction. Atheists would be quick to agree, but honestly it would be hard to believe a world devoid of religion and a God of any form. To explain everything tangible, animate and inanimate in terms of science and sensibility would be in disregard of the seemingly inane but altogether fundamental questions of "who are we?" and "why are we here?". It is easy to skip those questions entirely and concentrate on living our lives primarily, but imagine if atheists lived among atheists and the world comprised purely of non-believers. A balance of believers and non-believers would have to be present in a world where civilisations are founded on religions.
I think Islam as a religion in particular, has rejected Westernization as modernization constantly and as a result there has indeed been little success in trying to "modernize Islam" and instead the concept to "Islamize modernity" has been applied with much greater success.
Comparatively, Islam as a religion has remained unaltered and the holy book has remained untouched in the ancient Arabic language, as opposed to the holy books of Christianity which has been susceptible to alteration by the Catholic Church and its Vatican and the language of English with its semantics has left the Bible open to many forms of interpretation. Islam has changed very little or almost not at all in terms of its practices and beliefs, in contrast once again to the evolving practices of the church in response to lifestyle and culture of its believers, most notably evident during the Protestant Reformation during the early 16th century. One thing that really confuses me is the allowance of homosexual marriages and on top of that, a homosexual minister.
Even in the face of Islamic fundamentalism, terrorism and Islam are not a single entity. The media has largely distorted and manipulated the intentions of supposed "Islamic fundamentalist terrorists" by labeling their acts of terror as purely malevolent and unfounded in their twisted interpretations of jihad. Undoubtedly, it cannot be condoned, but as I watched on National Geographic a program documenting the events leading up to 9/11 and how the act of terror was planned, no effort was spared on the part of the obviously American producers in condemning the terrorists repeatedly. There was, however, a strikingly obvious point conveniently excluded, this being the possible reasons as to WHY these acts might have been carried out. It was, of course, dismissively attributed as being an act of mindless destruction with the intent to cause chaos and wreck numerous lives. Would a bunch of people really go about an elaborate and meticulous plan of hijacking and carefully manoeuvring a plane just for the sake of killing people for no good reason out of sick twisted pleasure? Or was it in response to a Western administration who has, for countless decades, imposed its will and ideologies upon a previously developing collection of non-Western states determined to retain its own deeply rooted set of values and culture.
I guess the point i was trying to get at is that the increase in the Islamic population over the years can't be put down and explained by a changing need for self-identity.
All this is is just a convoluted bunch of pent up thoughts (cept for the paragraph quoted from a book), not intended to harm. Anyway, its a good thing no one reads this anymore cept for the ones who matter.
In other thoughts, thank you for being the constant who has always been there when its mattered. What would i do without my Fatin.
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
I feel kinda guilty for posting this because it goes against what i stand for but this has really gotten on my nerves lately. Normally i don't even bother reading blogs of people i don't know because i think that blogs have exceeded the span of their definition, but when it comes to the stage where even our friggin NEWSPAPERS carry headlines relating to posts by bloggers, it's gone too damn far. As it is, it's already bad enough we have a media so well-controlled and filtered, but when the good money you've paid for the daily papers is wasted on articles detailing the latest happenings in the "blogosphere" (the person who came up with that word should be shot. repeatedly.), it just becomes a big joke.
So what happens when all these flamers, who despite their defensive pleas, obviously have too much damned time on their hands to go around reading about the lives of others (if i had the time to do that i'd know damn well that i should be doing something else), thus forgetting that they have a life of their own to lead, however unfulfillingly it may be, get rid of all the bloggers they've flamed? What happens then? What war have they won? I've hypothesized 3 scenarios :
1. They start flaming each other and cannibalize, thus causing this blogosphere of theirs to implode and journalists to finally wake up their bloody idea and revert to proper news reporting
2. Since they've succeeded in getting rid of all the good bloggers, they attempt to start blogging themselves before soon realizing that no one really gives a damn about them or what they have to say really because their lives are just that damn boring
3. They grow some brains and start reading something else. Like these nifty things called books. Or perhaps even the comics section of the papers (least likely to occur given their current level of intelligence)
Frankly, the whole purpose of having a blog can never be completely agreed upon and the age old issues of "if you don't like what you're reading then just go away" or "i can comment whatever i want, this is the internet and i'm entitled to my own opinion too" can never be settled because on one hand, blogging should be about being able to speak your mind, but on the other hand, discretion is necessary because people will never always agree with what you think (obviously). The situation is made even worse because anything posted on blogs is usually given less credibility, although seems to be taken much too seriously.
It's sad really because virtual can hardly replace the tangible and personalities and atittudes can come out really different especially in cases where an individual is able to express himself better in words and vice versa. I only recently stumbled upon Daphne's blog, and was kinda surprised because she hardly seemed like the kind of person who'd have a blog, and i think she's fallen prey somewhat viciously to a bunch of people who really wouldn't know how she really is. I can't claim i do, but based on the brief period i had swimming training with her and all, she really was a nice person who didn't put on airs and i'd say that she has achieved alot and her posts aren't exaggerated at all really. It's jus typical that people are always gonna be self-serving and in denial that they spend too much time putting others down than trying to improve themselves to reach that kind of level instead. Just like how one would rather eliminate the competition and hope that they meet with something unfortunate than by training up to beat them on level terms.
Monday, November 21, 2005
My dad and his brothers were sitting around having their usual deliberations covering every topic imaginable when one of my uncles lamented on the state of today's music, and in particular, its metal and rock scene. One thing i respect is the fact that my dad and company were pretty damn passionate about old skool rock and music and my uncle has kept some random guitar in his living room for decades and consistently belts out lines from a random eagle/sabbath/chicago song from time to time. So when they began mourning the death of good rock music today, my natural reaction was instinctively that of dissent. But after some observations and listening, i soon found myself dismayed by the state of affairs presented by today's metal bands and the direction they seem to be taking as of late.
I once read an article in the papers describing the disjointed youth of today, supposedly apathetic, detached from reality, constantly referring to himself in the third person. Normally i read and listen to all news with more than a pinch of salt (seeing as how Singapore is ranked like 140th in being catergorized as "free media", freedom of speech my ass) but i couldn't help but agree with the viewpoint this journalist took, of course substantiated with some frighteningly real evidence even i could embarrassingly relate to at brief moments. It seems like youth have carefully created this whole moody, dishevelled, seemingly indifferent image for themselves which only belies an insecure nature, highly sensitive to the criticisms of others. Tell this to any of them and they'd get immediately defensive with the predictable line of "i don't give a damn what you think". Yeah right punk. You don't give a damn because you DON'T think.
So what am i getting at anyway? Seems to me like every other band is taking this whole screamo thing to the point where it just gets irritating and noisy. It can be pretty fascinating to see small skinny guys screaming about originality and individualism, never mind their carefully purchased ensemble which make them near carbon copies of each other, by no means a reflection of the intensity and presence of the bands they claim to be inspired by. Possibly in a frantic bid to sound aggresive and angsty, they throw screams and throats into every line of the song to the point where it distorts any form of melodic construct. Frankly, the result of that is that it comes out sounding like crap. Sadly, more and more bands seem to be emulating this whole trend with fervour, because if you think about it, it's just a whole lot simpler to scream about nothing anyone cares about than to form a song one may actually label as music. This is completely different from death/black metal. There just doesn't seem to be any sort of congruence within the music, generating a sort of false appreciation more than anything. It's odd to see these guys patting themselves on the back for rocking the stage, when really it was just messy and confusing. Compared to this, the whole numetal trend can rest easy knowing it produced a more positive lasting impression than the current direction of metal seems to be headed. It has reached the stage where I can't differentiate one song from the next at all.
Hopefully the arrival of Dream Theater and Mayhem will put things back into perspective.
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