My OperaThe 99 - the Dream of Naif al-Mutawa
Sunday, October 25, 2009 9:21:10 AM
Things are changing in the world. Balances of power are changing, as do balances of thoughts. Philosophies are changing. What until yesterday was 'true' appears to be 'false' or 'incomplete' today. Are you changing with it? I had to think of this when I saw Al Jazeera's Riz Khan doing an interview with Dr. Naif al-Mutawa. He holds (a.o.) a PhD in Clinical Psychology from Long Island University and has a 'hobby': producing stripbooks about The 99. An informed reader immediately recognizes this number. It refers to the 99 qualities Islam attributes to Allah. So, are these stripbooks another way to make propaganda for Islam? No! The story-lines are non-religious, the characters archetypical: they cross cultural blindness and ignorance that endangers so much our still unbalanced, modern world. Yet the basis finds its root in the Qur'an and the beauty (!) of the lifestyle it expresses. Modern Islam, which al-Mutawa lives, has transcended old black-and-white thinking. It lets the Qur'an define itself for everybody, and as al-Mutawa says: "Knowing that children will learn vicariously from The 99 to be tolerant of all who believe in doing unto others as we would have them do unto us, makes me very proud." Does this sound suspect to you, or familiar...?The 99 be your guide to enlightening insights.
The magazine "EMEL" represents -to my opinion- the New Look of Islam in a best way. Where many outside the world of Islam believe Muslims are stuck in their ancient, non-discussable intolerance, full of obscure rituals, this is in fact far beyond reality.
John
For some its religion is the essence and substance of their lives, just like some zealous Christians live the Bible as a reality and refuse to see it as a metaphor. To reach out to either of these groups doesn't make sense - they will never open their veiled eyes and rather stick to their prejudices. Emel1 recently spent a full page on 'The 99', revealing a short promotional video from Endemols-UK, one of the world's leading makers of TV-productions. It made me smile a bit, then I recall very well how John de Mol many years ago ran his first studios as a neighbor next to our printing and publishing house in Holland. He knows what people want and what the trends are.
The 99 are a remarkable success-story, reaching out to young and old across the whole world. Its characters representing the human archetypes that fit any culture with a civilized philosophy. That's part of Islam, indeed, as well as its superb artwork by top-designers. Yet, the 99 are neither 'Arabic', nor 'Asian', 'African' or 'Western'. They belong to a vision of a rising, global family that abides to the recognition that we should share this planet in peace, in tolerance, with recognition of regional differences, respect for nature and full of self-responsibility. The stripbooks express these changes of mindset taking place all across the world. Balances have invisibly shifted already. Old thinking is replaced by a new wave of free thinking, without losing sight on common, for everybody acceptable human values. Young people feel attracted to this new world. Maybe Dr. Naif al-Mutawa's dream deserves the Nobel Prize for achieving just that...
Ad 1.'Emel' means desire/desirable
You must be 
(67%)
Angelikiellinidata # Sunday, October 25, 2009 4:51:46 PM
Dr. John v. Kampennepmak2000 # Sunday, October 25, 2009 4:58:52 PM
Angelikiellinidata # Sunday, October 25, 2009 5:08:10 PM
Dr. John v. Kampennepmak2000 # Sunday, October 25, 2009 8:07:34 PM
Mad Scientistqlue # Thursday, October 29, 2009 10:29:59 PM
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I'm sure that made you smile. Afterall, thinking is just the reaction you were going for, wasn't it?
I know that many are the 'staunch' muslim within this small community at the foot of Africa who would denounce this 'comic book' as another ridicule that 'we' (muslims) must be rid of. Yet, on another front, this reaches out and touches the youth that the Imaams and the Ulmaah cannot reach for all there learnedness!. It gives the option of following heroes who embody the very fabric of Islam in a way that non other can. It offers the ability to choose an Islamic example to follow rather than the western 'ideal' that promotes the un-Islamic principles of greed, lust, avarice etc,,,
So I will give this a chance and read a strip or two. Perhaps I can even find a few to whom I might impart some of this wisdom. There are surely enough children hungry for heroes in this small town!
Mad Scientistqlue # Thursday, October 29, 2009 10:59:17 PM
Mad Scientistqlue # Thursday, October 29, 2009 11:10:51 PM
Two crashes in almost as many minutes!
and I'm still none the wiser!
but it's got something to do with the submit button!
Mad Scientistqlue # Thursday, October 29, 2009 11:14:51 PM
Didn't I whisper those logs?
I'm going to bed! maybe my computer just needs a break! (hint,hint,)
Angelikiellinidata # Friday, October 30, 2009 1:11:57 AM
this is indeed an amazing post John ! thanks again for sharing
Dr. John v. Kampennepmak2000 # Wednesday, November 4, 2009 6:14:54 PM
Does this matter occur elsewhere as well (your blog?).
And for Angeliki: Yes, it is in some way 'daring' to post this stripbook phenomenon here, I realise, as for the reasons Aadil (Qlue) describes. Yet, it's news and a vast trend amongst youngsters. You both know my position on Islam, that I consider a lifestyle (a way of living your life) instead of a metaphysical religion that 'must' be lived. I don't find that last claim in the Qur'an. It's nowhere said - in contrary even! I think that reaching out to children with a safe and sound concept to show the dignity of 'God awareness' in relation to our responsibilities for this planet and for ALL that lives and is in it, the basic human standards found in every religion and the wish to achieve wellbeing in peace with nature and amongst ourselves, is most useful today in a materialistic world where things and ego superseed the notion of sharing, in particular of immaterial values. That was my motivation to bring this subject.
Angelikiellinidata # Wednesday, November 4, 2009 8:22:59 PM
Originally posted by nepmak2000:
Gosh! you almost gave me a heart attack! I am glad Gabie and you are well!
I hope you stick around ...and we do not hear from you in another 10 days or so.......
Dr. John v. Kampennepmak2000 # Wednesday, November 4, 2009 9:45:27 PM
It came rather by surprise, having Daniel with us briefly, who could take up some goods for Germany. Gaby then decided to clean up the mess of 2 years and renovate a few things overdue. And we were notified a change in the communication infrastructure in our region (all digital). Which made things complicated. But it worked and well in time. So, I am back - prepare for some new comments!
Angelikiellinidata # Wednesday, November 4, 2009 10:47:48 PM
Mad Scientistqlue # Wednesday, November 4, 2009 11:34:23 PM
I couldn't update to karmic so I was forced to download and install from scratch. Either that or stick with Jaunty.
The revamped version of Ubuntu Netbook Remix looks great.
I haven't installed Opera yet because I've still got some issues to resolve. I've bought a 1TB external harddrive to store my backups on. I need to figure out how to put a Linux filesystem on there and still be able to write to it under Ubuntu. (Ubuntu refuses to allow me to write to ext2 file systems outside of my home directory)
Dr. John v. Kampennepmak2000 # Thursday, November 5, 2009 2:30:43 PM
Block size Ext2: 1 KiB 2 KiB 4 KiB 8 KiB max. file size: 16 GiB 256 GiB 4 TiB 64 TiB max. filesystem size: 4 TiB 8 TiB 16 TiB 32 TiB
Ext4 has an 'expiration date' (see '2038' article) of
Date range Ext4 December 14, 1901 - April 25, 2514 and a capacity that exceeds all your data requirements: 4 billion files.
To install on an external hard drive, use the Installer and select the External Hard Drive to hold the GRUB...! There you install things the usual way.