Brooklyn Bedouin

Who Are the Assault Rifles For?

My fathers family comes from Scottsburg, a small village in Halifax County, VA. We went there this weekend and learned firsthand, from our family, that every American gun owner is not as zealous as some would have you believe. 

His name is Sterling and he is my father's first cousin. He and his family live on a sprawling farm where they raise grass-fed angus beef, among other animals. He is also involved in trucking, logging and other land-based ventures. He is a hard working businessman who works the land that his forefathers worked - and does so very successfully. At our family reunions he is the patriarch who opens and closes our gatherings with prayer and punctuates any interaction with a healthy mixture of seriousness, humor, and a deep faith in God. 

A few of us were gathered in the kitchen when I asked him what he thought about the recent efforts at "gun control" (i put that in quotations because it is a weak term, like the word minorities, that has very little meaning - and the meaning it does have is very, well, loaded). 

Sterling was very clear and very sensible. He has been an avid hunter his whole life and said that no hunter would use the assault rifles that they are proposing banning. Those weapons have no place hunting animals - for sport or for food. He mentioned that gun owners, such as himself, also did not need that amount of ammunition to do the type of hunting that people typically do. 

What did I learn from this?

When President Obama and Vice-President Biden talk about sensible gun owners I now put a very friendly, very loving, God-fearing face to that term. There are scores of good people who have always and will continue to use firearms responsibly. 

What did I surmise?

People who buy assault rifles intend to use them to kill other human beings. These people are expecting that there will be a war fought on American soil. These are the folks that are bracing for some kind of ultimate showdown against the government or from some other faction. 

Who would they be fighting? 

I imagine you can answer that question. 

Be in the World like a Traveler

There remains, in almost everyone that I know, a yearning for some thing which has been elusive to them. 

Even those who have the most intact families, the safest childhoods, and the blessed financials and calm safe homes, even those, there lies inside them something insatiable. 

What is this thing which eludes us?

The religious people will tell you that they found it. Yet their leaders will tell you that ones faith is a wavering thing, ones practice is an up and down experience. The doors of their houses of worship open and close and people find God in them less and less...

An alcoholic or a drug addict, once they have overcome their daily addiction, is still in the same predicament. They count the days, months, and years since… they are still an addict, only one that has mastered some of their appetite for that artificial thing which falsely and dangerously satiates them. 

In business we hunger as well. We want more time, more money, better people, more favorable terms, more freedom. Yet even as these things arrive we can barely recognize them, we shun them for something far off - something we cannot see. How many lives are ruined in this pursuit?

In our relationships it appears similar. There is a hopelessness in the way we have fallen in love, driven away friends, recognize the somewhat dismal reality of our own families, then see - in our partners and the homes we have created - flaws, although they may be different than the ones we have been raised, but flaws nonetheless. No, our relationships rarely fully bring us to that elusive thing. 

From this we wonder, then, what is success? How can one identify when they have reached it? Is this but one of the many mirages that we have been gifted by society to blind us from really knowing how to accept the inevitable - that we may never truly fill this need, or satiate this hunger?

What are the other mirages? The middle class? Being rich? Being poor?

What are you chasing and how long have you been chasing it?

For my part I find it in books, in writing, in traveling and meeting other people. But I recognize that I do not find "it" but rather, I find, in the pursuit, little flecks, particles, signposts, the "scent" of it is everywhere. Bombarded by the "machine" of false interactivity, losing countless hours of life sitting, away from the sun, body withering away… I usually feel like I have found something of "it" when I am in motion, a pedestrian, a traveler. 

And so…

On the authority of Ibn Umar, may Allah be pleased with both of them, who said: The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) took hold of my shoulder and said, ‘Be in the world as if you were a stranger or a traveller along the path.” And ibn Umar would say, “If you survive till late afternoon, do not expect [to be alive in] the morning. If you survive till morning, do not expect [to be alive in] the late afternoon. Take from your health before your sickness and your life before you death.”

al-Bukhari

 

Last Minute of my Birthday...

36

 thank you Allah

thanks to mommy + daddy

"...You say that I need therapy, but my darling so do you..."

This was my soundtrack my last night in Kuala Lumpor. Heard it on the radio and then the next day had a adventure leaving - essentially the longest 12-12-12 probably experienced by any human on earth. Thanks to Hammam Radwan, the Egyptian-Malaysian for tracking it and giving us all a safe ride home. Enjoy...

Feeling Safe?

According to a release from Mayor Bloomberg NYC recorded its lowest murder and shooting rates since stats have been recorded.

I remember the bad old days of the late 80's and early 90's when it seemed that at any moment a stray bullet could come take your life as you watched television. 

My questions...

Is it police officers that contribute to the lowest shootings and murders ever in NYC or is it the people in the City who make better decisions about how to deal with conflict?

What other factors are leading to the decline that are not "law&order" related?

When can we talk about those factors and put some of the "win" into the hearts of the citizens of the City instead of us simply thinking it was government in and of itself that produced these results?

Another question is that you always hear from the older generation about how different it was "back in the day". My mother tells stories of a Crown Heights where the whole neighborhood knew who you and your family was. My generation is now of age to raise children and send them off to school in the City, etc. We are doing so in a much safer city. However, when we were children it was downright dangerous -- more dangerous than ever - has anyone ever really told our story? Perhaps we, who grew up in NYC during its most volatile era, are the most impressive and resilient generation the City has ever seen? 

My Third Grade Class Picture from P.S. 307

Here are some interesting statistical comparisons they shared on the press release:

Comparable murder statistics date back to 1963 when the city recorded 548 homicides.  The most murders New York City recorded in a single year was 2,245 murders in 1990 – an average of six murders a day. Today, New York City averages closer to one murder a day – even though the city’s population has grown by roughly a million people since 1990.

Guns remained the leading cause of murder in New York City again this year. Of the 414 homicides so far this year, 237 were by firearms. This is 61 fewer gun related murders than last year, adecrease of 20 percent. In 2001, there were 371 gun related murders, 36 percent more than this year.

With the decrease in murder, New York’s murder rate has fallen to 3.8 homicides per 100,000 residents. New York City has a far lower murder rate than other major American cities. For example:

• If New York City had the same murder rate as Washington DC, New York City would have a total of 1,100 murdered this year.
• If New York City had Chicago’s murder rate, New York City would have a total of more than 1,400 murders this year.
• If New York City had Philadelphia’s murder rate, New York City would have a total of more than 1,700 murders this year.
• If New York City had Baltimore’s murder rate, New York City would have a total of more than 2,870 murders this year.
• If New York City had Detroit’s murder rate, New York City would have a total of nearly 4,400 murders this year.

According to data from the latest Uniform Crime Report, released in October 2012, New York City remains the safest big city in the United States. New York City recorded the lowest Index Crime rate among the twenty five largest U.S. cities.

 

"O' Child that used to be me..."

I have been thinking, as most of us have, a lot about my son and the world in which he is being raised in. So far he is being sheltered from a lot of the reality. At some point we have to filter the bad stuff so that he starts to understand it and therefore gets a real understanding of his relationship to this place, this country, and this time in history - and his role in all of it? He will determine that. 

I appreciate Dr. Jackson's words here, and particularly the poem he shares in this video as it relates to this personal journey but also made me reflect on my son's journey. 

America Has an Angry White Male Problem

Violence is a disease. Violence is learned behavior and can be unlearned.

When black males commit violent crimes the media goes up in arms about the trouble with black males. We are labeled as a menace to society. For generations this has been true. In reality, with 50% unemployment in some areas, gang violence and other sad indicators suggest there truly is a black male problem.

Similarly, when Muslims kill people in acts of violence then Islam, as a religion, and Muslims, as a people are blamed universally. Muslims are the problem. Islam is intrinsically at fault. The hard reality for most of us Muslims is to realize that we DO have a problem with extremism. 

When white males conduct mass shootings as they have become so famous for since Columbine, the world claims that these were isolated incidents and that these white males simply have a case of mental illness. When will white people, mothers, families, fathers, communities, have a serious conversation with itself? Why is it that mostly white males walk into schools and other places and shoot and kill and there is not a white male problem?

This was the sixth mass shooting in our nation in 2012. It is time for gun owners, NRA members, and white males to have a moment and figure out what the hell is going on and decide what they are going to do to stop the killing. 

Violence is a disease. Violence is learned behavior and can be unlearned.

 

Green Deen Radio Interview in Malaysia

I spent a fair amount of time in Malaysia interacting with some very intelligent people. The country is humming with activity and energy. There might not have been a better time to visit this Island nation than when I went  - with the right mix of political and marketplace freedoms expanding...

Meera Sivasothy is the Brian Lehrer of Kuala Lumpor!

About to try Durian for the First Time!

Just before leaving Malaysia Fazil, (future PM of Malaysia?) insisted that I finally give in and have Durian - some strange fruit that is, well, disgusting, and an acquired taste that people insist is something someone MUST do when visiting Malaysia... 

Rain in Kuala Lumpor