Hi to you all…. I wanna go into the point immediately….

In one of our lectures, one of our doctors was discussing us about the culture we are learning about and about our culture…. The conclusion was that our culture becomes so poor, so pathetic after it was the centre of all cultures!!! We tried to think about the reason…. All know that here in the Arabic world, there might be great writers, great inventors, great scientists, great thinkers, but where are they??? They are suppressed…. They are declined, they are eliminated… Do you know what??? I tried to continue thinking about it…. And here what i thought of and what i think are the main factors of our being backward….

Once we were the essence, we were the power of culture…. That was centuries ago… though we didn’t have that
technologies or that communication with the wide world!! It was coz we were able and willing to accept the OTHER… I mean we accepted all kinds of thoughts, all kinds of inventions, all kinds of literature… we were open-minded… the American or the British culture was not apparent yet, and I can supply with historical evident if you want…. Now they are the essence, and we are the trash,,, yes sorry to say this…. But now we have nothing to accept other than everything related to unimportant things or commodities of life!!! Why???

As I’ve said before, we don’t accept the other.., plus if we think more and deep into the matter, we will find that we are all the times behave according to One Individuality, One Psyche, One Mind….. What are those things referring to??? Since years ago I think that this One Self is the society’s own made self!! The traditions, the restricting traditions which make us behave in the same way, think in the same mentality!! BUT most people while behaving according to this one-self, differ in their inner desires; being bad or good. If bad, it will appear in crimes, illegal relations, robbery, etc… if good, it will bring thinkers, open-minded people and those being able to Discuss and Present real image of the people we have to be…

Now where does the problem lie?? It’s difficult actually to determine it… sometimes the surroundings, the equipment, and the life with its difficulties can be the main obstacle… sometimes, if someone is convinced totally with something, he’ll face those traditional who will render his plans…. It may be that this person determines sth, but with the first obstacle and refusal he’ll meet, he will withdraw from his opinions and consequently act like what all other do….
Now the danger lies in the last type… coz if everyone feels weakness, and gives up the message he is fighting for then all will be the same and no change will be done!!! I Confess Deeply that I’m from that sort whom life can break easily… every time I determine about a thing in my life, I feel weakness and I give up and I know that I’m totally wrong in this…

IF WE DON’T HELP EACH OTHER TO CHANGE STH, TO HELP EACH OTHER COMPLETE THE MESSAGE WITHOUT BEING MOCKED OR LOOKED AT AS INSANE THEN NO ONE WILL HELP US AND WE’LL KEEP MOVING BACKWARD… THE OLDS WON’T HELP US, BUT WE YOUNGS SHOULD DO THIS…
REMEMBER THE LANGUAGE OF REASON IS POWERFUL THAN THAT OF EMOTIONS…
WE HAVE TO ACCEPT THE OTHERNESS EVEN IF IT CONTRADICTS OUR BELIEVES AND OUR PRINCIBLES…

NOTE: you are not obliged to reply on my topic. Pleas if you just have the answer (yes/no) keep it for urslef, I know the topic is not new, but I want it to be serious… discuss if you agree or disagree and don’t tell me fabulous things coz all of us know in what place and in what thoughts we are restrained…. Thanks for your reading…

 
I will be direct, let me tell you that you write such lines in the wrong place, it had better to be kept inside your mind than to release them down on such pages where majority are but shallows and minority are but ordinaries, I do not mean to humiliate anyone in here.

For me, the reason of our one-type or stereotype is the cult control.
West becomes superior when they put the church behind their backs, and keep it as a symbol for occasions, Christ, charismas and shit like that.

In here, in the east, we still put the holy book, the god, and the messenger, and everything relate to them in the front glass of our shiny store.

I am not against god, to be clear.
Arab as a developed and moveable communities we has such change but let me tell you it. From religion to contradictions and traditions, then from traditions to religion, then a beautiful and nice outcome, the tradition-religious products.

Look
When you have religions, so your mind if you notice will stick to the lives of old and messenger and prophets, when you have traditions, you mind and all your consciousness will follow the ancient.
The result will be, that you are a copy, but bad one, not original one.
Even in backwardness you are not a prefect copy but a polluted one.
You live in 21st century and you mind is 17th and 7th century.

Believe me, I still think why the west is superior and we are inferior, because they know what is our weaknesses, it is the religion and what relates to it. Hahhaha, shameful right?

Someone will come to reply to my comment and say, we are proud of our prophet and our beliefs and our religion.
Yes we are proud, but religion if you focus on, is for heart, not for places, buildings, fashion, action, and fake appearances.

The answer is:
We will be like others, when we use mind, not muscles, when we use logic not shouts and war outcries. When we respect differences and respect the human beings what ever they are.
We will be civilized when we reject fundamentalism, when you put fanaticism behind our asses.
We will be great when we play one role against the backward beliefs, and against Usama Ben Laden.
We will be advanced and civilized when we do not look at each others' business, when we do not look at each other like stupid and crass, when we are no longer carious, we will be great nation, when we put religion in the heart and put civil law in the mind, we will be great nation, when we will understand what human beings rights and respect it.

Why our streets are dirty, why our WC in university the place of high studies are dirty, while Islam's most repeatedly deed is to clean before Prayer!!!!
I know my words have no effects between you, nor it will be heard someday, I am the wrong infront of your eyes, and believe me, we are the lost in the end.

Palestine is bleeding, where is god? He will never help you even if you double your prayers to million, because you are weak.
Blood in iraq and soon I do not know where, backwardness in every place where religions are the rulers, where heavenly or earthy, the mind and logic are the rulers of civilization of humanity.

 
This is a second to none topic....thanks Roula,
Hey people, wake up!!!!!!!!!
stop thinking of traditions and such thinking of "If I made this, people would talk badly about me!!!" let's start to re-steer this train of life into our own interest and try to have a better society...........
I may disagreed with Sheba in some points and agree with him in others, but this won't change the deep truth about us being so humiliated and off the road of civilization.....
the bad aplliance of religion might be one of many many big problems confront us in the meantime, but we can't relate this only to religion.....
I agree with the idea that the misbehavior of some Sheiks about some critical issues may be a big problem in some religious-related matters...specially what concerns about science and other educational issues....on the other hand, we find some other Sheiks believe in "let your mind go beyond the unlimited reach" and they try to relate the great rules of our religion in a great way to the needs of society for the benefit of our people....But you know what!!!! they'll rapidly be disappeared because of some other political interests which are to keep the Arab in the middle of no where............
so, we have to think deeply about our problems better than ascribing all problems to religion!!!!!
Anyway, the solution of our present situation won't be found, believe me, before the next century I guess!!!!!! this is the truth and we can't help it!!!
this is my opinion and i'm sorry for prolixity......

 
Sheba, Nawwar,
Thanks for your comments.... I will read them carefully and reply later
it seems so..

 
well I've read what you both have written...
First for you Sheba sorry to say this, but in the West they know their religion more than we do.... As I think, our main problem is that we don't know our religion correctly.... we understand religion just to be prayers and worshipping without knowing the esssence of it.... can you tell me what's the use of one's prayers if he looks at others, talks about them badly, prevents them from their freedom??that's the problem Sheba... By the way it was the Golden Era of our civilization... and I think that it was that time when Arabs had mind and were able to recieve everything... Now we are unable to be like this.... I wish if we can at least have that mind.... it was the era when we moved toward civilization and I think from that time till now, we are losing everything...
when I wrote the topic I thought of an idea about religion.... but I fear if I wrote it I might be misunderstood by many... What I wanted to say is that yes we have to keep religion alittle bit away when we have to accept and examine any civilization... Yes for example... can you imagine that an M.A thesis about D.H Lawarance or about Psychoanalysis is prohibited in our college???do you know the reason??? hahaha they say that it's not fit to our traditions, nor to our religion!!! why???are we going to study D.H Lawrance coz we are facinitaed with sexual matters for example?? I really can't comprehend the case....and we can count many other issues like this... (but I want to say this matter has nth to do with our doctors...it's with higher people who didn't study literature at all!!!) I think this is another big problem.... and whenever I tell myself this, I find many obstacles facing me...so I give up.... Coz we are obliged to live among this damned society!! I hope one day I either get rid of this society or better dream for them to become better, but what I'm dreaming of is furthest than the stars....we can reach and touch the moon, but we can't change the notion of looking at others...
Plus I don't know why people have nothing more pleasant that to see others fighting... to see others not educated... to see others work according to that ONE-INDIVIDUAL.... walla I wonder how all notions are reversed as if hatred, fights, stupidity are what God creates us for!!!

 
Roula,
First I would like to thank you for this topic, I got couple of things to say.... It happens because we fear being alone, we fear being abandoned by others, because when someone decides to try something new or do something new he/she will face many obstacles, many loved ones like families sometimes stand in hi/her face, so what to do? Either to forsake her/his family or to forsake what she/he wanted to do......it's when no one takes the first choice...no one...it's when our past becomes our present and continues to be our future.
Besides, we don't believe in our abilities, we fear failure...we FEAR...
I think if we just took our fear away, we will make a change, we will see the difference.... true No Comment........
It’s not our traditions that keep us behind, not our believes………I’m afraid to say it’s our corrupted mentality.

We lost our degree among others because we forsook our believes and we stuck instead with stupid worthless minor things. We are not what we used to be because we are away away away from God. We will never get what we lost back unless we change our way of thinking.
Listen people, I might seem to be a very restrict closed mind shallow thinking to the majority of you, but I got couple of points to say. First, let me tell you this story.
I was once walking on the beach and there was two kids ridding their bikes, and behind them appeared a middle aged woman seemed to be their mother. The special thing about them is that they were not ARABS…they passed beside us-me and someone- normally, and we continued walking. After that I saw a boy also ridding his bike but he lost control over it bike and almost was about to hit me. I run away from him when a middle aged European man passed beside us and said, ‘Alsalam 3alaikum’ ….I was astonished and replied him happily, ‘Wa 3alaikum Alsalam’ and wished to go back to that woman and say ‘Alsalam 3alaikum’ though she seemed to be not Muslim.

Our prophet(PBUH) asked us to spread ‘Alsalam 3alaikum’ between us, and though we are following his words -as we convince ourselves that we do- but really we don’t do it, instead we remain silent. He also told us to put a smile on our faces weather real or fake, but we don’t….

Look at Europe or US, look what they got. They reached the moon while we still here…….do you wanna know the reason?? Let me tell you.

I know that most of you have heard the statement that says, ‘In Europe, I saw Islam but saw not Muslims’ well, it’s somehow the reason why we are behind, how?

The little thing that happened with me got me asking, ‘why would that man say that words though he knows us not? Why did he choose to say Alsalam 3alaikum? Why did not he say ‘Hi’ or ‘Hello’?? why we were not the one to start saying it?…I found the reason.

The mentality that most of us carry is corrupted alas…we think that we hold our prophets good manners but the fact that we don’t…..we know nothing about seeming and being.
As you said Roula, most of us knows Islam -or religion for general- as praying and worshiping, they don't know that what really matters the most is MANNERS..
When we stop cheating as our teachings says we will move on. When we help each others, we will change.
We were taught all these manners through our religion, through our prophets manners....
We were at the top when we understood our religion, when didn't care about what we might seem for others, when we didn't judge others from out side ignoring thier minds, ignoring what they reall are .....
Our religion is GreaT is not as you think, the problem is in US, we are not doing what we should, instead we follow shallow stuff.....WAKE UP.......

 
Nawal8q,
Thanks for your comment....
Yes that's true...we lack manners...

But I want to say as Nawar said, I don't want to discuss religious thoughts or things like that in this topic.... Let's us forget about this.... We must differintiate between Religion, Tradition and Culture

Look to say a final thing about those three notions.... Religion has nothing to do with Culture even with traditions....
For example, we may have someone in Sudan, but he invents or discovers sth great... so here niether place nor time even tradition prevents him from being so....
We might find another in India, with no religion.... he might also discover sth..

While we are here doing nth.... just pretending that we have religion, culture and traditions...
And let me say that many habits in our stupid traditions are against the religious prenciples....

Let's leave religion aside...true religion doesn't prevent knowledge... but since we are having sth wrong in our mentalities, then we are trying to find the reason but it won't be clear...

I mean let's forget about religion and traditions and let's start providing each other with sth to move toward the better
Thanks again Nawal...

 
Roula,
thank you but let me be clear..... You are right, but I wanted to reply the others...our religion is not the problem as I said, the problem is with us..our way of thinking... Sorry to write this in arabic...
نعيب زماننا و العيب فينا....و ما لزماننا عيب سوانا
و نهجوا ذا الزمان بغير ذنب....و لو نطق الزمان لنا هجانا
but if we knew the reason, if we recognize the problem, what it will change??? noting as I think...because we are afraid..........