I know, I know. That’s the premise? It’s a bit more than that. At the start of the movie, Malik has already accumulated 10 million rupees on the game show and is thus arrested for suspicion of cheating. As the police inspector says, doctors and lawyers are on the show and do not go past 16 thousand rupees. What does a slumdog know?

So as Jamal is sitting in the police station, questioned by the inspector about his response to every single question, the audience watches as Jamal gives his story and we see how his path in life revealed the answers. We see him as a young boy with his brother Salim and friend Latika. We see him grow up and try to make some kind of living. We’re with him on his journey to find Latika, who he had lost track of. We find out about the events in his life that ultimately bring him to the hot seat of the popular game show.

I read that they couldn’t find a decent person to play Jamal Malik in India and that’s why they went with British actor Dev Patel, who turned out to be perfect for the role. The cast also includes Bollywood actor Anil Kapoor playing himself (or a smarmy version of himself. I’m not entirely sure), newcomer Frieda Pinto playing Latika, and Irfan Khan as the police inspector. Khan has made a name playing in non-Bollywood movies like A Mighty Heart, The Namesake, and Darjeeling Limited and now, this.

Slumdog Millionaire depicts an India that Bollywood usually tries to steer clear of. Boyle shows us the life of kids in the slums and the brutal reality that a lot of them face. It’s not light hearted and fluffy. Also, while the score is composed by A.R. Rahman, one of Bollywood’s most notable composers, there are no songs that the leads spontaneously break out to from 6-8 times during the movie. Instead, the score complements the visuals to give us a really good story that sticks with you after you leave the theater. Highly recommended.

I have followed Superman in all the mediums - I read the comics for a few years, I’ve seen all the Superman movies, any animated series that featured Superman, any TV shows that featured him - reruns of the black and white Superman show with George Reaves, Superboy, Lois and Clark, and, the topic of this post, Smallville.

There was a buzz around Smallville when it first debuted on the WB more than 7 years ago. And indeed it did start off quite well. The premise was as follows - A toddler in a spaceship crash lands in Smallville, Kansas amid a meteor shower. The meteor shower killed several people in Smallville, including the parents of Clark’s future crush Lana, and also had the unintended consequence of infecting some residents with ‘meteor rock’ (kryptonite as Clark found out later). These same rocks weaken Clark (but you knew that).

Also, the series featured a friendship between Clark and his future nemesis Lex Luthor. They met in the first episode when Clark saved Lex’s life and thus began their friendship and, unbeknown Clark, Lex’s obsession with finding out what exactly it was Clark was hiding.

Unfortunately, the series delved into a series of soapy, filler episodes that outnumbered the good ones and Lana Lang, who Clark could not stop fawning over, was one of the worst characters on TV. Yet, years later, I was still watching due only to my allegiance to the Man of Steel. My perseverance has paid off as Smallville seems to be experiencing a creative resurgence as of late. Might this be due to Lana no longer being on the show? I admit, there’s more to it than that (different writers, etc( but it’s enough for me.

However, even though I enjoy watching Smallville, I still find myself talking at the TV while I’m watching the episode because it’s just so illogical sometimes. Here are a few things:

-Clark has become a reporter at the Daily Planet despite his only experience stemming from writing an assignment or two for his high school paper 7 seasons ago. He hadn’t shown any interest at all in being a reporter and then all of a sudden he’s working at the Planet? Couldn’t the writers have spent two seconds to explain this? Maybe even Clark just saying “Good thing I got this job because I really like writing!” or something equivalently lame?

-These people never graduated from college. They all started at one point but then something happened to the school or something but then they never went back. Therefore, not only does Clark not have any experience to be a reporter, but he doesn’t even have a college degree. Lois doesn’t have a degree either.

-Back in Season 1, Smallville was far away from Metropolis. Now, it seems to be a few feet away as the characters live in Smallville and yet are happily commuting to Metropolis for their day jobs and in fact sometimes seem to make the round trip more than once in a day. And I’m not just talking about Clark zipping back and forth. I’m referring to the mortals on the show.

-Where’s Martha Kent? She’s a senator and all that for Kansas (yeah, I know) but there has been no mention of her for more than a season, even when Clark had disappeared for a few months. I mean, you don’t think she would care or something.

-Also, is Clark still running the farm? Sell the thing, man. You’re the only one who’s holding on.

Anyways, I’ll continue to watch Smallville until it’s no longer on. For the first time in a while, I’m interested in how the storylines will play out (although not looking forward to Lana showing up in 5 episodes this season). I just have to say that I know when the creators started Smallville, they were living by the mantra “No Flights, No Tights” but enough is enough. Put Clark in a costume and have him fly. It’s about time.

I remember back in 2004, watching the election coverage, waiting for Kerry to win. But then a weird thing happened: he didn’t win.

So this year, I’m not going to take anything for granted. Anything can still happen.

Here’s hoping Obama can make it happen…

This time last year, my family and I were in Pakistan. I spent more than $1,500 and 2.5 weeks of my life to go there. And for what? To be largely ignored by cousins or used as pawns in family issues. I had never in my life been so homesick and I couldn’t wait to get back home and hang with friends that actually like me and will willingly hang out with me. I even missed work! Before I left Pakistan, a couple of my aunts had told me to not take too much time to come back to Pakistan, as it had been 9 years since our last trip. I just smiled noncommittally.

So… Am I Ready To Go Back To Pakistan??

*drumroll*

Nope.

Thanks for playing folks!

Watch this space next year for another round of ‘Am I Ready to Go Back to Pakistan?’

The end of a wild night in Pakistan

Like I said, it was my first Mac. I had been meaning to get one for a while but every time I thought about it, a newer model was meant to be released soon and I withheld my purchase. This time (February) I figured if I didn’t take the plunge, then in my effort to always get the latest model I would never get one. Technology will always be updated and one can only have the latest and greatest for just a short amount of time and Apple updates their hardware every 9-12 months. Only with acceptance can I buy a Macbook Pro.

So after I bought the Pro I stopped going on the forums, stopped researching the next release date. I didn’t want to be the inevitable forum poster that was upset because Apple was releasing a newer version again (”But I just bought one *whine* “). I didn’t want to regret my purchase at all.

The announcement came today: Apple updated the Macbook, Macbook Pro, and Macbook Air. Therefore, my Macbook Pro is no longer the newest one.

And I’m ok with that.

But the seizure and the deal with JPMorgan came as a shock to Washington Mutual’s board, which was kept completely in the dark: the company’s new chief executive, Alan H. Fishman, was in midair, flying from New York to Seattle at the time the deal was finally brokered, according to people briefed on the situation. Mr. Fishman, who has been on the job for less than three weeks, is eligible for $11.6 million in cash severance and will get to keep his $7.5 million signing bonus, according to an analysis by James F. Reda and Associates.

*Whew*

I thought that was that and thought I could continue with the article but then I felt like changing this site. I ended up going with Pearson’s free Neoclassical theme and decided to retire the Caffeinated Muslim header I created last year. Instead, a few of my pictures will rotate in the header. Right now, I only have 3 pictures that will be rotated but I’m sifting through my pictures to figure out what else I’d like to rotate. If anyone has any ideas of which of my pics I should include, let me know! So far, I’m thinking about adding this, a pic I took in Singapore Airport’s restroom:

(I kid)

This is random, but I wanted to go into a few other aspects of all of this: my web host, FTP, working with images, and working with Wordpress.org, all under the cut (meaning you don’t have to read it if you don’t want to )

Web Host
Last year, I was told to create a website/blog for the media committee I’m on so after all going through all the information that is out there, I decided to sign up for Hostmonster. One of the reasons that I went with Hostmonster was because they had a script that would easily install a Wordpress.org blog and they were in a lot of top 10 web hosting lists. Even though GoDaddy was cheaper, I refused to use them. I hate their commercials. I have had a positive experience with the web host thus far and I’ve found it to be a good learning experience to navigate around all the features.

FTP
Hostmonster has an FTP program included that I had been using previously to upload files, such as Wordpress upgrades. However, when I was trying to upload all my files to their server this time around, I found out the program that I had always used does not work with a Mac! So, I turned to Filezilla, a free FTP program. I downloaded and installed it but for some weird reason, the program wouldn’t work. So, I downloaded and installed Fetch, which I then found out would cost $25. Um, no. THEN, I downloaded Cyberduck (which I should have done first. What a name!) and was able FINALLY use FTP (for free) with my Hostmonster account.

Image Manipulation
For this particular site, I had to get my pictures to fit a certain dimension in order for it to appear the way it does. Last year, when I created the header for this site and the committee’s site, I used PaintShop Pro on my HP laptop. I don’t have this on my Mac and I don’t have any other imaging tools at the moment. So, I download the unfortunately named GIMP, The GNU Image Manipulation Program, a free, open source solution that provides the capability to manipulate images. All I needed to do was adjust the image size and crop it properly so this program was able to do that easily. It can do a lot more, but I haven’t messed around with it just yet. Anyways, I was able to get my images just right by using this program.

Wordpress.org
Last year, I chose to use a Wordpress.org blog for the basis of the committee’s website because of the WP community - there are so many themes, etc. So, because I had so much space through my web host, I also decided to make this site a Wordpress.org site. Later, I found out about Wordpress.com and realized that it would have been so much easier to use that for this site. However, I realized that .org is better for me because I can mess around with it even more, even if it’s something as simple as adding some javascript to include my books from LibraryThing.

I was a bit intimidated in the beginning by the fact that I would have to upgrade WP installations on my own and felt a bit apprehensive about performing this function. However, after having done it a few times now, I realize that it really is not that big of a deal and I can get it done within 5 minutes or so (once I had the FTP stuff straightened out, that is). So, after I first used the script from my web host to initially install WP, I manually upgrade it on my own. It’s not a problem though.

So that’s that. I thought I’d share

Even though he was seen as the natural successor for leadership within the Nation of Islam, WD Mohammad became increasingly open about his rejection of his father’s teachings: the divinity of blacks, the divine origins of Nation founder WD Fard as “Savior Allah incarnate”, and the belief that whites were the Devil incarnate. While serving time in prison for concientious objection to the military draft, Mohammad studied the Qur’an and built up the courage to confront his father’s teachings, even as he was groomed to succeed him. Once released from prison, his rejoined the leadership of his father’s movement, all the while his doubts growing stronger.

His refusal to endorse the unorthodox teachings of the Nation, combined with his open confrontation of corruption within it, kept him in obscurity among other leaders of the group. It was not until ten years later, after the death of his father, that WD Mohammad was able to ascend to leadership and begin turning the movement towards the vision he had spent the last decade crafting. By 1977, he formally broke the Nation away from its original teachings and discarded the name, leaving it and its few remaining believers to Minister Louis Farrakhan, who runs a much smaller Nation to this day.

While WD Mohammad was determined to re-orient his organization towards orthodox Islam, he did so without rejecting the positive teachings that the Nation brought to that community, such as self-reliance and personal discipline. “[He] was able to do two remarkable things,” says Sulayman Nyang, a professor of African Studies at Howard University. “One [was] the re-Islamization of the movement; the second, the re-Americanization of the movement.” Under his leadership, Imam Mohammad’s community reached out to other faith groups, stressed civic engagement as a means of self-empowerment, and worked for economic self-sufficiency. By some accounts, the community under his influence grew to nearly one million people.

Imam Mohammad’s influence, however, was felt outside the African-American Muslim community as well. While some immigrant muslims were (and still are) unaware of what WD Muhammad gave to their community, his influence was most profoundly felt within Muslim leadership. As he reached out to predominantly immigrant Muslim organizations, he brought the lessons of nearly a half-century of organization and vision-making to the table. After his invocation to the US Senate in 1993, he led two more for President Bill Clinton. He shared a stage with Pope John Paul II and The Dalai Lama in 1999, addressing 100,000 people at the Vatican. In 2000, he had a public reconciliation with Louis Farrakhan, though that was seen as a sign of the Nation’s increasing subordination to the global, mainstream Islam Mohammed steered his community towards.

Read more.

There is an email going around from Azhar Usman, a Muslim comedian, that he wrote after he attended the funeral of Imam WD Muhammad and is being reposted on a lot of blogs. The entire email is under the cut.

© 2008 Azhar Usman

An Apology
Heartfelt reflections on the passing of a legendary Blackamerican Muslim leader

On September 11th, 2008, while countless American flags whipped in the wind and the television and radio waves were dominated by remembrances, recordings, and stories about the terror attacks of seven years ago, I attended the funeral of Imam W.D. Mohammed (may God be pleased with him). For me, it was a somber day, but I found myself mostly lost in thought: about African-American Muslim communities, about the challenges ahead in American Muslim institution-building, and about the future of Islam in America. If you don’t know who Imam WDM was, you should look him up. The Sufis say: “The true sage belongs to his era.” And of the many gifts given to Imam WDM by God, perhaps the most obvious and beneficial one was the Imam’s profound understanding of the principles of religion, and his adeptness at intelligently applying those Islamic principles in a socially and culturally appropriate manner befitting the everyday lives of his North American followers. While carefully respecting sound, traditional jurisprudential methodologies of the Islamic religion, and the collective religious history and time-honored scholarship of classical Islam, he promulgated creative ideas and dynamic teachings across many domains of human endeavor, including theology, law, spirituality and even ethics and aesthetics, that together articulated a vision for a quintessentially “American Muslim” cultural identity. And he did all of this before anyone else, with quiet strength and unending humility—a true sage indeed.

So I stood before his final resting place, brokenhearted. And I suddenly began to feel the weight of the moment, realizing that when God takes back one of his dearly beloved friends, those who are left behind should cry not for the deceased, but rather for themselves. For the fact that they are now without one of God’s friends in their midst, and, in a sense, they are orphaned. And the tears began to well up, for I became acutely aware that I was standing in front of the grave of my spiritual grandfather, who was himself a spiritual descendant of Bilal al-Habashi (may God be pleased with him), the mighty and beloved companion of the Prophet himself. Bilal was the first Black African to convert to al-Islam at the hands of the Prophet Muhammad (may God bless him and keep him) in the sands of Arabia nearly a thousand and a half years ago. Undoubtedly, some measure of that love, mercy, compassion, and spiritual stature that inhabited the heart of Bilal has found its way down through the ages, and I found myself begging God to transfer to my own heart some glimpse of these realities now laying before me.

Almost five years ago, my business partner, Preacher Moss (who is a member of the WDM community) founded the standup comedy tour “Allah Made Me Funny,” and he invited me to be his co-founder. Needless to say, it has been nothing less than an honor to work with him on the project. But to many, it was an unusual pairing: a Black comic and an Indian comic? Both Muslims? Working together? And before we ever even announced our partnership publicly, we met privately and swore an allegiance to one another—a blood oath of sorts—which was this: No matter what happens, in good times and in bad, we have to be the brothers no one expects us to be. And bui lt on this promise (and premise), we brought on our first collaborator, Brother Azeem (who is a member of Minister Farrakhan’s NOI), with whom we toured for over two years (2004-2006) before parting ways amicably. Then we brought Mohammed Amer onto the team in the fall of 2006 (a Kuwaiti-born Palestinian refugee who grew up in a Sunni Muslim family in Houston, Texas). Mo, Preach, and I are still going strong together, and we are grateful for the unqualified support, love, and blessings that Imam WDM and the entire community have always given us.

But today, as I observed the funeral proceedings, I felt sad and heavy-hearted. Something wasn’t sitting right. Something was physically paining my heart, and it felt like remorse, shame perhaps, maybe even guilt. I began to realize that the tears flowing from my eyes were as much a function of these feelings as they were any lofty spiritual aspirations of mine.

You see, I attended an interfaith event a couple of years ago on 9/11. A group had assembled to commemorate the tragic event, to honor those who perished that day, and to pledge ongoing inter-community support and bridge-building to fight ignorance, hate, and intolerance. At that event, there was this short, middle-aged, sweet, extremely kindhearted, White Christian woman. When she took the microphone to speak, she was already teary-eyed, and I assumed that she was going to make some comments about the victims of 9/11, as so many others already had that night.

But she didn’t do that. Instead, she explained that she had become utterly grief-stricken by the constant barrage of news stories she witnessed about Muslims and Arabs being harassed, profiled, and mistreated after 9/11. She explained that she felt powerless to do anything about it, and that it made her sick to her stomach to hear of hate crimes against Muslims and Arabs, and especially to hear of Christian preachers denigrating Islam and its Prophet. She started to cry, and so did many others in the room, humbled by the magnanimity of this simple woman.

And then she did what I thought was a strange thing: she apologized. She prefaced her apology with all the logical disclaimers, such as “I know this may mean nothing to you,” and “I know that I am not the one who did these horrible things,” and “I know that you may dismiss this as empty rhetoric until you see some follow-up action on my part, but anyway,” she continued, “I want to apologize on behalf of all the Christians and all non-Muslims and non-Arabs who have been attacking your communities, harassing your people, and accusing your religion of all these horrible things. I’m sorry. I’m very, very sorry.” I was stunned. Speechless, in fact. Though all of her disclaimers were true, and my skeptical mind knew it, her apology melted our hearts. Here was this powerless servant of God sharing some of her most deeply felt emotional vulnerabilities, and she was apologizing to Muslims for something she didn’t even do? Jesus (may God bless him and keep him) once famously remarked: “Make the world your teacher,” and so I immediately took this woman as a lesson in humility. Admitting her powerlessness made her incredibly powerful.

And this brings me to the point (and title) of this essay. I would like to unburden myself of something that has been sitting like a ton of bricks on my heart for my entire life. I want to apologize to my Blackamerican brothers and sisters in Islam. I know that this apology may not mean very much; and I know that our American Muslim communities have a LONG way to go before we can have truly healthy political conciliation and de-racialized religious cooperation; and I know that I am not the one who is responsible for so much of the historical wrongdoing of so-called “immigrant Muslims”—wrongdoings that have been so hurtful, and insulting, and degrading, and disrespectful, and dismissive, and marginalizing, and often downright dehumanizing.

But anyway, for every “Tablighi” brother who may have had “good intentions” in his own subjective mind, but behaved in an utterly insensitive and outrageous manner toward you when he suggested that you need to learn how to urinate correctly, I’m sorry.

And for every Pakistani doctor who can find money in his budget to drive a Lexus and live in a million-dollar house in suburbia, and who has the audacity to give Friday sermons about the virtues of “Brotherhood in Islam,” while the “Black mosque” can’t pay the heating bills or provide enough money to feed starving Muslim families just twenty miles away, I’m sorry.

And for every Arab speaker in America who makes it his business to raise millions and millions of dollars to provide “relief” for Muslim refugees around the world, but turns a blind eye to the plight of our very own Muslim sisters and brothers right here in our American inner cities just because, in his mind, the color black might as well be considered invisible, I’m sorry.

And for every liquor store in the “hood” with a plaque that says Maashaa’ Allah hanging on the wall behind the counter, I’m sorry.

And for every news media item or Hollywood portrayal that constantly reinforces the notion that “Muslim=foreigner” so that the consciousness of Blackamerican Muslims begins even to doubt itself (asking “Can I ever be Muslim enough?”), I’m sorry.

And for every Salafi Muslim brother (even the ones who used to be Black themselves before converting to Arab) who has rattled off a hadith or a verse from Koran in Arabic as his “daleel” to Kafirize you and make you feel defensive about even claiming this deen as your own, I’m sorry.

And for every time you’ve been asked “So when did you convert to Islam?” even though that question should more properly have been put to your grandparents, since they became Muslims by the grace of God Almighty back in the 1950s, and raised your parents as believers, and Islam is now as much your own inheritance as it is the one’s posing that presumptuous, condescending question, I’m sorry.

And for every time some Muslim has self-righteously told you that your hijab is not quite “Shariah” enough, or your beard is not quite “Sunnah” enough, or your outfit is not quite “Islamic” enough, or your Koranic recitation is not quite “Arabic” enough, or your family customs are not quite “traditional” enough, or your worldview is not quite “classical” enough, or your ideas are not “authentic” enough, or your manner of making wudu is not quite “Hanafi,” “Shafi,” “Maliki,” or “Hanbali” enough, or your religious services are not quite “Masjid” enough, or your chicken is not quite “Halal” enough, I’m sorry.

And for every Labor Day weekend when you’ve felt divided in your heart, wondering “When will we ever do this thing right and figure out how we can pool our collective resources to have ONE, big convention?,” I’m sorry.

And for every time a Muslim has tried to bait you with a question about the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, trying to force you to condemn him—turning it into some sort of binary litmus test of true iman—with reckless and irresponsible disregard for the historical fact that he was among the first Black men in America to ever do anything meaningful for the upliftment and betterment of Black people, I’m sorry.

And for every time you’ve heard of an African-American brother who tried to bring home a South Asian or Arab sister to meet his parents, only to learn that her parents would rather commit suicide than let their daughter marry a “Black Muslim” (a/k/a “Bilalian brother”), even as they cheer hypocritically at stadium style speeches by Imams Siraj Wahhaj, Zaid Shakir, Johari Abdul Malik, or others—or get in line to bring one of them to speak at their multi-million dollar fundraiser for yet another superfluous suburban mosque, I’m sorry.

I’m sorry. I’m very, very sorry. From the bottom of my heart, I want every African-American Muslim brother and sister to know that I am ashamed of this treatment that you have received and, in many cases, continue to receive, over the decades. I want you to know that I am aware of it. I am conscious of the problem. (Indeed, I am even conscious that I myself am part of the problem since curing hypocrisy begins by looking in the mirror.) I am not alone in this apology. There are literally thousands, if not tens of thousands of young American Muslims just like me, born to immigrant parents who originate from all over the Muslim world. We get it, and we too are sick of the putrid stench of racism within our own Muslim communities. Let us pledge to w ork on this problem together, honestly validating our own and one another’s insecurities, emotions, and feelings regarding these realities. Forgiveness is needed to right past wrongs, yet forgiveness is predicated on acknowledging wrongdoing and sincerely apologizing. Let us make a blood oath of sorts.

When the bulldozer came to place the final mounds of dirt over the tomb of Imam WDM, I was standing under a nearby tree, under the light drizzle that had just begun (perhaps as a sign of mercy dropping from the heavens as the final moments of the burial were drawing to a close), and I was talking to a dear friend and sister in faith, whose family has been closely aligned with Imam WDM for decades. She shared with me a story that her father had just related to her about the passing of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad in 1975 (the same year I was born, incidentally). She told me that her father described the scene in the immediate aftermath of Elijah’s demise: utter confusion and chaos within the NOI and the communities surrounding it. There was much debate and discord about what direction the NOI would take, and many were still in shock and denial that the founder had actually died. Out of the midst of that confusion arose Imam WDM, and along with his strong leadership came an even more, perhaps surprisingly courageous direction: the path away from the Black nationalism, pan-Africanism, and proto-religious beliefs of his father, and instead the unequivocal charge toward mainstream Islam, the same universal and cosmopolitan faith held and practiced by over a billion adherents worldwide. In this manner, her father explained, the death of Elijah Muhammad became a definitive end to a chapter in our collective history, and the resulting re-direction by Imam WDM marked the beginning of the next, far better, chapter in that unfolding history.

Maybe I am just an idealistic fool, or maybe Pharaoh Sanders was right about the Creator’s Master Plan, but I sincerely believe that all we have to do—all of us together: Black folks, South Asians (Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis), Arabs from every part of the Middle East and North Africa, Southeast Asians (Indonesians and Malaysians), Persians, Turks, Latinos, assorted Muslims of all stripes, colors, and backgrounds, and yes, even our White Muslim brothers and sisters—is live up to a simple promise to one another: No matter what happens, in good times and in bad, we have to be the brothers and sisters no one expects us to be.

It is hoped that the passing of Imam WDM will also mark the end of a chapter in our collective American Muslim history, and perhaps now, in earnest, we can all look together toward The Third Resurrection.

May God mend our broken hearts, lift our spirits, purify our souls, heal the rifts between our communities, unify our aims, remove our obstacles, defeat our enemies, and bless and accept our humble offerings and service.

——————————————-

© 2008 Azhar Usman | 10 Ramadan 1429 | 11 September 2008

About the Author
Azhar Usman is a Chicago-based, full-time standup comedian. He is co-founder of “Allah Made Me Funny—The Official Muslim Comedy Tour,” which has toured extensively all over the world. He is frequently interviewed, profiled, and quoted in the press, and he is an advisor to the Inner-city Muslim Action Network’s Arts and Culture programs. Mr. Usman is also a co-founding board member of The Nawawi Foundation, a non-profit American Muslim research institution. He considers himself a citizen of the world and holds degrees from the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Minnesota Law School. Born and raised in Chicago, his parents originally hail from Bihar, India.

DISCLAIMER: The views and emotions expressed in this essay are those of the author and are not necessarily held, advocated, or even endorsed by any of the institutions with which he may be affiliated.

For more information, please visit:
www.allahmademefunny.com
www.nawawi.org
www.imancentral.org
www.azhar.com

For those of you have not seen the show, here’s a brief summary - An alien spaceship lands on Earth, ending a global war as different countries banded together to study the ship. 10 years later, it’s about to go on its maiden voyage in space when the Zentraedi, a race of giant human-like warriors, attack. The SDF-1 (as the ship is now called) jumps into space, accidentally jumping too far into space and taking an entire city, Macross, with it.

Anyways, it’s a long story.

So the other night I was at my sister’s and she and my brother-in-law happened to be watching Robotech on DVD. As the episode progressed, my brother-in-law made a comment that I’ve heard expressed before:

“You know, the Zentraedi are supposed to be Muslim.”

The Zentraedi are completely segregated - men and women generally seem to be on different ships. They have no concept of romance and do not have any idea about, y’know, ’stuff’. On one occasion, a Zentraedi ship was able to view a live feed of the the Miss Macross pageant happening on the ship and didn’t know what to make of girls in skimpy outfits. When Rick Hunter, Lisa Hayes, and Max Sterling were caught by the Zentraedi, Rick and Lisa had to show the Zentraedi what a ‘kiss’ was, which resulted in a disgusted group of Zentraedis. Minmei, the singing sensation of Macross, was their downfall as the soldiers were introduced to an entirely different way of life through her songs. Many Zentraedi wanted to defect to the human ship and, thus, embrace the human way of life because of her.

In short, the Zentraedi could portray how some of the world see Muslims while the humans, more specifically the humans of SDF-1, could represent the Western World. Note that I said how the world sees Muslims but not actually what Muslims are actually like

OR

There is no meaning behind anything and we all just think too much.

(I’m thinking the latter…)

Notes:

“Macross” is the name of the city that was taken into space when SDF-1 jumped. The city was essentially rebuilt within the ship and the citizens tried to live a normal life onboard. “Macross” is also the name of the original Japanese cartoon that was translated to become 1st Generation Robotech (this is the generation with Rick, Lisa, SDF-1, etc. and is my favorite generation)

Robotech is a very violent cartoon if one thinks about it. So many people die, the earth is almost wiped out, the future looks bleak, and one has to listen to Minmei’s songs. Seriously though, I can’t believe we all watched this as little kids.

I don’t generally watch TV during Ramadan, a personal choice as I try to limit distractions (I say this while I’m on the interent. huh.). But, I was over at my sister’s place and didn’t want to make them turn it off or anything. (Dunno why I need to make this point, but oh well)

When I grow up, I want to be a Veritech pilot.

Tumblr provides the user the ability to customize their post with templates catered to text, pictures, quotes, chats, links, audio, and video. I thought this was kind of cool, sort of like blogging when you don’t really have to much to say but when you still want to share something, even if it is just a link, a picture, something else that doesn’t warrant an explanation.

I wasn’t going to sign up though. I mean, I have a Wordpress blog and I’m on Twitter. I’m on the internet enough, y’know?

Yeah, I signed up.

I didn’t really expect to do much of anything with it. I uploaded a couple of pictures and thought that was that. But then it started to be kind of fun, a link here, a quote there, etc. So figured now is the time to out my Tumblr blog:

Bushra’s Tumblr

Ok look, I’m not forcing anyone to follow my Tumblr. I don’t see web stats on it and there are no room for comments. Essentially, I won’t know if no one ever visits it or not. I just find it kind of fun. If you visit it, cool, if you’re thinking “Yet another thing bushra is on” no worries

By the way, quotes and chats are fair game, meaning if something interesting comes up in a conversation I have with someone, I can put it in my Tumblr if I want (This disclaimer applies to all current content as well)

Cool thing about Tumblr: I got the ‘bushra’ username! Woohoo! In your face all other Bushras on the internet!