Colin Powell Endorses Obama: A Voice of Reason

I could not say better was Fred Wilson, a fellow VC, wrote on his blog…so I copy it word for word. Thanks, Fred. and Thank you General Colin Powell.

Say what you will about Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama, I was inspired by it. In particular, I was inspired by his talk about the need for more tolerance of different religions. This part just made me jump for joy:

“Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he’s a Christian. He’s always been a Christian,” he said. “But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer’s no, that’s not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, ‘He’s a Muslim and he might be associated terrorists.’ This is not the way we should be doing it in America.”

I’ve done a lot of travelling since 9/11 and I am always amazed how people of different dress and skin color get treated. It’s like anyone who is not white and christian is a potential terrorist. That’s what 9/11 did to our country and it has been extremely hurtful to our country and our culture.

So I applaud Colin Powell for his forthright and honest and correct remarks. America is the melting pot where we accept all races, creeds, and colors. It’s what has made us great and if we walk away from that, we are in big trouble. Colin Powell knows that, Barack Obama knows that, and by the way so does John McCain but the only way he wins at this point is by playing into those fears which he is doing and Colin Powell called him on it.

I am very hopeful for what may be around the corner, a new administration, a new world view, a new tolerance, and some healing finally.

NY Times: Branded a radical by hate-groups, a Muslim educator loses her school

Apalling…..When something like this happens, we all suffer. Americans, Jews, Muslims, Christians…Everyone.

From The New York Times

April 28, 2008

Battle in Brooklyn | A Principal’s Rise and Fall

Critics Cost Muslim Educator Her Dream School

By ANDREA ELLIOTT

Debbie Almontaser dreamed of starting a public school like no other in New York City. Children of Arab descent would join students of other ethnicities, learning Arabic together. By graduation, they would be fluent in the language and groomed for the country’s elite colleges. They would be ready, in Ms. Almontaser’s words, to become “ambassadors of peace and hope.”

Things have not gone according to plan. Only one-fifth of the 60 students at the Khalil Gibran International Academy are Arab-American. Since the school opened in Brooklyn last fall, children have been suspended for carrying weapons, repeatedly gotten into fights and taunted an Arabic teacher by calling her a “terrorist,” staff members and students said in interviews.

The academy’s troubles reach well beyond its cramped corridors in Boerum Hill. The school’s creation provoked a controversy so incendiary that Ms. Almontaser stepped down as the founding principal just weeks before classes began last September. Ms. Almontaser, a teacher by training and an activist who had carefully built ties with Christians and Jews, said she was forced to resign by the mayor’s office following a campaign that pitted her against a chorus of critics who claimed she had a militant Islamic agenda.

In newspaper articles and Internet postings, on television and talk radio, Ms. Almontaser was branded a “radical,” a “jihadist” and a “9/11 denier.” She stood accused of harboring unpatriotic leanings and of secretly planning to proselytize her students. Despite Ms. Almontaser’s longstanding reputation as a Muslim moderate, her critics quickly succeeded in recasting her image.

The conflict tapped into a well of post-9/11 anxieties. But Ms. Almontaser’s downfall was not merely the result of a spontaneous outcry by concerned parents and neighborhood activists. It was also the work of a growing and organized movement to stop Muslim citizens who are seeking an expanded role in American public life. The fight against the school, participants in the effort say, was only an early skirmish in a broader, national struggle.

Missing Paragraphs in the Nikah Nama?

This post is also on ATP.

If you are married, how closely did you read the Nikah Nama before signing it?

Some time last summer my fiance decided that time had come for us to tie the knot. I was excited. So excited that I hastily agreed to do the Nikah (Katb-e-Kitaab, as levant Arabs call it) within the next few weeks. I called my trusted friend, Adil, for his advice on where to find a good scholar/Imam for the Nikah, esp someone who might be familiar with Arabic language because my wife happens to be a Palestinian. He, as always, had an excellent recommendation.

During this process is when I actually read a Nikah Nama for the first time in my life and realized that it was missing some of the key provisions that my fiance and I had discussed earlier and wanted to be included. For example, we realized that there was no provision in the agreement for a woman’s right to ask for divorce. Secondly, there was no detailed discussions of the different types of Haq Mehr, except for the very minimum required at the time of marriage. Finally, there was no discussion on how our assets would get divided in the case of a divorce, or separation.

I discussed these terms, and our mutual agreement on them, with my parents. Let me tell you it was an uncomfortable discussion. Initially, they seemed horrified that my fiance and I were discussing divorce issues even before marriage! Then their reaction turned to fear – that their son was signing his life and his possessions away without proper legal counsel. But somehow they budged. Next came the discussions with the Imam. That also took some serious convincing but he was a learned man with patience. He eventually agreed to add those terms which essentially protected my wife’s rights, though warned us that despite our Nikah agreement some of those provisions would not hold in many Muslim states, such as Saudi Arabia.