Dear Editor: Re: Much anger over Ramadan, In My Opinion, Burnaby NOW, Aug. 23.
Since it seems to me that nobody will bother to write a letter praising Jennifer Moreau for her usual excellence, insight and humanity in reporting, I should like to do so.
My family left Lebanon because of religious tensions amid the civil war of 1975-90, and despite knowing that my Christian grandfather was killed by a Muslim, I only feel proud of my local newspaper, the Burnaby NOW, for running the article on Ramadan. I did, by the way, learn quite a bit and had my curiosity about their rites and philosophy piqued, too.
In effect, gentleman like Mr. (Dave) Waters and (Max) Jacobson are pessimists, and, as Janaya Fuller-Evans pointed out, with Chomskyan wit, boring hypocrites.
How can reading about the beautiful Sana Siddiqui and her mosque predominantly motivate in the minds of such men thoughts of buildings being bulldozed, state oppression worldwide, ideological conflict, murder, discrimination, immigration policy, propaganda and "black truths"? Well, it seems to me that the late American professor Edward Said proposed the most plausible psychological and historical explanation in his influential book Orientalism in 1978. Anybody who is interested in his argument can find a great introduction to his ideas in the video on YouTube entitled, "Edward Said On Orientalism."
Elias Ishak
Burnaby
