Poor guy!
Today I was thinking of the guy I met at the Xi’an mosque and how confused he must be about all the stuff going on in the UK. I met him while I was touring the mosque with Phil and Amanda. I’m not sure what his title is, but he stands in front of the prayer hall and answers whatever questions you have, gives you little pamphlets about Islam if you want them, etc. There is a guy with a similar job at a lot of Buddhist temples. We started chatting, and it turned out he was really suspicious about 9/11, saying nobody knows who was really responsible. He was also really pissed off about the bad image of Islam in the West, that people there think it is really scary but it really isn’t, etc. He must be confused and astonished by all this British stuff. He’s a Hui person, and as far as I know, Hui people really aren’t militant about anything. They’ve been associated with a few protests against insulting things about them in textbooks, but that was just carrying banners and demanding apologies and stuff. They’ve never been associated with any violence. They don’t really identify with or get involved in the Middle East conflict. They’re very live-and-let-live people, as far as I know. It’s kind of like if Quakers in some part of the world started doing car bombings. Imagine how confused American Quakers would be!
July 2nd, 2007 at 4:34 am
I’m terribly out of touch–what’s going on with Islam & the UK??
July 2nd, 2007 at 2:57 pm
There were these car bombs discovered and diffused in London, and some Middle-Eastern looking guys tried to crash a burning SUV (possibly rigged w/explosives) into a Scottish airport.
July 19th, 2007 at 4:11 am
This is a very interesting post. I have married into an ethnic Hui family. I, too, have noticed how they really identify with or get involved in the Middle East conflict as you wrote.
They are very live and let live.
Also, they are “Muslilm light”, at least among my wife’s family. They eat shell fish and enjoy drinking!