I had a really good conversation last night with a good friend of mine. The topic mainly revolved around education; both formal and self-education. He’s a student at a small liberal arts school and talked about how ineffective he felt his education was. I spoke to him about the process of self-education. How one really needs to be self-learned. This is not an easy process to just come upon. It takes planning, foresight and a deep-rooted desire to learn.

I was a victim of public education – by that I mean that I was not challenged at all. I was bored and just simply disconnected as a young person. I day dreamt a lot and yet, despite my day time sleep walking, I was a bright kid (if I may say so myself). I taught myself Japanese (fluent both in speaking, reading and writing), which if anyone has tried to learn, is no small task. I wasn’t stupid – just not engaged. And it’s there, the being engaged part that I think my friend falls on his face. You cannot sit back and wait for the school to teach you – you have to teach yourself. Give up television (or at least restrict it) and read. We live in a day and age where large amounts of information on virtually every subject known to man is available (the Internet). I think if one can temper his/herself to this task you’ll see the rewards.

Here we go again. Well, in a response to a question posed by a reader here I wrote a response to the question, “Five questions non-Muslims would like answered”, a post on the Palforce blog. For a quick summary (you should check out the link, though, if you have time, the poster put up a statement from the L.A. Times in which Dennis Prager wrote an article asking those question. Less in reponse to the article but more in response to concept of Muslims needing to explain themselves at every turn whenever a Muslim does something less than desireable (Muslims are held to the ideal [what the Qur'an/Prophet says] and yet when one wants to talk about race relations in America everyobe points to the ideal). Here it is:

Since when did problems that concern Muslims or involve Muslims become a universally binding question posed to all Muslims? To be frank, I’m not an ethnic Muslim, so to me, many of the problems seem to be local issues, if you take my meaning. I am not Palestinian and personally, the problem isn’t a religious one, it’s a racial issue between two semi-religious groups. Not all Jews involved with the problem in Israel are hard-core Zionists and not all Palestinians (for one not all Palestinians are Muslim) are all that religious. But, it’s an area that has a deep religious history. I view it as a local problem that the locals should work out. Similarly, the problem with rioting in France is a French issue. This may sound shocking to many Muslim and non-Muslim readers that I, a Muslim, would take such a stance. And while yes, we all do share one faith (our ummah) that doesn’t make this (tribal territorialisms) a universally binding issue. Now, I know that many Muslims will try and throw the Qur’an at me, citing verses where God talks about us being one ummah, about if one Muslim has a problem, all Muslims have a problem but we cannot simply dumb this down and make it this simple. Now, while I may sympathize with the Iraqi people or the Uighar people or whoever, as an outsider, I am not going to stick my neck into that. Personally, I am tired of being made some how guilty by religious association – meaning that if some wacko somewhere blows some shit up, I am now under the interrogation lamp and have to answer or explain away my religion. Shit, I dunno why he did what he did. I think it’s screwed up (in the cases of people killing other people by blowing shit up) but you know, when you look at the problem in France, it ain’t white, French Muslims that’s the problem (and oh, yes, there are many of them). No, it’s Arab/African Muslims. So, again, it’s a racial issue with religious folks involved. To sum it up, I’m tired of this religious SPAM for lack of a better word. But no matter how sophisticated the Junk Mail filter is, some of it always seems to get through.

And the beat goes on.