Quote of the day

“In high school, the way they taught us religion was very white and black,” said Mr. Azam, a 28-year-old Saudi who works as a recruiter for Toyota. “You always felt you were doing something wrong, and it drove a lot of people away.”

- From Saturday's New York Times.

The article is both encouraging and sad. It talks about spreading toleration and moderation via satellite around the Muslim world. Encouraging. Two of the men interviewed were secular and now that they are "moderate" have left their wives who refuse to wear head dress.

D'oh!

*****
Another quote from the article is one I live every day in conversations with young Emiraties:

For young Arabs, he offers a way to reconcile a world painfully divided between East and West, pleasure and duty, the rigor of the mosque and the baffling freedoms of the Internet.

I could talk about America every day and students would be happy. They want to know everything. (I know the "If he talks about this he won't cover new material" look. The interest in America is genuine.)

At the same time they love their religion and traditions. They wonder if their society has changed too much too fast. It's a relevant question as they have changed more in 40 years than America has in 100. Our change was gradual; theirs came by way of ships with new electronics and Landcruisers. You can't go from riding camels and taking a seven day journey from Al Ain to Dubai to a generation later speeding down the road at 140 KPH without at least a little whiplash.