this is why i say the house was built layer upon layer. Adopted cultures stacked on top of each other . Like the house that jack built . The modern world is a culmination of all that came before us . Many contributors to bring us forward to today understanding . To this spot that we may communicate . The new crossroads of a new era
i would say they go hand in hand . You can't escape the memes that control decision making . The image of Osama sitting on his coach watching T.V. That will be an embed in human imagery for evermore just as much as the fall of the towers . How does that shape us ? Us that still live. We all are affected in some way . We all experience the same dream of life . What happens to one has happened to us all and that has become more true than ever . Group dreams ? I was so surprised yesterday to see that thread on " Small/ big dream we apparently share in one form or another. I was surprised cause I shared that dream as a child . Right along with reports of ringing in the ear . That is so strange to Me cause I though until I saw that that it was only my dream . Now knowing that it is more common than not reinforces the though that we are exposed to the same layering of cultures . We just don't realize it like I didn't realize so many shared the same dream of big/small. I don't know if other cultures have the big/small dream but it is apparent just about all Americans do and possibly all westerners . Don't know that , but there was enough sampling on that thread to see an unnatural amount of people do . For them to gather at one thread say a lot to me . We have the same trigger that made us dream the same dream . Some of the really smart blew it off as well your young an vulnerable and it would be natural to have the group dream . I say it is the living conditions of the dreamers that created the dream . The culture they live in . The Memes of the culture . That controls your spiritual out look . Your dreams and you can spout out all you want about this method or that method . It is the hope that is in you and the memes are what show the progress . You read the language with out knowing you read it . You take it for granted like your heart beats with out you telling it to. You speak the language instinctively by all your surrounding That group dream is more evidence to Me this is true. Hand Me downs from the past . Built layer upon layer. That is off topic yet it does tie in by the layering of culture . The hand Me downs of culture .
As have I, and apart from some Sudanese minorities who were neither Arab nor Muslim, all have identified clearly as Arabs (as far as I've been able to determine). I get the feeling that you're referring to some of the various less-than-fully-Arab minorities in Sudan. Sudan is a multicultural country, not everybody there is an Arab, or anyway a "full" Arab. But the Arabs are easily the biggest ethnic group. Khartoum is the largest city in the Arab League, and occasionally plays host to Arab League Meetings, is awarded recognitions as a "Capital of Arab Culture" etc. We should also bear in mind that Arabism is a large ethnic group, with many different subgroups, and that is does not diminish a person's identification with Arabism for him to also identify strongly with one or another sub-group. To pick another example, Mandarin and Cantonese Chinese people will get into crazy and borderline-racist rants about one another - especially if you confuse one for the other - but that doesn't make either of them any less ethnically Chinese. Right - the non-Arab south didn't like being in the same boat as the Arab north, so they split up. Why? North Africans has been identifying themselves as Arabs for a long, long time now. What's going to change in a few years?
My impression is that the Quran can be given a very literal translation into English, so that as much of the traditional Arabic meaning as possible is retained, but that means the loss of a lot of the poetic qualities that the Quran has in Arabic. Or conversely, the Quran can be given a very beautiful and poetic translation into English, but some of the beautiful English words will suggest connotations that are very different than the original Arabic words that they replace. It's very difficult to make translations that preserve both the meaning and the poetic qualities. But I've been told by several Muslims that despite these problems, some of the English translations are still very good and are worthy of reading by English speakers like myself. I guess that's a problem that many Muslims face as well, since many of them don't read Arabic any better than I do. If they are going to read the Quran, they will have to do it in Farsi, Turkish, Punjabi or Malay, whatever language they happen to be literate in. They learn the Arabic words of the suras without understanding what the words mean? That makes reciting the verses kind of resemble a magical incantation. Maybe I'm misinterpreting things, but that doesn't sound very Islamic. From my outsider's perspective, it makes more sense for regular non-Arabic-speaking Muslims to read the book in translation, and then encourage those who want to pursue their religion more deeply learn Arabic. Christians pretty much do the same thing, reading their Bibles in translation, but studying Biblical Greek and Hebrew if they want to study the Biblical text more deeply, word for word. American Muslims call themselves "Muslims". "Arab" is more of an ethnic identification. But from what I've seen, many Arab immigrants in the United States are more apt to call themselves "Tunisians" or "Lebanese" or "Moroccans" than "Arabs". They kind of identify with the country that they came from more than with the language that they spoke when they lived there. But I'm sure that they continue to think of themselves as Arabs too, and feel some kinship with other Arabs. I'm not so sure about people from places like the United Arab Emirates. I get the impression that they have less feeling of national identity than Tunisians and may be more apt to think of themselves as 'Arabs' first, and 'Emiratis' (or whatever they call themselves) second.
No I'm referring to the average Sudanese as typified by Sudanese expats working in Saudi Arabia Sudanese: 'What Arab-African rift?' Sure but the situation is not how it is portrayed in the west For example: Nubian activism for one, changing notions of what it means to be Arab or African for another. Like you said, Ethnic groups grow, move, shrink, etc. in various ways It could go the other way too, with South Sudanese joining the Arab league
