lennart
06-03-04, 17:40
Goed stuk over Ali Sistani :
http://news.independent.co.uk/people/profiles/story.jsp?story=498357
(....)
There are those who worry that once Sistani has had a taste of power his demands will grow rather than recede. The handful of people - including Sunnis, Kurds, secularists and women's rights campaigners - who have recently had audiences with the Ayatollah in his modest home off a crowded market street in Najaf are more sanguine.
"He didn't use any of the rhetoric clergymen usually wrap everything they say with. He was quite plain and direct, though he talked so softly, almost in whispers, in a heavy Persian accent," said one. "The man was secular! I have never heard a clergyman saying the things that we lot take to represent our secularism," said another.
"He talked about the ancient pillars of the Sunni doctrine and praised them in detail and said how the difference between the Shia and Sunni was far less significant than the danger facing the Iraqi nation at present," said a third. "They told me he wouldn't meet with a woman," said a female politician, "but I met him and discussed women's issues."
There are many people fervently hoping that Grand Ayatollah Sistani will prove true to his word. Not least among them George Bush in the coming election year. "He's Hobson's choice for the Americans," one commentator said, "but it could be a lot worse."
We might let the Ayatollah himself have the last word. He recently gave advice to a politician about to put someone forward for office. "Whoever you nominate, make sure he's not wearing a turban," Ayatollah Sistani said. The question is: will he apply that maxim to himself?
http://news.independent.co.uk/people/profiles/story.jsp?story=498357
(....)
There are those who worry that once Sistani has had a taste of power his demands will grow rather than recede. The handful of people - including Sunnis, Kurds, secularists and women's rights campaigners - who have recently had audiences with the Ayatollah in his modest home off a crowded market street in Najaf are more sanguine.
"He didn't use any of the rhetoric clergymen usually wrap everything they say with. He was quite plain and direct, though he talked so softly, almost in whispers, in a heavy Persian accent," said one. "The man was secular! I have never heard a clergyman saying the things that we lot take to represent our secularism," said another.
"He talked about the ancient pillars of the Sunni doctrine and praised them in detail and said how the difference between the Shia and Sunni was far less significant than the danger facing the Iraqi nation at present," said a third. "They told me he wouldn't meet with a woman," said a female politician, "but I met him and discussed women's issues."
There are many people fervently hoping that Grand Ayatollah Sistani will prove true to his word. Not least among them George Bush in the coming election year. "He's Hobson's choice for the Americans," one commentator said, "but it could be a lot worse."
We might let the Ayatollah himself have the last word. He recently gave advice to a politician about to put someone forward for office. "Whoever you nominate, make sure he's not wearing a turban," Ayatollah Sistani said. The question is: will he apply that maxim to himself?