Michael Jackson, Islam and globalization

It has happened in Turkey again. When Barack Hussein Obama was elected last year as the 44th president of the United States, a group of villagers in the eastern city of Van in Turkey sacrificed 44 sheep for him. Sacrificing sheep is an act of honoring someone, and the Turkish villagers had done just that. But why Obama? He was not elected president of Turkey, and these villagers were not American citizens. The reason, I believe, is that they saw something universal in Obama, wanted to participate in that historic moment and celebrated his election by performing the timeless ritual of animal sacrifice. I don't know how many Michael Jackson fans there are in Turkey. But when a group of villagers in the village of Mercimekli in the eastern province of Mardin said prayers for the dead in absence over Jackson, he was given the... [read full story]                    

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