Salim Mansur
Posted on 06/10/2006 5:27:33 AM PDT by Clive
Muslim Canadians, as Muslims elsewhere in Western societies, have felt increasingly besieged for some time now, both from outside their community and from within.
This sense of isolation, of being misrepresented and misunderstood, will inevitably deepen as the full story unfolds of the arrests of 17 Toronto-area Muslims on terrorism charges.
But whose fault is this? Let us, Muslims, be brutally honest.
We have inherited a culture of denial, of too often refusing to acknowledge our own responsibility for the widespread malaise that has left most of the Arab-Muslim countries in economic, political and social disrepair.
Statistics and intergovernmental reports over the past several decades have documented a gap, perhaps now unbridgeable, between Muslim countries and the advanced industrial democracies in the West.
In a recent "failed states index" published in the journal Foreign Policy (May/June 2006), Pakistan, for instance, is ranked among the top 10 failed states in the world -- ahead of Afghanistan. Pakistan is a Muslim country, a nuclear military power, but it can barely feed, clothe, educate and shelter its population.
The reports on the Arab countries are a dismal catalogue of entrenched tyrannies, failing economies, squandered wealth, gender oppression, persecution of minorities and endemic violence. The cleric-led regime in Iran seeks nuclear weapons and threatens to obliterate Israel, repress domestic opposition, and seek confrontation with the West.
Instead of acknowledging the reality of the Arab-Muslim world as a broken civilization, we Muslims tend to indulge instead in blaming others for our ills; deflecting our responsibilities for failures that have become breeding grounds of violence and terrorism.
Many of our intellectuals in public life and our religious leaders in mosques remain adept in double-speak, saying contrary things in English or French and then in Arabic or Farsi or Urdu.
We have made hypocrisy an art, and have spun for ourselves a web of lies that blinds us to the real world around us.
We seethe with grievances and resentment against the West, even as we have prospered in the freedom and security of Western democracies.
We have inculcated into our children false pride, and given them a sense of history that crumbles under critical scrutiny. We have burdened them with conflicting loyalties -- and now some of them have become our nightmare.
We preach tolerance yet we are intolerant. We demand inclusion, yet we practise exclusion of gender, of minorities, of those with whom we disagree.
We repeat endlessly that Islam is a religion of peace, yet too many of us display conduct contrary to what we profess.
We keep assuring ourselves and others that Muslims who violate Islam are a minuscule minority, yet we fail to hold this minority accountable in public.
A bowl of milk turns into curd with a single drop of lemon. The minuscule minority we blame is this drop of lemon that has curdled and made a shambles of our Islam, yet too many of us insist against all evidence our belief somehow sets us apart as better from others.
In Islam, we insist, religion and politics are inseparable. As a result, politics dominates our religion -- and our religion has become a cover for tribalism and nationalism.
We regularly quote from the Koran, but do not make repentance for our failings as the Koran instructs, by seeking forgiveness of those who we have harmed.
We Muslims are the source of our own misery, and we are not misunderstood by others who see in our conduct a threat to their peace.
-
bout time
The Muslims will never understand their problem.
It is simple. Whenever you put mullas and clerics in charge of state affairs, you have desaster.
Because the western cultures have discovered that a couple of hundred years ago, their societies prosper.
A voice crying in the wilderness, sadly heeded by none.
It also could and should have been written by an black American here in the United States.
It's the same on the personal level and the national level: Once you decide to not accept responsibility for your situation AND getting yourself out of it, disaster follows. The Democrat party is banking on this attitude here just as Al Qaeda does, and for the same reason: To gain new members.
I'm sure one of his bretheren will wack this guy for speaking out.
Too little, too late and, most importantly, too transparent.
Actually there have been Muslims saying this kind of thing for awhile now.
Salim Mansur
OK, 1 guy says the right words and seems to get it. Now for the other billion or so Muzzles who don't, how long will it take?
Now what could be the reason for this gap between Muslim countries and the industrialized world? Could it be, just possibly, maybe, that Islam is the cause of many of these troubles? I'm just brainstorming here but I think it warrants some consideration.....
I think this is the guy that was interviewed on Glenn Beck's TV show last week. If so, he was saying the same thing, that the Muslim community needs to step up to the plate and deal with their own problems.
Glenn called him the "Bill Cosby" of the Muslims.
You need to leave islam. Once I realized how wrong Catholicism was, I left it. You know how wrong islam is...now leave it. Because just like Catholicism, you sure as hell can't fix it.
He just marked himself as a dead man. The Muslim community to date has not seemed to realize that their religion has been hijacked by murdering psychopaths.
The prime issue is the culture of Jihad. Take Jihad out of Islam (arguable not possible) and it may survive. Follow in the way of Jihad and it will be a death match.
...I've never heard it said this way before....
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.