Why It’s Islam vs Rest of the World (TROP™ says it's OUR fault.)

The Sunday Indian Express [Bombay] ^ | February 1, 2004 | Tavleen Singh

[quidnunc]

In Davos this year there was much talk of Islam and its differences with the West. The emphasis was on trying to understand why rather than on dismissing the whole issue as that clash of civilisations Samuel Huntington wrote so prophetically about nearly ten years before 9/11. A whole gamut of Muslim intellectuals were invited to address sessions with subjects as diverse as religion and globalisation, modernity and Islam and the shared roots of Western and Islamic culture. Arab princes spoke, as did professors and scholars from the Islamic world and women in hijab who argued that the West try and understand that democracy and gender issues had different meanings in different cultures. The Grand Mufti of Bosnia was there alongside the former American Archbishop of Canterbury and representing the Indian subcontinent was, ironically, General Pervez Musharraf.

As I watched him expound on his theory that Islam was a peaceful religion that sought only friendship and peace with the world, I found myself wondering why then it had been necessary to break India up for reasons of Islam. But, that is the sort of politically incorrect question nobody asks these days just as we do not ask why the Kashmir Valley’s struggle for autonomy has ended up becoming part of the international jehad against Americans, Jews and Hindus. Political correctness was very much the mood of the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting so many of those who spoke for Islam got away with blaming the West for their woes.

You must understand, they said, that terrorism was not Islamic or Christian but just terrorism. And, you must understand that at the root of what was going on lay unresolved political problems like Palestine and Kashmir. Our friendly, neighbourhood military dictator went so far as to say that because of these unresolved political issues young Muslims had developed a sense of persecution and had begun to believe that the world was against Islam. It was the duty of the West to not just help resolve these political issues fairly but also help solve some of the socio-economic problems of the Islamic world. Then, the world would be at peace once more and we could live without the threat of suicide bombers.

-snip-

[GOPJ]

Keep me on...Thanks for the pings.

[lainde]

bttt

[Post Toasties]

Not at all. Didn't Jesus Christ teach: 'Render unto Caeser what is Caesar’s and to God what is due to God'? which in no way puts the socially retarded straitjacket of hate on Christians that Islam forces on Muslims.

[AmericanVictory]

How do you account for the fact that the modern world arose out of and within western Christianity rather than in other religions?

[Post Toasties]

If, say an agnostic or atheist cannot circulate in an Islamic society without being persecuted or discriminated against, it cannot be a religion of peace.

[expatguy]

The Old Testament is filled with all kinds of violence.

I hear this a lot from people such as yourself.

But the question you have failed to answer is ~ What is your point?

[knighthawk]

At your service!

[Rummyfan]

Islam, as preached and practiced in much of the world, is incompatible with contemporary Western Civilization.

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

My point is that the fact that the Koran has violence in it does not prove that Islam is a dangerous or violent religion. It's a case of a pot calling the kettle black.

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

How do you think atheists (or even Catholics in Protestant countries) were treated during many centuries of Christian rulers?

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

Well, to be fair, the Chinese were far more advanced than many of those in the West for much of the past few thousand years. Maybe our cultures are better, or maybe we are just lucky? Maybe we live in more fertile lands? What will the world look like in 500 years? Could Muslims be making the same statement in 500 years? I don't know.

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

Don't you know anything of the history of Christianity? There have been many times where Christian governments or groups killed and tortured in the name of Christianity?

[Post Toasties]

So your story is that Islam is like Christianity's retarded little brother who cannot learn except by the hard way? That's no excuse to let Muslims languish in the past while the rest of the world moves to the future.

[Post Toasties]

If Muslims were smart, they'd be like the Japanese who could distinguish between intellectual impoverishment and religion when necessity required in the nineteenth century. And the Japanese did so in only one generation. Why is it that Spain alone translates many more books into Spanish than the entire Muslim world translates into their languages?

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

Japan? You mean the ones who flew their planes into our ships for the emperor?

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

How do you propose we stop the "Muslims from languishing"?

[swarthyguy]

GREAT piece by a NeoCon-Saffronista SheSikh.

I liked the end. Whine, whine, whine.

>>In Davos we were supposed to have heard the voices of moderate Islam but what we ended up hearing, at session after session, was an endless litany of complaints. It was the fault of the West that Islam was being labelled a terrorist religion, the fault of the West that most Muslim rulers were despots, the fault of the West that political issues had been allowed to fester, the fault of the West that Muslim countries had not progressed economically and the fault of the West that Osama bin Laden had got created. In vain I searched to hear one voice that would admit that there must be something deeply wrong in Islamic societies that they had bred the sort of hatred that created so much senseless violence. Just an explanation, for instance, for why the Buddhas of Bamiyan were smashed to bits without one Islamic country intervening. I did not hear it.

[Post Toasties]

Getting in the habit of taking personal responsibility for their actions and conditions would be a start. It would help to tone down the 'as God wills' or 'it's alway's the other guy's fault' attitude everytime something is unsatisfactory.

[watchin]

Wow. Get some help.

[watchin]

Exactly ... violence is perpetrated in spite of the teachings of Christ, and because of the teachings of Muhammed.