Beheadings Cause Grief for French Muslims

UPI | June 21, 2004 | Uwe Siemon-Netto

[auzerais]

Beheadings cause Muslims grief

By Uwe Siemon-Netto
UPI Religious Affairs Editor

BORDEAUX, France, Jun. 21 (UPI) -- European specialists on Islamic affairs fear that the beheadings of Americans and other foreigners in the Middle East will trigger a severe anti-Muslim backlash.

"These barbaric acts have been catastrophic for the prospects of Muslims in France," said Bruno Guiderdoni, one of the country's foremost Koran scholars. "A discernable shift has occurred in public attitudes," he said. "Its most dangerous aspect is a new hostility even among the once-liberal French intellectuals against our religion."

Two years ago, a three-judge panel cleared bestselling author Michel Houellebecq of inciting racial hate for describing Islam as "the most stupid religion." Later he explained: "I have never displayed the least contempt for Muslims. But I have as much contempt as ever for Islam."

Last fall, Claude Imbert, founder and editor in chief of the newsmagazine Le Point, declared: "To be honest, I am somewhat hostile to Islam. I am not embarrassed to admit that."

To Guiderdoni, such blunt remarks from members of the intellectual elite are alarm signals. To observers it seems that Europeans no longer buy into statements of disassociation by prominent Islamic leaders such as Dalil Boubakeur, president of the French Council of Muslim Faith.

Boubakeur said: "Islam is not a religion that beats women, kills kids and desires the death of the West. What shocks the French is ... even more of a shock to us." Muslim extremists have by now beheaded three Americans and are threatening an abducted South Korean and a European -- possibly German -- journalist with a similar fate. This comes on top of the slaughter of thousands of women and children in Algeria, once an integral part of France, a few years ago, and the persecution of Christians in the Sudan and Muslim-controlled northern states of Nigeria.

Says Guideroni, who is also research director of the Paris Institute of Astrophysics, "Our image is disastrous." It is so because of the popular acuity of a "divided Koran" on issues such as human rights and interfaith tolerance, says Christine Schirrmacher, head of the Institute on Islamic Affairs in Bonn Germany. On the one hand, the Muslim Holy Book counsels a broad-minded attitude toward other faiths, insists Sheikh Mohammed Mohammed Ali, a Shiite Muslim scholar who is currently running for a seat in the new Iraqi assembly.

On the other hand, the Koran clearly advises the faithful to slay and main infidels: "Strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them" (Surah 8:12).

In a telephone call from Baghdad, Ali explains that under religious law decapitation is only permissible if approved by a ranking scholar whose role would then be comparable to that of the Supreme Court of the United States. "Nobody in al-Qaida has this competence. None has even ever attended an Islamic university or similar institution."

But then who in the Islamic world possesses such indisputable authority? According to Schirrmacher, it is one of Islam's most troubling problems that it lacks hierarchies, bishops or councils comparable to the leaderships of Christianity. In other words, al-Qaida acts as its own court sentencing people for "murder" on the basic assumption that in the current conflict -- as in the struggle between Palestinians and Israelis - nobody is innocent.

That is to say, just as all Israelis are presumed "guilty" because they have or will have children serving in the army, so do Americans "aid and abet" the slaughter of Muslims by paying taxes or, as in the case of the slain American hostage Paul Johnson, working with helicopters that might be used against Muslims.

As Guiderdoni sees it, his moderate "European" form of Islam ranks among the first casualties of this barbarian way of thinking. "The radical Islamists accuse us of treason, while Christians and others see us as wolves in sheep's clothing. They distrust us now. They are more and more convinced that all we are trying to do is to lull Westerners into believing that Islam is harmless."

This leaves the field to radical Islam, Guiderdoni fears. "The West no longer accepts that we have something to contribute. There is no longer any space for moderation."

This is an extremely serious situation, Guiderdoni and Germany's Schirrmacher agree, because it leaves Christian partners in the interfaith dialogue in a lurch. In France, lay members of the Catholic and Protestant churches are increasingly turning against what they see as gullible bishops and senior pastors kowtowing to Muslim interlocutors not truly interested in theological exchange.

In Germany, resentment is building against church and state authorities dialoguing almost exclusively with radicals and entrusting newly endowed chairs of Islamic studies at the nation's universities to their fanatical branch of the Muslim faith.

"Add to this the public perception of Muslim immigrants as an arrogant, close-knit community whose members will not learn our language but always act as if our state owes them something," says Schirrmacher. "God forbid terrorism will strike here as it has in the United States, Spain or the Middle East! I dread to ponder the consequences."

[Chgogal]

Thanks! Cindy Adams was a joy to read today. I definitely can identify with her experience. Aside, the French Riviera is waaaaaaaay overrated. My advice, for what it's worth....if you must go to a Riviera, try the Italian. Drive from Salerno to Naples in a convertible of your choice with the lady of your dreams next to you. It would be quite memorable.

[Ben Chad]

"The West no longer accepts that we have something to contribute."

Someone help me out. Besides mayhem, what have "they" contributed.

[Ben Chad]

Cindy Adams rocks!

[vollmond]

I don't know what they're worried about. It's not like France is known for beheading undesirables or anything like that.

[BlueLancer]

200 years from now, I want their children's children's children's children
to cower and cringe in fear whenever they hear the sounds of jet engines overhead
because their legends tell of fire from the sky.

I want them to hide in dark caves and holes in the earth,
shivering with terror whenever they hear the roar of diesel engines
because the tales of their ancestors talk about metal monsters
crawling over the earth, spitting death and destruction.

I want their mothers to be able to admonish them with
"If you don't behave, the Pale Destroyers will come for you",
and that will be enough to reduce them to quivering obesience.

I want the annihilation to be so complete that their mythology
will tell them of the day of judgment when the stern gods from across the sea
.. the powerful 'Mericans .. destroyed their forefathers' wickedness.

(Original created by BlueLancer ... 13 September 2001)
(Thanks to HiJinx for the accompanying pictures)

[philosofy123]

You don't have to change the Koran, simply change focus. Use the verses that instruct Moslems to tolerate others, and never mention the verses that incite Moslems to cut the infidel throats. That is easy because ALL the clerics are employee of the state. Therefore, if the state wishes to moderate the preaching to love and tolerance of others, it would hire only peace loving preachers, and fire the hate filled preachers. The reason we are in this mess is simply because the state is full of hate, and the preachers are only a reflection of their wishes.

[YOUGOTIT]

"All with the same storyline. Middle-Eastern/Muslim immigrant committing crimes and the .gov not doing much about it because they don't want hurt feelings. Makes me wonder who over there is stirring the pot?"

Sounds like another government to the north that is teaching its children to hate the United States. And after living over 12 years in Europe I understand that the new young left-wingers are the hate America generation, so do not expect any help from the left (Germany, France and Belgium)in Europe they are committed to bringing the US down.

"A new study by University of Alberta Professor of Education Amy von Heyking reveals that anti-Americanism is a prominent theme of Canadian school textbooks." As reported in NewsMax.com

[Cvengr]

"Our image is disastrous." ....the Koran clearly advises the faithful to slay and main infidels: "Strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them" (Surah 8:12). ....under religious law decapitation is only permissible if approved by a ranking scholar whose role would then be comparable to that of the Supreme Court of the United States. "Nobody in al-Qaida has this competence. None has even ever attended an Islamic university or similar institution."

ergo. the Islamic lesson of the day is that "deciding, without intellectual credentials, to behead somebody, is disastarous to Islamic image".

Other cultures simply have linkage between the act of decapitation and taboo, rather than the lack of intellectual creditation prior to deciding upon the act.

Which leads one to ponder, Which is worse?, a culture that beheads those not of its ilk, or a culture which arrogantly condemns beheading simply because it is decided upon by somebody lacking intellectual credentials?

[Valin]

What about these guys?

Islam in Conflict in Cleveland
TCS ^ | 02/24/2004 | STEPHEN SCHWARTZ
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1084348/posts?page=9

A Muslim Patriot's Call
The Arizona Republic via FrontPage Magazine ^ | October 13, 2003 | Oubai Mohammad Shahbandar
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1000468/posts

Too name two.

[Cronos]

We want the inquisition back....

[happygrl]

Moderate Islam is the one you have your gun on, Radical Islam is the one that has you in its sights.

Oh man, that is just too good not to be repeated !

[Charlespg]

Boubakeur said: "Islam is not a religion that beats women, kills kids and desires the death of the West.

Yea and Barnum and Bailey isn't a circus!
things could get real interesting if and when France and Germany finally get Pi** Off enough