Posted on 06/30/2005 9:25:28 PM PDT by Destro
Mazzaglia: Intolerance and Islam
By Frank Mazzaglia / Local View
Sunday, June 26, 2005
It is now common knowledge that real or perceived disrespect toward the Koran by Americans is destined to have severe repercussion in the streets of nations throughout the middle east.
Newsweek's now retracted story alleged that American troops flushed down a copy of the Koran ended in riots and the loss of life. What is far less known are the contemptible ways that Jews, Christians, and the Bible are treated in Muslim dominated nations. There is a legitimate place for outrage in the face of the facts.
In Israel, Islam is practiced without government interference. Beyond those borders, there is not a single Christian country in the entire world where Muslims are not reasonably free to follow the precepts of their faith. By contrast, Islamic nations practice blatant discrimination.
Consider our "friends" in Saudi Arabia where Jews are banned and Christians are forbidden to worship. The punishment for the distribution of Bibles can range from a public lashing to the amputation of a limb or even to beheading. Tourists who pray in the privacy of their homes run the risk of being discovered by the religious police. Even the discussion of any other religion can result in torture as a means of conversion to Islam.
What's significant about all of this is that these horrific practices are not always the actions of extreme radicals, but rather they are systemic persecutions authorized and sometimes carried out by Islamic governments themselves.
In Sudan, where more than two million Christians have been murdered, just uttering the word "Jesus" can lead to being sold into slavery. One 22-year-old Protestant woman was captured by soldiers and treated as a slave. Led into the jungle along with 22 other Christian slaves, the woman was regularly raped and beaten. Later, she was forced to practice Islam until she was bought by Christian Solidarity International Society and set free.
Our military "allies" in Turkey, Egypt, and Pakistan hold horrific records of their own. When they overran Cyprus, the Turks expelled thousands of Greek Orthodox Christians from the island and then turned an ancient church into a mosque. The Egyptian government stood by while an extremist group set fire to an entire Christian neighborhood. In Pakistan, police aided local radicals in burning 13 churches and destroying the homes of some 800 Christians because they had somehow "insulted" Islam.
In Iraq, where Saddam Hussein had proclaimed himself to be the "Defender of the Islamic Faith," more than 150 Protestant and Catholic churches were demolished by government fiat.
Muslims, particularly those born in the United States, have never been exposed to the kind of brutality routinely experienced by Jews and Christians living in Islamic countries. What is troublesome is that history reflects an Islamic pattern that when a nation gains a sufficiently Muslim population, agitation begins for the imposition of Shariah, the system of Islamic civil law. Currently, there are just over six million Muslims in the United States, so there is a long way to go before any such threat becomes a reality here.
Meanwhile, what we see clearly is that the violence of today's extremists has no bounds. In Iraq, for example, Muslims are being targeted and victimized by other Muslims. Blatant prejudice against Jews, Christians, and the Bible continue in Muslim dominated societies.
The time has come when Jews and Christians need to stop feeling badly over the alleged disrespect for the Koran, or about unfounded allegations citing brutality toward interned Islamic terrorists. From time to time, we hear about great Islamic societies of the past which fostered an admirable level of justice and tolerance. Perhaps so, but that was then and this is now.
Respect, after all, is a two-way street.
Frank R. Mazzaglia can be reached at www.frankmazzaglia.com
I wonder how many Korans these whacko's have destroued with their suicide and IED's?
When we as a civilization master the cure for all types of cancer we can take the same methodology for this cure and apply it in a political sense to Islam, and kill it.
Canada's Muslim population (2.1%) is just a little higher than that of the United States (2.0%). Canadian Muslims are already lobbying for shariah law. IMHO the writer is being optimistic when he says we have a long way to go before the Muslims start pushing for shariah.
I beg to differ - intolerance of other religions in our schools is here except for the children of the Muslim faith. They have special prayer rooms while children of other faiths are encouraged not to pray or to do so silently. Allah is given a pass but G-d is not, He is not even allowed to be mentioned in schools - American schools., thanks to the ACLU. Most Muslims have not and are encouraged not to assimilate into American life. The women are not allowed the freedom of American women; their Mosques preach hate. What more will they take - "a long way to go" is here.
I am growing very tired of tolerance/political correctness............
Gosh, sounds like you have a Final Solution to the Islam problem.
You should probably be banned for that comment, but you won't be because you managed to couch it in obscure enough language.
Don't be silly with the G-d thing. It is a word that describes a deity and when capitalized describes the monotheistic deity of the Jews and Christians. The name of that deity is Yaweh. Moreover, it is only forbidden to say the name, not to write it. If no one said or wrote it, it would be forgotten.
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