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.
Sadly, some of the paragraphs sounded like the black community.
A little late to the dance.. but the flower in the lapel looks good..
The process can be hastened. This is the space age. The coordinates of Zarqawi were fed by the Air Force Space Command to a GPS bomb, which fell on Zarqawi's head within minutes. The quicker that terrorists are located and dispatched, the sooner the complacent majority of moslems will wake up and grudgingly admit that some changes have to be made. This process should take less than a generation.
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...It took a Muslim to tell it like it is.
No phony talk about "The Religion of Peace."
The reformation came about because a priest dared question the practices of the church and called them back to following the precepts of the Bible, without the trappings of entrenched religious traditions that were not based upon the Scriptures. The cry of the reformers was "sola scriptura."
On the other hand, we already have a "reformation" in Islam - it's called al-Qaeda. The closer Islam comes to following the "pure" teachings of Muhammad (as spelled out in the Quran and the Hadith) the bloodier it gets.
Whoa, Salim. You're telling the truth and that's not going to go over well with the rest of the Muslims. Keep your head down! And start your car with a remote starter from a safe distance.
Sadly, very true.
Let us, Muslims, be brutally honest.
"brutal" that could describe islam!
That's a bit like saying that Jews should either continue the practice of stoning, or else renounce Judiasm.
spelling: Judaism
What Islam needs is a good civil war amongst its proponent nations.
I don't give a damn about their angst, they should never have been allowed into the West. They are incompatible with our culture, period.
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness."
All of the Moslems are violent hateful hypocrites and I AGREE COMPLETELY!
"I don't give a damn about their angst, they should never have been allowed into the West. They are incompatible with our culture, period."
That is for sure it is like taking in the prisoners from Cuba as Freedom Fighters.
An astonishing admission. And a member of the Congressional Black Caucus needs to come forward and admit the same truth.
Good chance this guy just painted a target on his back. Some won't want to hear the truth and will consider this an insult to Islam.
They're too busy trying to come up with an angle that makes killing Zarqawi seem like "another of Bush's anti-Muslim-American policies".
Baynative: "They're too busy trying to come up with an angle that makes killing Zarqawi seem like "another of Bush's anti-Muslim-American policies."
Here is the link to the CAIR press release:
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