Posted on 04/17/2004 5:17:31 AM PDT by Clive
HOW DOES one discuss the state of the Islamic faith, the Middle East, terrorism and the world without upsetting people? Frankly, it's almost impossible.
I'm not talking here of a fear of abuse and attack or of being accused of political incorrectness. I couldn't give a fig about that. No, I mean the need to hold on to common courtesy and avoiding making generalizations that could hurt good people.
Here are some recent examples, in that I have so little room to discuss this issue in full.
We used to be told by pop stars and other philosophers that "the Russians love their children too." It was self-evident then that all people loved their young. Now I'm not so sure. Do the Palestinians, for example, love their children too?
I should think most of them do.
But I have to be candid: many of them don't. We can't just rely on tired old relativism when we look at all this. Nobody who loves his or her child will send that little being out as a suicide bomber. Nobody who loves their children will line them up in front of tanks.
The natural instinct of a loving parent is to hide the children. Armed struggle and resistance I can understand, even if I do not approve. This, though, is something different. I've seen it myself. Mothers screaming for their tiny offspring to come out of the house, stand in front of Israeli patrols and throw stones at soldiers.
I take here no position on the causes of Israelis or Palestinians, but I do on the moral substance of a parent who would send children to fight the battles of adults.
Do not, please, tell me they have no option. There are legions of young Palestinian men willing to kill Israelis. It's just that children can sometimes be undetected. And are easily convinced of the delights of paradise in the world to come when, I quote, "Zionist skulls, blood and limbs fly against the walls."
British Muslim fundamentalists planned terror attacks and arrests were made in Ilford, England, my hometown. Boring Ilford may be, but nobody is oppressed there! Muslims who grew up with British democracy, free British health care, free British education and British tolerance have no reason to kill anyone, let alone those who gave them such privilege.
Remember, these people came to Britain, as they did to Canada, the United States and the rest of the free, Christian-based world to escape Islamic states and their harshness.
It is the pluralistic openness and decency of Europe and North America that has allowed so many Muslim immigrants. How ironic that a minority of those people hate that very pluralism and decency and want to slaughter women and children in the name of their god and their cause.
I opposed the war in Iraq, but I cannot remain silent when people kill contract workers, then disembowel and hang them from wires in the street. While children dance.
And, no, these murderers are not refugees from pain but the favoured sons of Saddam. Their fight is to restore fascism, not liberate their nation. Even if it was, nothing justifies such sadism.
German bomber pilots, their planes shot down, would parachute into London after destroying entire towns and killing thousands of people. Almost without exception they were treated properly, as prisoners of war.
It's not about colonization, globalization, Zionism, American dominance or any other cliches. The Muslims themselves are colonizers, having pushed most Christians out of the Middle and near East, once the cradle of the Christian world.
The Ottoman Turks, Muslims all, colonized the region for centuries. Arabs colonized Persians, Assyrians, Kurds and others. The Saudis, sponsors of so much terror, are nobody's victims. They are wealthy beyond belief, and deprive women and minorities of most basic civil rights.
This is something deeper, darker, than an imagined fight against a foreign foe. There is a virus at work. For the sake of the good, law-abiding Muslims of the world -- the majority -- we cannot pretend any longer it's about anything other than what it is: a religion gone mad and gone bad.
Stop the lies, they only make it worse.
Michael Coren, that rare Canadian, has gone and knocked down that hornet's nest again, and this time it is difficult indeed to dismiss his article as the rantings of another neanderthal mean-spirited American.
Nevertheless he immediately commits the mortal sin of this debate: he extrapolates from the particular to the general. Most mindless liberals and sandmaggot lovers will immediately accuse him of dishonesty, because all palestinians can't be equally senseless.
Never mind that he has seen it with his own eyes. If he hasn't seen all of them he may not make any inferences, or go from the particular to the general, no matter how many news reports he has seen of human parts from teenagers or photographs of cute 1 year olds wearing toy suicide explosive belts. These are all peculiarly isolated aberrations that do not in any way define any cultural or social tendency whatsoever.
Fortunately, this article gives me hope. Not hope that most of us are wrong about the nature of a culture so far removed from ours that we don't even have a common plane of existence on which to discuss our differences, but hope that more and more normal, "ordinary" people will see the hopelessness and "error" of assuming that they are "just like us" only wearing fur hats, or head rags, because, surely, if they also love their children as we do, they must be the same as we are.
I have been giving this a lot of thought lately, because the contradictions and other elements of this war are so obvious and irreconcilable, that I, for one, see no further use for debate, if the waiting and forebearance is paid for by the blood of my neighbors and my neighbors' children.
Basic ideas, no longer capable of being reduced to simpler terms mean opposite things in our universes: Honesty, honor, rules of war, lying, using ambulances as ammunition transport, asserting that white is black and vice-versa, all are as deeply ingrained in their culture as the opposite is in ours.
To take one of the simplest examples: Both resident ad visitor muslims demonstrate loudly and often violently shouting about "Our Rights" when it is common knowlege that those same rights uniformly are denied to any non-muslim in every one of their countries. This right of exploitation of inferior cultures, to use their own values against them, is the birthright of Islam.
Another obvious one: they scream loudly and often when mosques are entered to deal with killers, plotting new kills, in non-muslim countries. In other words, their religious rules apply anywhere they choose to go, but others' do not. Hence not a single regularly functioning Christian church in any muslim country.
To all of them, from the university professor to the most ignorant illiterate streetperson, this makes total islamic sense.
So what is there to talk about?
Also, scn seems to carry out it's dirty work via a central organization (flag), whereas islam relies on individuals to blow themselves up or fight.
Did beavus just out himself as a butthead scientologist? What say ye, beavus?
Well, this would seem to be the issue/question of the century! The answer, just keep the bastards out! You can't tell by looking and it only stands to reason that just like everywhere, including still in Iraq today, that once a large base of muslims exists, then you have these issues. How can you stop it? You can't apart from altering behavior which has been born out that it can't be altered!
The roots, two religions, or one really, Judeo-Christianity with its roots in "love everyone", all the way down to your neighbor, vs. Islam, with its roots in take over the world and force, necessarily in one form or another, everyone to either convert or acquiesse to Islam, or kill them quite simply.
Too bad more Canadians and Englanders don't think this way!
Since his goal was a large cohesive empire, he appears to have accomplished them. To his credit, there weren't many better options for people in his area in the 7th century.
Now Moha's dead, his empire broken and in shambles, his people a living anachronism, and those who realize it venting their inferiority neuroses in fire and bullets.
Riiiiiiiiiight.
All over the world where slaughter and human rights violence is peaking, somewhere in there, usually from the top in one way or another, it's Islam that is leading the charge!
Meanwhile, where Judeo/Christian based nations are the order of the day, it's by and large extremely peaceful and civilized.
But hey, as long as people "seek to understand" instead of simply dealing with truth, this crap is gonna spread. It wouldn't hurt the "non-militant" version of Islam to stand up and be counted on the side of the good guys however. And there's FAR too little of that going on!
In fact, it's rare if even occurrent at all, for Islamic nations to "be outraged" to the extent of action in all of this. I'm convinced this is why it's a slow train coming in Iraq with the political changeover and the transition of the Iraqis to begin to learn to defend themselves as well.
Please, please, people, let's try to be accurate and not contribute further to the fog of debate: the is no such "linking". To accept that lie continues the hope that they somehow can be de-linked and muslims can join the human race. No such thing is possible.
Islam in one entity, inseparable ever. In fact, the concept of "state" did not exist for them until the 20th century, and used since to further the spread of the disease. "Countries" are but a convenient fiction with which to fight the infidels on their own terms. Think about it. Is it more politically useful to present Islam as one "country" or as 58? What do you suppose is meant by the ancient concepts of dar-al-harb (us) and dar-al-islam (them)?
To think of Islam without a preeminent role of the religious "part" is literally not possible. According to their own historical and contemporary definition of it.
I made the mistake of assuming he was literate. I seem to have that problem around here--overestimating people.
Well, I believe there is a God, and that Satan is real. There is a cosmic struggle between good and evil--and earth is on the front lines. In the 1930's and 1940's, Satan used fascism to fuel his evil plans. In the 1950's, 60's, and 70's, communism did just as much damage. Now, Lucifer uses Islam, radical feminism, the homosexual agenda, and political correctness to spread wretched evil.
Islam was born mad and hasn't changed one iota in almost 1500 years.
So I repeat, what's there to talk about?
By that I'll assume the answer is "No, I'm not a Scientologist". Approaching from a different way, if you could elaborate on your statement: "_Stranger in a Srange Land_ gives an interesting spin on this idea." it would be appreciated. Thanks.
Yep, and a really good one, too. The only reason I bring it up is that it seemed to be a big fave among the scn folks I knew years ago - kind of like a gateway drug. A big red flag (to me) when mentioned in the context of scn. I could be wrong, but I thought it was worth exploring.
Nicely stated. Thanks for clearing that up.
Q: Why aren't there any Muslims on Star Trek?
A: Because it takes place in the future!
Instead of a genius raised on Mars, LRH was a psychopath. However, Scientologists, Moonies, Hare Krishnas, and any number of other cults, old and new, might be looked at as a blessing. Those who rally to them are of the mind to rally to something, and I would prefer it is something that doesn't tell them to kill me.
Better Moon than Manson. Better Joseph Smith than Jim Jones. And, as cold as it sounds, better Marshall Applewhite than Abdul Wahhab.
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