Note: This posting examines some aspects of the observable general muslim mindset. One of the great benefits of the internet is that we Westerners can now examine, on a daily basis, the information that Muslims in muslim countries tell each other. From this we can deduce a 'mindset'. It presents problems, as it stands. Read on and think...
A Look at the Muslims’ Mindset
Diffusing the present dangerous confrontation between Islam and the West demands rational impartial and cool heads to untangle facts from myth, understand the Muslims’ mindset, and redress any grievances on either side.
The Muslims’ perennial complaint is that the imperialist West—all colonial powers of the past, as well as the United States of America—have victimized them for decades and even centuries and continue to do so in every conceivable way. The litany of the alleged wrongdoings by the West is encyclopedic. To begin with, the West has shown utter contempt for the legitimate rights of the Muslim nation by arbitrarily dividing much of the Islamic land into fractured entities, plundering its resources, and topping these crimes by installing in its midst its illegitimate stepchild of Israel—a huge thorn in their side, so they complain. “A grain of truth is needed to make a mountain of lies believable,” is an old saw. In fairness to Muslims, there is some substance to their claims against the West. For now, let us focus on the general mindset of Muslims which bears heavily on the hostility toward the West—a serious hostility that may bring about the dreaded Armageddon.
* Patriarchy and authoritarianism. The Muslim’s mind is imprinted with authoritarianism which starts with the supreme authority, Allah, through his one and only prophet, Muhammad, his Caliphs or Imams, and the high-ranking religious divines all the way down to the village clergy. This authoritarian mentality encompasses all aspects of life for the Muslim. The king and his dominion as the viceroy of God, the Amir and his despotic ways, the Khan and his unchallenged rule over the tribe, the village headsman and his extensive power, and finally the father and his iron grip at home over the women and children. All these authority figures are male.
The authoritarian type poses numerous problems and presents many ramifications—ramifications much too important and complex to be comprehensively treated here. For now, it is important to understand that a person with the authoritarian personality is an extremist. He can be docility itself under certain circumstances and a maniacal murdering brute under others. He is the type who would just as happily kill or die, when he is directed to do so. He would, for instance, gladly strap on an explosive vest, in obedience to a superior’s order, and detonate it in a crowd of innocent civilians without the slightest hesitation.
* Blind obedience. A dangerous feature of the authoritarian personality is the relative lack of independent thinking. This deficiency makes the person highly amenable to manipulation. Islam, by its rigidly authoritarian make up, robs a Muslim of independent thinking to the extent that the believer blindly adopts it as his infallible system of belief. Hence, the religion of Islam is guilty of conditioning masses of people as easily manipulate-able instruments in the hands of authority figures.
Studies have shown that the authoritarian personality type can be found among all people, including Americans. The important difference is in the degree and prevalence of the condition. Islam breeds vast numbers of extremists, while in America, for instance, the prevalence is significantly lower and less severe.
* Focus on goal. To Muslims, the goal is everything. As religious fascism, Islam condones any and all means to achieve its goals. The ultimate objective of Islam is the rule of the entire world under the Islamic Ummeh—never mind that these life-in-hand soldiers of Allah disagree with one another regarding the Ummeh itself and who is going to reign over it. That’s a “family dispute” that they will resolve by their usual favorite method—brute force. Each Islamic sect believes that it has the Prophet and Allah on its side and it will prevail over the other. For now they have to work diligently to achieve the intermediary goal of defeating all non-believers. There are countless instances that substantiate Muslims’ “End justifies the means” guiding principle. This policy dates back to Muhammad himself. Muhammad repeatedly made peace covenants with his adversaries, only to violate them as soon as he was in advantageous position to do so. Betrayal, deception and outright lies are fully condoned in furthering the work of Islam. In the present-day world, the work of Islam is defined by a deeply-entrenched and influential clergy who issue fatwa—rulings—that become directives and laws to the faithful.
Khomeini, the founder of the Iranian Islamic state, for one, made extensive use of the fatwa. Widely-known in the west is Khomeini’s fatwa condemning Selman Rushdie to death for his book. A less known fatwa of Khomeini during the last Iran-Iraq war led to the slaughter of thousands of Iranian children. Children, nearly all under 15 years of age, were given plastic keys to paradise as they were commanded by the fatwa of the imam to rush forward to clear minefields for the tanks to follow. The Islamic murderers, in obedience to the fatwa of a bloodthirsty man of Allah, had no problem in deceiving the clueless lads with made in China plastic keys to paradise.
Such is the existentialistic threat of Islam. It is a rigid stone-age authoritarian system with a stranglehold over many of the nearly one and half billion people under its command.
* Fatalism. One of the greatest subtle, yet important differences between the Muslim’s mindset and that of the people in the West is the extent to which Muslims are fatalistic. There is hardly a statement that a Muslim makes without being conditional—conditional on the will of Allah. “I shall see you tomorrow, Allah willing,” “You will make it home, Allah willing,” “Things will work out, Allah willing,” and on and on and on. To the Muslim, Allah is on the job—on every job. Allah, with his invisible mighty hand literally does and runs everything. “Allah’s hand is above all other hands,” adorns every imaginable space in Islamic lands—a telling point about the Muslim’s fatalism and submission to the omnipotent omnipresent hand. If something happens, it is Allah’s will. If it doesn’t, it is Allah’s will. The rank and file Muslim has little will of his own. It absolves him of any and all responsibility. This mentality is in stark contrast with the “take charge” and “can do” mentality characteristic of Americans and others.
* Psychological uniqueness. People as a group or as individuals are different and none is perfectly healthy psychologically. We all have a lose wheel or two as we travel the bumpy road of life. Yet, most people manage to stay on course most of the time, with perhaps a stop or two at a repair shop of a mental health professional.
Most psychological disorders are exaggerations, deficits or surfeits of the generally accepted norm—whatever the norm may be. When caution, for instance, is practiced past suspicion, then we have paranoia; when reasonable fear is exercised beyond any justification, then there is phobia. The degree and severity of a condition frequently determine the presence or absence of psychopathology.
Muslims share a common Islamic psychological milieu, they are on Islamic “diet,” whether they live in Islamic lands or in societies predominantly non-Islamic. The psychological condition of any Muslim group or individual is directly dependent on the kind and amount of Islamic diet they consume. The Islamic diet has numerous ingredients—some of which are wholesome, some are dangerously toxic, and some are between the two extremes.
Over the years, the Islamic leaders have found it expedient to feed the masses mainly the toxic ingredients to further their own interests. Individuals and groups, for instance, have used the immense energizing power of hatred to rally the faithful; the cohesive force of polarization to create in-group solidarity; and, the great utility value of blaming others for their real and perceived misfortunes. Jews have been their favorite and handy scapegoats from day one. To this day, as true fascist, like the Nazis, Muslims blame just about everything on the Jews.
Providing a comprehensive inventory of the psychological profile of the Muslims is beyond the scope of this article. Yet, there is no question that the psychological make up of a Muslim, depending on the extent of his Muslim-ness, is different from that of non-Muslims. This difference, often irreconcilable as things stand presently is at the core of the clash of Islam with the West.
* Conclusion. Admittedly, the non-Islamic culture is no panacea. It has, however, one outstanding feature the Islamic lacks—it allows for liberty with all its attendants— good, bad, or indifferent. Those who have experienced liberty, no inducement is likely to make them give it up—particularly not the fictional promises of the Islamists that have failed in the past and are doomed to fail even more miserably in the future.
The best, yet difficult resolution of the conflict is to do what hundreds of thousands of Muslims have already done. They have abandoned the slaveholder Islam: they broke loose from the yoke of the exploitive clergy, renounced Islamofacism, purged the discriminatory and bizarre teachings in the Quran and the Hadith, and left the suffocating tent of dogmatic Islam for the life-giving expanse of liberty.
Within the emancipating and accommodating haven of liberty, those who wish to remain Muslim can retain and practice the good teachings of Islam but renounce intolerance, hatred and violence. It takes great effort and courage to ascend from the degrading pit of slavery to the mount of emancipation. Yet, it is both possible and exhilarating to do it, since many have done so successfully and happily. As more and more people leave the shackles of religious slavery, more and more will follow and the long-suffering Muslims, victimized by Islam itself for far too long, will be a free people in charge of their own life and destiny. It is a painful process of growing up, of asserting one’s coming of age, and marching lockstep with the free members of the human race.
Slavery of the mind is as evil as the slavery of the body. Islamofacism enslaves them both.
Comment: This article mmakes a fine case for not allowing Muslim schools in Australia. The internal problems of Islamic world views are such that muslims in Australia are better off having their children educated in the State education system.
Muslims in Australia need to be raised to live in 21st century Australia...not Arabia, or in the 7th century. It is cruel to teach attitudes to children when these attitudes are going to cause trouble for the muslim children when they are adults living in a very (although passively) anti-muslim society like Australia. The muslim schools teach these negative attitudes about the mainstream of Australia.
It is not public policy to promote anti Australian attitudes in any school in Australia. Muslim children would be better off learning how to be normal Australians via the ordinary educational venues in the country.
Saturday, September 30, 2006
Friday, September 29, 2006
The Pentagon Reads The Koran.
Note: This site admits that there are numerous possible readings of all the passages in the Koran. Everyone is entitled (it's called freedom of religious belief)to make up his/her own mind on these matters of serious concern.
This also applies to the Pentagon. The reading they give seems, to them, to correspond to the reality of the suicide bombings performed by many muslims. Other readings of the same Koranic suras lead other muslims to do other things...
...one man's meat, is another man's poison.
Read this very interesting posting.
September 28, 2006
Suicide bombers follow Quran, concludes Pentagon briefing
After retailing nonsense since 9/11 about how all this jihad terrorism has nothing to do with Islam, someone in the Pentagon actually took a look at the Qur'an itself, and -- lo and behold! -- discovered what I have been trying to tell people for years now: that the jihadists have a broad justification within the Qur'an and Islamic theology and law, and that fact has to be confronted by both Muslims and non-Muslims if anything effective is ever going to be done about it. "Suicide bombers follow Quran, concludes Pentagon briefing: Tasked with pinpointing motivation, analysts find terrorists 'rational actors' following 'holy book,'" from WND, with thanks to all who sent this in:
With suicide bombings spreading from Iraq to Afghanistan, the Pentagon has tasked intelligence analysts to pinpoint what's driving Muslim after Muslim to do the unthinkable.
Their preliminary finding is politically explosive: it's their "holy book" the Quran after all, according to intelligence briefings obtained by WND.
In public, the U.S. government has made an effort to avoid linking the terrorist threat to Islam and the Quran while dismissing suicide terrorists as crazed heretics who pervert Islamic teachings.
"The terrorists distort the idea of jihad into a call for violence and murder," the White House maintains in its recently released "National Strategy for Combating Terrorism" report.
But internal Pentagon briefings show intelligence analysts have reached a wholly different conclusion after studying Islamic scripture and the backgrounds of suicide terrorists. They've found that most Muslim suicide bombers are in fact students of the Quran who are motivated by its violent commands – making them, as strange as it sounds to the West, "rational actors" on the Islamic stage.
In Islam, it is not how one lives one's life that guarantees spiritual salvation, but how one dies, according to the briefings. There are great advantages to becoming a martyr. Dying while fighting the infidels in the cause of Allah reserves a special place and honor in Paradise. And it earns special favor with Allah.
"Suicide in defense of Islam is permitted, and the Islamic suicide bomber is, in the main, a rational actor," concludes a recent Pentagon briefing paper titled, "Motivations of Muslim Suicide Bombers."
Suicide for Allah a 'win-win'
"His actions provide a win-win scenario for himself, his family, his faith and his God," the document explains. "The bomber secures salvation and the pleasures of Paradise. He earns a degree of financial security and a place for his family in Paradise. He defends his faith and takes his place in a long line of martyrs to be memorialized as a valorous fighter.
"And finally, because of the manner of his death, he is assured that he will find favor with Allah," the briefing adds. "Against these considerations, the selfless sacrifice by the individual Muslim to destroy Islam's enemies becomes a suitable, feasible and acceptable course of action."
The briefing – produced by a little-known Pentagon intelligence unit called the Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA – cites a number of passages from the Quran dealing with jihad, or "holy" warfare, martyrdom and Paradise, where "beautiful mansions" and "maidens" await martyr heroes. In preparation for attacks, suicide terrorists typically recite passages from six surahs, or chapters, of the Quran: Baqura (Surah 2), Al Imran (3), Anfal (8), Tawba (9), Rahman (55) and Asr (103).
Particularly 9:111, which guarantees Paradise to those who "kill and are killed" for Allah.
Comment: The struggle in the West is against the ideology of Jihadist Islam. It can help confused readers to look back in history; the struggle in the Second World War was not against Germans, it was against Nazi ideology; in the Cold War the struggle was not against the Russians, it was against the ideology of Communism.
Today, the struggle is not against muslims, it is against the ideology of Jihadist Islam.
The source of the Jihadist Islamic ideology is the Koran, as the Jihadist Islamists interpret it. This interpretation may be wrong (who knows? There is no central teaching authority in Islam.)but it is the one that is actually being made by the Jihadist Muslims. This is the force against which the West is struggling.
As in every war, the innocent are always casualties.
The report from the Pentagon will strengthen the resolve of the Americans to fight the Jihadist Islamists. Australian muslims need to urgently develop an Australian Islam which rejects entirely Jihadist Islam.
There is no alternative.
This also applies to the Pentagon. The reading they give seems, to them, to correspond to the reality of the suicide bombings performed by many muslims. Other readings of the same Koranic suras lead other muslims to do other things...
...one man's meat, is another man's poison.
Read this very interesting posting.
September 28, 2006
Suicide bombers follow Quran, concludes Pentagon briefing
After retailing nonsense since 9/11 about how all this jihad terrorism has nothing to do with Islam, someone in the Pentagon actually took a look at the Qur'an itself, and -- lo and behold! -- discovered what I have been trying to tell people for years now: that the jihadists have a broad justification within the Qur'an and Islamic theology and law, and that fact has to be confronted by both Muslims and non-Muslims if anything effective is ever going to be done about it. "Suicide bombers follow Quran, concludes Pentagon briefing: Tasked with pinpointing motivation, analysts find terrorists 'rational actors' following 'holy book,'" from WND, with thanks to all who sent this in:
With suicide bombings spreading from Iraq to Afghanistan, the Pentagon has tasked intelligence analysts to pinpoint what's driving Muslim after Muslim to do the unthinkable.
Their preliminary finding is politically explosive: it's their "holy book" the Quran after all, according to intelligence briefings obtained by WND.
In public, the U.S. government has made an effort to avoid linking the terrorist threat to Islam and the Quran while dismissing suicide terrorists as crazed heretics who pervert Islamic teachings.
"The terrorists distort the idea of jihad into a call for violence and murder," the White House maintains in its recently released "National Strategy for Combating Terrorism" report.
But internal Pentagon briefings show intelligence analysts have reached a wholly different conclusion after studying Islamic scripture and the backgrounds of suicide terrorists. They've found that most Muslim suicide bombers are in fact students of the Quran who are motivated by its violent commands – making them, as strange as it sounds to the West, "rational actors" on the Islamic stage.
In Islam, it is not how one lives one's life that guarantees spiritual salvation, but how one dies, according to the briefings. There are great advantages to becoming a martyr. Dying while fighting the infidels in the cause of Allah reserves a special place and honor in Paradise. And it earns special favor with Allah.
"Suicide in defense of Islam is permitted, and the Islamic suicide bomber is, in the main, a rational actor," concludes a recent Pentagon briefing paper titled, "Motivations of Muslim Suicide Bombers."
Suicide for Allah a 'win-win'
"His actions provide a win-win scenario for himself, his family, his faith and his God," the document explains. "The bomber secures salvation and the pleasures of Paradise. He earns a degree of financial security and a place for his family in Paradise. He defends his faith and takes his place in a long line of martyrs to be memorialized as a valorous fighter.
"And finally, because of the manner of his death, he is assured that he will find favor with Allah," the briefing adds. "Against these considerations, the selfless sacrifice by the individual Muslim to destroy Islam's enemies becomes a suitable, feasible and acceptable course of action."
The briefing – produced by a little-known Pentagon intelligence unit called the Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA – cites a number of passages from the Quran dealing with jihad, or "holy" warfare, martyrdom and Paradise, where "beautiful mansions" and "maidens" await martyr heroes. In preparation for attacks, suicide terrorists typically recite passages from six surahs, or chapters, of the Quran: Baqura (Surah 2), Al Imran (3), Anfal (8), Tawba (9), Rahman (55) and Asr (103).
Particularly 9:111, which guarantees Paradise to those who "kill and are killed" for Allah.
Comment: The struggle in the West is against the ideology of Jihadist Islam. It can help confused readers to look back in history; the struggle in the Second World War was not against Germans, it was against Nazi ideology; in the Cold War the struggle was not against the Russians, it was against the ideology of Communism.
Today, the struggle is not against muslims, it is against the ideology of Jihadist Islam.
The source of the Jihadist Islamic ideology is the Koran, as the Jihadist Islamists interpret it. This interpretation may be wrong (who knows? There is no central teaching authority in Islam.)but it is the one that is actually being made by the Jihadist Muslims. This is the force against which the West is struggling.
As in every war, the innocent are always casualties.
The report from the Pentagon will strengthen the resolve of the Americans to fight the Jihadist Islamists. Australian muslims need to urgently develop an Australian Islam which rejects entirely Jihadist Islam.
There is no alternative.
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Lunatic Islamic Anti-Semitism.
Note: In the West it is now considered a sign of mental instability to be an anti-semite. This mental problem afflicts the muslim world in a most terrible way.
If it wasn't so serious, this discussion of 'Tom and Jerry' would be hilarious...
September 27, 2006
Iranian TV: Disney's 'Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Man's Chest' is a Pawn of the Zionist Lobby to Gain Cultural Control
The following are excerpts from an Iranian TV report on Disney's "Pirates of the Caribbean," which asserts that the film is a "Zionist" conspiracy to exert cultural influence by the Disney Company. The report aired on the Iranian news channel (IRINN) on July 27, 2006.
TO VIEW THIS CLIP, VISIT: http://www.memritv.org/search.asp?ACT=S9&P1=1278.
Similar assertions, about the "Tom and Jerry Show," were made by Iranian professor Hasan Bolkhari, [1] during a film seminar; his comments were aired February 16, 2006 by Iranian Channel 4. Bolkhari, who is a member of the Film Council of Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), is also cultural advisor to the Iranian Education Ministry, [2] and active on behalf of interfaith issues. [3]
TO VIEW THIS CLIP, VISIT: http://www.memritv.org/search.asp?ACT=S9&P1=1049 .
The following are excerpts from both reports:
IRINN, July 27, 2006
Anchor: "Zionist ideology uses all means to impose its cultural control. Cinema, as an attractive and popular form of art, has always interested the Zionist circles."
Reporter: "The hot news of cinema circles worldwide is: The Pirates of the Caribbean attack the silver screen. The example of Pirates of the Caribbean - Hollywood's latest effort to gain control - is all the more striking if we bear in mind the name of its producer: the Walt Disney company. Disney and its productions have been associated, more than anything, with the Zionist lobby in Hollywood. In 1995, when the pro-Zionist Jews were 2.5% of America's population, they made up 7.7% of Disney's board of directors. This clearly influences the content of this large company's productions, as well as its policies and guidelines. The Aladdin animated film series is one example of Disney creations that present Arabs in a negative light.
"In 2004, Disney supported the Bush administration's expansionist policies, and refrained from screening the film Fahrenheit 9/11, which harshly criticized Bush's policy in attacking Iraq. This film, which won the Palme d'Or award at the Cannes film festival, became the bestselling documentary in the history of the film industry. Disney's move brought it nothing but disgrace.
"In any event, Zionism is not restricted to the capitalistic weapons companies, such as Lockheed and the banks that support it. Cinema is considered another, subtle, weapon in the hands of those who support this corrupt ideology. In Hollywood, Disney is the manufacturer of this weapon, and Pirates of the Caribbean is its newest ammunition.
"Hamid-Reza Modaghegh, IRINN, Tehran."
Iranian Channel 4, February 16, 2006
Hasan Bolkhari: "There is a cartoon that children like. They like it very much, and so do adults - Tom and Jerry."
[...]
"Some say that this creation by Walt Disney [sic] will be remembered forever. The Jewish Walt Disney Company gained international fame with this cartoon. It is still shown throughout the world. This cartoon maintains its status because of the cute antics of the cat and mouse - especially the mouse.
"Some say that the main reason for making this very appealing cartoon was to erase a certain derogatory term that was prevalent in Europe."
[...]
"If you study European history, you will see who was the main power to hoard money and wealth in the 19th century. In most cases, it is the Jews. Perhaps that was one of the reasons which caused Hitler to begin the anti-Semitic trend, and then the extensive propaganda about the crematoria began... Some of this is true. We do not deny all of it.
"Watch Schindler's List. Every Jew was forced to wear a yellow star on his clothing. The Jews were degraded and termed 'dirty mice.' Tom and Jerry was made in order to change the Europeans' perception of mice. One of terms used was 'dirty mice.'
"I'd like to tell you that... It should be noted that mice are very cunning...and dirty."
[...]
"No ethnic group or people operates in such a clandestine manner as the Jews."
[...]
"Read the history of the Jews in Europe. This ultimately led to Hitler's hatred and resentment. As it turns out, Hitler had behind-the-scene connections with the Protocols [of the Elders of Zion]."
"Tom and Jerry was made in order to display the exact opposite image. If you happen to watch this cartoon tomorrow, bear in mind the points I have just raised, and watch it from this perspective. The mouse is very clever and smart. Everything he does is so cute. He kicks the poor cat's ass. Yet this cruelty does not make you despise the mouse. He looks so nice, and he is so clever... This is exactly why some say it was meant to erase this image of mice from the minds of European children, and to show that the mouse is not dirty and has these traits.
"Unfortunately, we have many such cases in Hollywood shows."
Comment: I think it is pertinent to ask whether this sort of material is available in Muslim schools in Australia. One would not need to be a rocket scientist to make a good estimate of the correct answer.
If it wasn't so serious, this discussion of 'Tom and Jerry' would be hilarious...
September 27, 2006
Iranian TV: Disney's 'Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Man's Chest' is a Pawn of the Zionist Lobby to Gain Cultural Control
The following are excerpts from an Iranian TV report on Disney's "Pirates of the Caribbean," which asserts that the film is a "Zionist" conspiracy to exert cultural influence by the Disney Company. The report aired on the Iranian news channel (IRINN) on July 27, 2006.
TO VIEW THIS CLIP, VISIT: http://www.memritv.org/search.asp?ACT=S9&P1=1278.
Similar assertions, about the "Tom and Jerry Show," were made by Iranian professor Hasan Bolkhari, [1] during a film seminar; his comments were aired February 16, 2006 by Iranian Channel 4. Bolkhari, who is a member of the Film Council of Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), is also cultural advisor to the Iranian Education Ministry, [2] and active on behalf of interfaith issues. [3]
TO VIEW THIS CLIP, VISIT: http://www.memritv.org/search.asp?ACT=S9&P1=1049 .
The following are excerpts from both reports:
IRINN, July 27, 2006
Anchor: "Zionist ideology uses all means to impose its cultural control. Cinema, as an attractive and popular form of art, has always interested the Zionist circles."
Reporter: "The hot news of cinema circles worldwide is: The Pirates of the Caribbean attack the silver screen. The example of Pirates of the Caribbean - Hollywood's latest effort to gain control - is all the more striking if we bear in mind the name of its producer: the Walt Disney company. Disney and its productions have been associated, more than anything, with the Zionist lobby in Hollywood. In 1995, when the pro-Zionist Jews were 2.5% of America's population, they made up 7.7% of Disney's board of directors. This clearly influences the content of this large company's productions, as well as its policies and guidelines. The Aladdin animated film series is one example of Disney creations that present Arabs in a negative light.
"In 2004, Disney supported the Bush administration's expansionist policies, and refrained from screening the film Fahrenheit 9/11, which harshly criticized Bush's policy in attacking Iraq. This film, which won the Palme d'Or award at the Cannes film festival, became the bestselling documentary in the history of the film industry. Disney's move brought it nothing but disgrace.
"In any event, Zionism is not restricted to the capitalistic weapons companies, such as Lockheed and the banks that support it. Cinema is considered another, subtle, weapon in the hands of those who support this corrupt ideology. In Hollywood, Disney is the manufacturer of this weapon, and Pirates of the Caribbean is its newest ammunition.
"Hamid-Reza Modaghegh, IRINN, Tehran."
Iranian Channel 4, February 16, 2006
Hasan Bolkhari: "There is a cartoon that children like. They like it very much, and so do adults - Tom and Jerry."
[...]
"Some say that this creation by Walt Disney [sic] will be remembered forever. The Jewish Walt Disney Company gained international fame with this cartoon. It is still shown throughout the world. This cartoon maintains its status because of the cute antics of the cat and mouse - especially the mouse.
"Some say that the main reason for making this very appealing cartoon was to erase a certain derogatory term that was prevalent in Europe."
[...]
"If you study European history, you will see who was the main power to hoard money and wealth in the 19th century. In most cases, it is the Jews. Perhaps that was one of the reasons which caused Hitler to begin the anti-Semitic trend, and then the extensive propaganda about the crematoria began... Some of this is true. We do not deny all of it.
"Watch Schindler's List. Every Jew was forced to wear a yellow star on his clothing. The Jews were degraded and termed 'dirty mice.' Tom and Jerry was made in order to change the Europeans' perception of mice. One of terms used was 'dirty mice.'
"I'd like to tell you that... It should be noted that mice are very cunning...and dirty."
[...]
"No ethnic group or people operates in such a clandestine manner as the Jews."
[...]
"Read the history of the Jews in Europe. This ultimately led to Hitler's hatred and resentment. As it turns out, Hitler had behind-the-scene connections with the Protocols [of the Elders of Zion]."
"Tom and Jerry was made in order to display the exact opposite image. If you happen to watch this cartoon tomorrow, bear in mind the points I have just raised, and watch it from this perspective. The mouse is very clever and smart. Everything he does is so cute. He kicks the poor cat's ass. Yet this cruelty does not make you despise the mouse. He looks so nice, and he is so clever... This is exactly why some say it was meant to erase this image of mice from the minds of European children, and to show that the mouse is not dirty and has these traits.
"Unfortunately, we have many such cases in Hollywood shows."
Comment: I think it is pertinent to ask whether this sort of material is available in Muslim schools in Australia. One would not need to be a rocket scientist to make a good estimate of the correct answer.
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Division Among Muslims Concerning Pope.
Note: The meeting at Castel Gandolfo between Pope Benedict and the muslim ambassadors to the Holy See is covered in this posting. Reactions to the meeting in many muslim papers was favourable. The Saudis maintained their reactionary and pro violence line.
It remains a mystery to this site why muslims around the world silently accept that their holy places of Mecca and Medina should remain under the control of the Saud family. Everyone in the middle east knows that the Saud family were Jews from Baghdad who infiltrated into Arabia in the 1720s in alliance with the criminal Wahhabi sect. Why do muslims put up with this outrage?
26 September, 2006
ISLAM-VATICAN
Pope with ambassadors: much praise and some “buts” from Muslim world
In general, newspapers underlined the will to dialogue and respect for Islam. But a few still insist on apologies and recall the Crusades.
Beirut (AsiaNews) – Overall, the Muslim media has been positive in its evaluation of yesterday’s meeting between Benedict XVI and the envoys of 20 Muslim majority countries that have diplomatic ties with the Vatican, and with Italian Muslim representatives. Many agencies quoted the Iraqi ambassador Albert Yelda, who said: “It is time to put what happened behind us and build bridges among all the civilizations”, and “the pope emphasized his profound respect to all the Muslims around the world. It was what we expected, it was what we had.” Several, like Jordan’s Al Ghad ran headlines saying “Pope affirms respect for Islam”. The Lebanese L’Orient Le Jour also quoted Mohammad Nour Dachan, chairman of the Union of Islamic Communities in Italy, as saying “the pope made a very clear and brilliant speech. Dialogue continues.” The same newspaper cited the Iranian charge d’affaires, Ahmad Fahima, who said he found the meeting “fruitful” and Miroslav Palameta, ambassador of Bosnia-Herzegovina, who described it as “useful”.
The Kuwaiti agency KUNA shared the view of its ambassador, Ibrahim Abdulkreem al-Ibrahim, who was present at Castel Gandolfo yesterday. He said: "The meeting reflected the Pope's good intentions towards Islam” and that he had given a message to spread understanding and harmony among all religions and faiths.
In the Emirates, Gulf News said “controversy closed”, adding that this was the view of many who attended the meeting with Benedict XVI, which unfolded in a “cordial” atmosphere.
Other newspapers, like the Saudi Arab News, covered negative feedback too. The Saudi newspaper noted the opinion of Riyad Nadwi, director of the Oxford Cross Cultural Research Institute, who said: “I think we now need to accept his apology for his blunder but not his explanation i.e. that we misunderstood his comments. If we are to protect ourselves from such future attacks, we must maintain this distinction in our minds. If not, a time will come when an attempt would be made to justify such comments in the spirit of ‘frank dialogue.’ I have seen it before, where the progression is one from a call for ‘sincere dialogue’ to ‘genuine dialogue’ and then a slippage into ‘frank dialogue’ by which time the audiences are prepared to accept criticisms of all sorts including disrespect for the Qur’an and the character of the Prophet.” The article added: “The purpose of dialogue is to establish peace and create tolerance for one another. It The apology of the pope is accepted... and we thank him for it.”
Pakistani newspapers also gave the meeting ample coverage. The most widely read, the Daily Times, ran a headline saying: “Pope says Christians and Muslims should reject violence.”
The Lebanese Daily Star reported the assessment of Egypt’s Muslim Brothers who, through Mohammad Habib, claimed the pope’s speech was “another attempt to avoid the issue of apology”. He said: “When we asked for an apology, we asked for a clear and honest one.” They were also quoted by Al Jazeera that launched a survey to find out what Muslim opinion is. The Daily Star has also asked for people’s views, while many readers of Islamonline, one of the most popular websites in the Muslim world, posted questions about the entire polemic that unfolded after the pope’s speech in Regensburg. Islamonline has a whole dossier entitled “A pope in crisis” and in its summing up of yesterday’s meeting, it highlights the dissatisfaction of Mohamed Selim el-Awwa, Secretary-General of the International Union for Muslim Scholars (IUMS), which brings together prominent Sunni and Shiite scholars from across the world. El Awwa announced the breaking off of dialogue with the Vatican and said “the meeting did not bring about anything new”. The scholar demanded that the controversial quotes be dropped from the text of the lecture, when it is published as an official Vatican document.
The site also reported the stand of the Muslim Brothers and the decision of the Egyptian Al-Azhar University – the most renowned Sunni cultural institute in the world – to refuse a papal invitation to visit the Vatican and a proposal to invite Benedict XVI to deliver a lecture on Islam, insisting on a “clear-cut apology”.
“Pope Benedict XVI’s folly” was the title of an editorial in Yemer Times that recalled the Crusades, the conquest of the Americas, the Inquisition and the killing by Christians of thousands of Muslims in Spain, Portugal and the Philippines, who had “voluntarily” converted.
Comment: It should be a cause for satisfaction in Canberra to see that many muslim leaders are now coming to see that the only way forward for muslim people is a path of non violence, leading to material progress for the currently impoverished muslims.
Australian policy should be to give material assistance to those forces abroad in the muslim world who are committed to a modern approach to dealing with the many and varied problems that still face muslims world wide.
We can help and we should do so.
It remains a mystery to this site why muslims around the world silently accept that their holy places of Mecca and Medina should remain under the control of the Saud family. Everyone in the middle east knows that the Saud family were Jews from Baghdad who infiltrated into Arabia in the 1720s in alliance with the criminal Wahhabi sect. Why do muslims put up with this outrage?
26 September, 2006
ISLAM-VATICAN
Pope with ambassadors: much praise and some “buts” from Muslim world
In general, newspapers underlined the will to dialogue and respect for Islam. But a few still insist on apologies and recall the Crusades.
Beirut (AsiaNews) – Overall, the Muslim media has been positive in its evaluation of yesterday’s meeting between Benedict XVI and the envoys of 20 Muslim majority countries that have diplomatic ties with the Vatican, and with Italian Muslim representatives. Many agencies quoted the Iraqi ambassador Albert Yelda, who said: “It is time to put what happened behind us and build bridges among all the civilizations”, and “the pope emphasized his profound respect to all the Muslims around the world. It was what we expected, it was what we had.” Several, like Jordan’s Al Ghad ran headlines saying “Pope affirms respect for Islam”. The Lebanese L’Orient Le Jour also quoted Mohammad Nour Dachan, chairman of the Union of Islamic Communities in Italy, as saying “the pope made a very clear and brilliant speech. Dialogue continues.” The same newspaper cited the Iranian charge d’affaires, Ahmad Fahima, who said he found the meeting “fruitful” and Miroslav Palameta, ambassador of Bosnia-Herzegovina, who described it as “useful”.
The Kuwaiti agency KUNA shared the view of its ambassador, Ibrahim Abdulkreem al-Ibrahim, who was present at Castel Gandolfo yesterday. He said: "The meeting reflected the Pope's good intentions towards Islam” and that he had given a message to spread understanding and harmony among all religions and faiths.
In the Emirates, Gulf News said “controversy closed”, adding that this was the view of many who attended the meeting with Benedict XVI, which unfolded in a “cordial” atmosphere.
Other newspapers, like the Saudi Arab News, covered negative feedback too. The Saudi newspaper noted the opinion of Riyad Nadwi, director of the Oxford Cross Cultural Research Institute, who said: “I think we now need to accept his apology for his blunder but not his explanation i.e. that we misunderstood his comments. If we are to protect ourselves from such future attacks, we must maintain this distinction in our minds. If not, a time will come when an attempt would be made to justify such comments in the spirit of ‘frank dialogue.’ I have seen it before, where the progression is one from a call for ‘sincere dialogue’ to ‘genuine dialogue’ and then a slippage into ‘frank dialogue’ by which time the audiences are prepared to accept criticisms of all sorts including disrespect for the Qur’an and the character of the Prophet.” The article added: “The purpose of dialogue is to establish peace and create tolerance for one another. It The apology of the pope is accepted... and we thank him for it.”
Pakistani newspapers also gave the meeting ample coverage. The most widely read, the Daily Times, ran a headline saying: “Pope says Christians and Muslims should reject violence.”
The Lebanese Daily Star reported the assessment of Egypt’s Muslim Brothers who, through Mohammad Habib, claimed the pope’s speech was “another attempt to avoid the issue of apology”. He said: “When we asked for an apology, we asked for a clear and honest one.” They were also quoted by Al Jazeera that launched a survey to find out what Muslim opinion is. The Daily Star has also asked for people’s views, while many readers of Islamonline, one of the most popular websites in the Muslim world, posted questions about the entire polemic that unfolded after the pope’s speech in Regensburg. Islamonline has a whole dossier entitled “A pope in crisis” and in its summing up of yesterday’s meeting, it highlights the dissatisfaction of Mohamed Selim el-Awwa, Secretary-General of the International Union for Muslim Scholars (IUMS), which brings together prominent Sunni and Shiite scholars from across the world. El Awwa announced the breaking off of dialogue with the Vatican and said “the meeting did not bring about anything new”. The scholar demanded that the controversial quotes be dropped from the text of the lecture, when it is published as an official Vatican document.
The site also reported the stand of the Muslim Brothers and the decision of the Egyptian Al-Azhar University – the most renowned Sunni cultural institute in the world – to refuse a papal invitation to visit the Vatican and a proposal to invite Benedict XVI to deliver a lecture on Islam, insisting on a “clear-cut apology”.
“Pope Benedict XVI’s folly” was the title of an editorial in Yemer Times that recalled the Crusades, the conquest of the Americas, the Inquisition and the killing by Christians of thousands of Muslims in Spain, Portugal and the Philippines, who had “voluntarily” converted.
Comment: It should be a cause for satisfaction in Canberra to see that many muslim leaders are now coming to see that the only way forward for muslim people is a path of non violence, leading to material progress for the currently impoverished muslims.
Australian policy should be to give material assistance to those forces abroad in the muslim world who are committed to a modern approach to dealing with the many and varied problems that still face muslims world wide.
We can help and we should do so.
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Good Idea From Jordan...Also A Good Idea In Australia
Note: This posting is very encouraging as it shows sensible countries like Jordan taking real action to suppress the evil activities of Sunni muslim imams. There is a good opportunity here for Australia...see Comment below.
September 25, 2006
Jordan works on mosque law
Laws like this, carefully defined and stringently enforced to prevent propagation of the idea of Islamic supremacism and attendant ideas, are needed all over.
AMMAN, Jordan - Jordan's parliament moved Sunday to tighten state control over mosque preachers, amending legislation that aims to prevent the kingdom's mosques from being used to propagate extremist ideas.
Jordanian lawmakers have approved several pieces of legislation in recent weeks that aim to weaken extremists and prevent terror attacks.
The parliament added a provision to a bill to require prior written approval from the government before someone enters the pulpit. The changes came just three weeks after members of the lower house of parliament approved the law.
The latest changes require that the religious affairs minister approve in writing any new mosque preachers and anyone teaching the Quran, the Islamic holy book, in mosques.
King Abdullah II, the ultimate authority in Jordan, is expected to sign the bill into law soon, replacing legislation enacted in 1986.
Islamic opposition legislators argued Sunday that the law curbed religious freedoms and that the government pressed for the changes to appease the United States and Israel by cracking down on Muslim hard-liners.
Comment: Australia is run by Christians, in Parliament and in the Public Service. Therefore it would be improper for these people to sit in judgement on the qualifications needed to preach in an Islamic mosque.
What the officials in Canberra could do is to require that any Sunni imam who wants to come to Australia must have a preaching licence issued by the Jordanian Ministry of Religious Affairs. No licence no visa. What could be simpler?
Australia has good relations with Jordan, so it should not be too onerous to come to some arrangement on this matter with the Government of King Abdullah II.
Is anyone awake in Canberra?
September 25, 2006
Jordan works on mosque law
Laws like this, carefully defined and stringently enforced to prevent propagation of the idea of Islamic supremacism and attendant ideas, are needed all over.
AMMAN, Jordan - Jordan's parliament moved Sunday to tighten state control over mosque preachers, amending legislation that aims to prevent the kingdom's mosques from being used to propagate extremist ideas.
Jordanian lawmakers have approved several pieces of legislation in recent weeks that aim to weaken extremists and prevent terror attacks.
The parliament added a provision to a bill to require prior written approval from the government before someone enters the pulpit. The changes came just three weeks after members of the lower house of parliament approved the law.
The latest changes require that the religious affairs minister approve in writing any new mosque preachers and anyone teaching the Quran, the Islamic holy book, in mosques.
King Abdullah II, the ultimate authority in Jordan, is expected to sign the bill into law soon, replacing legislation enacted in 1986.
Islamic opposition legislators argued Sunday that the law curbed religious freedoms and that the government pressed for the changes to appease the United States and Israel by cracking down on Muslim hard-liners.
Comment: Australia is run by Christians, in Parliament and in the Public Service. Therefore it would be improper for these people to sit in judgement on the qualifications needed to preach in an Islamic mosque.
What the officials in Canberra could do is to require that any Sunni imam who wants to come to Australia must have a preaching licence issued by the Jordanian Ministry of Religious Affairs. No licence no visa. What could be simpler?
Australia has good relations with Jordan, so it should not be too onerous to come to some arrangement on this matter with the Government of King Abdullah II.
Is anyone awake in Canberra?
Monday, September 25, 2006
Good Statistics On British Muslims.
Note: This posting is from the Guardian newspaper. It gives basically good statistics on the integration of British muslims as manifested in their support for the police and the anti-terrorist policies of the government.
Read on...
One in 10 Muslims 'ignore terror'
Nine out of then would contact police. That's good news. It's also good to see that two-thirds note the British Muslim community's failure to root out "extremists" as one factor involved in the continuing threat of jihad terror attacks.
Now what are those nine out of ten doing about the tenth?
Almost one in 10 British Muslims would not inform police if they suspected that someone of the same faith was involved in a terror attack, a poll suggested.
The ICM poll for the News of the World found 9% of the 502 questioned would not tell police if they had such suspicions about a fellow Muslim.
With a Muslim population aged over 16 in Britain of around one million, that would translate to 90,000 "turning a blind eye", the newspaper said.
However, almost nine out of every 10 (86%) would contact police, according to the survey.
Among young Muslims, the figures for keeping quiet were higher with 15% of 16 to 24-year-olds saying they would not tell police and 81% saying they would.
The poll also found that one in 20 Muslims thought attacks like the July 7 bombings were justified. And more than half (56%) said they did not believe a police warning that there are thousands of extremist British Muslims willing to carry out attacks here....
More than eight in 10 (86%) said the Prime Minister should shoulder some of the blame and 72% blamed non-Muslims for racist and "Islamophobic" behaviour.
However, two thirds (66%) said the Muslim community's failure to root out extremists was a factor. Meanwhile, 83% accepted that the terrorists themselves were to blame although one in 10 said they were not.
Comment: This story shows that the call for muslims to integrate and conform is supported by the great majority of muslims. The story is about Britain but readers can confidently assume that the figures for Australia would be very similar.
The opponents of muslim integration are the minority in the muslim community. A proper government would cut this minority off from foreign financial support and ban the entry to Australia of the poisonous Wahhabi imams from Arabia and Egypt who provide the impetus to oppose muslim integration and conformity to Australian norms.
Is anyone awake in Canberra?
Read on...
One in 10 Muslims 'ignore terror'
Nine out of then would contact police. That's good news. It's also good to see that two-thirds note the British Muslim community's failure to root out "extremists" as one factor involved in the continuing threat of jihad terror attacks.
Now what are those nine out of ten doing about the tenth?
Almost one in 10 British Muslims would not inform police if they suspected that someone of the same faith was involved in a terror attack, a poll suggested.
The ICM poll for the News of the World found 9% of the 502 questioned would not tell police if they had such suspicions about a fellow Muslim.
With a Muslim population aged over 16 in Britain of around one million, that would translate to 90,000 "turning a blind eye", the newspaper said.
However, almost nine out of every 10 (86%) would contact police, according to the survey.
Among young Muslims, the figures for keeping quiet were higher with 15% of 16 to 24-year-olds saying they would not tell police and 81% saying they would.
The poll also found that one in 20 Muslims thought attacks like the July 7 bombings were justified. And more than half (56%) said they did not believe a police warning that there are thousands of extremist British Muslims willing to carry out attacks here....
More than eight in 10 (86%) said the Prime Minister should shoulder some of the blame and 72% blamed non-Muslims for racist and "Islamophobic" behaviour.
However, two thirds (66%) said the Muslim community's failure to root out extremists was a factor. Meanwhile, 83% accepted that the terrorists themselves were to blame although one in 10 said they were not.
Comment: This story shows that the call for muslims to integrate and conform is supported by the great majority of muslims. The story is about Britain but readers can confidently assume that the figures for Australia would be very similar.
The opponents of muslim integration are the minority in the muslim community. A proper government would cut this minority off from foreign financial support and ban the entry to Australia of the poisonous Wahhabi imams from Arabia and Egypt who provide the impetus to oppose muslim integration and conformity to Australian norms.
Is anyone awake in Canberra?
Sunday, September 24, 2006
Tolerance Is A Two Way Street.
Note: This posting is from Anne Appelbaum who writes for the Washington Post. She makes a necessary point about muslim 'sensitivity'. Intelligent readers know it is not 'sensitivity' which provokes the usual muslim uproar...it is politics.
The West must stop reacting to this form of aggression from muslim politicians.
Read on...
Enough Apologies
By Anne Applebaum
Tuesday, September 19, 2006; Page A21
Already, angry Palestinian militants have assaulted seven West Bank and Gaza churches, destroying two of them. In Somalia, gunmen shot dead an elderly Italian nun. Radical clerics from Qatar to Qom have called, variously, for a "day of anger" or for worshipers to "hunt down" the pope and his followers. From Turkey to Malaysia, Muslim politicians have condemned the pope and called his apology "insufficient." And all of this because Benedict XVI, speaking at the University of Regensburg, quoted a Byzantine emperor who, more than 600 years ago, called Islam a faith "spread by the sword." We've been here before, of course. Similar protests were sparked last winter by cartoon portrayals of Muhammad in the Danish press. Similar apologies resulted, though Benedict's is more surprising than those of the Danish government. No one, apparently, can remember any pope, not even the media-friendly John Paul II, apologizing for anything in such specific terms: not for the Inquisition, not for the persecution of Galileo and certainly not for a single comment made to an academic audience in an unimportant German city.
But Western reactions to Muslim "days of anger" have followed a familiar pattern, too. Last winter, some Western newspapers defended their Danish colleagues, even going so far as to reprint the cartoons -- but others, including the Vatican, attacked the Danes for giving offense. Some leading Catholics have now defended the pope -- but others, no doubt including some Danes, have complained that his statement should have been better vetted, or never given at all. This isn't surprising: By definition, the West is not monolithic. Left-leaning journalists don't identify with right-leaning colleagues (or right-leaning Catholic colleagues), and vice versa. Not all Christians, let alone all Catholics -- even all German Catholics -- identify with the pope either, and certainly they don't want to defend his every scholarly quotation.
Unfortunately, these subtle distinctions are lost on the fanatics who torch embassies and churches. And they may also be preventing all of us from finding a useful response to the waves of anti-Western anger and violence that periodically engulf parts of the Muslim world. Clearly, a handful of apologies and some random public debate -- should the pope have said X, should the Danish prime minister have done Y -- are ineffective and irrelevant: None of the radical clerics accepts Western apologies, and none of their radical followers reads the Western press. Instead, Western politicians, writers, thinkers and speakers should stop apologizing -- and start uniting.
By this, I don't mean that we all need to rush to defend or to analyze this particular sermon; I leave that to experts on Byzantine theology. But we can all unite in our support for freedom of speech -- surely the pope is allowed to quote from medieval texts -- and of the press. And we can also unite, loudly, in our condemnation of violent, unprovoked attacks on churches, embassies and elderly nuns. By "we" I mean here the White House, the Vatican, the German Greens, the French Foreign Ministry, NATO, Greenpeace, Le Monde and Fox News -- Western institutions of the left, the right and everything in between. True, these principles sound pretty elementary -- "we're pro-free speech and anti-gratuitous violence" -- but in the days since the pope's sermon, I don't feel that I've heard them defended in anything like a unanimous chorus. A lot more time has been spent analyzing what the pontiff meant to say, or should have said, or might have said if he had been given better advice.
All of which is simply beside the point, since nothing the pope has ever said comes even close to matching the vitriol, extremism and hatred that pour out of the mouths of radical imams and fanatical clerics every day, all across Europe and the Muslim world, almost none of which ever provokes any Western response at all. And maybe it's time that it should: When Saudi Arabia publishes textbooks commanding good Wahhabi Muslims to "hate" Christians, Jews and non-Wahhabi Muslims, for example, why shouldn't the Vatican, the Southern Baptists, Britain's chief rabbi and the Council on American-Islamic Relations all condemn them -- simultaneously?
Maybe it's a pipe dream: The day when the White House and Greenpeace can issue a joint statement is surely distant indeed. But if stray comments by Western leaders -- not to mention Western films, books, cartoons, traditions and values -- are going to inspire regular violence, I don't feel that it's asking too much for the West to quit saying sorry and unite, occasionally, in its own defense. The fanatics attacking the pope already limit the right to free speech among their own followers. I don't see why we should allow them to limit our right to free speech, too.
Comment: This year, 2006, has seen two attempts by reactionary muslim politicians to browbeat the West on questions of free speech. They have not been totally successful. However, the very principle of attacking free speech must be opposed relentlessly by Western governments and leading personalities.
The future can only hold the success of the principle of free speech. If muslims have problems with free speech, they must change their view of Islam. All progress in history has been based on free speech...the advocates of progressive change always encountered opposition. Their ability to use free speech enabled them to eventually make the better case for progressive change and thus our societies and cultures moved forward.
The current Islamic hostility to free speech (which did not exist in the early days of Islam) is the reason for the widespread backwardness of all muslim countries. Proponents of progressive change in muslim countries always face jail, or worse, for advocating change. This current aspect of contemporary Islam must be fought against, both by Westerners and by progressive muslims.
The West must stop reacting to this form of aggression from muslim politicians.
Read on...
Enough Apologies
By Anne Applebaum
Tuesday, September 19, 2006; Page A21
Already, angry Palestinian militants have assaulted seven West Bank and Gaza churches, destroying two of them. In Somalia, gunmen shot dead an elderly Italian nun. Radical clerics from Qatar to Qom have called, variously, for a "day of anger" or for worshipers to "hunt down" the pope and his followers. From Turkey to Malaysia, Muslim politicians have condemned the pope and called his apology "insufficient." And all of this because Benedict XVI, speaking at the University of Regensburg, quoted a Byzantine emperor who, more than 600 years ago, called Islam a faith "spread by the sword." We've been here before, of course. Similar protests were sparked last winter by cartoon portrayals of Muhammad in the Danish press. Similar apologies resulted, though Benedict's is more surprising than those of the Danish government. No one, apparently, can remember any pope, not even the media-friendly John Paul II, apologizing for anything in such specific terms: not for the Inquisition, not for the persecution of Galileo and certainly not for a single comment made to an academic audience in an unimportant German city.
But Western reactions to Muslim "days of anger" have followed a familiar pattern, too. Last winter, some Western newspapers defended their Danish colleagues, even going so far as to reprint the cartoons -- but others, including the Vatican, attacked the Danes for giving offense. Some leading Catholics have now defended the pope -- but others, no doubt including some Danes, have complained that his statement should have been better vetted, or never given at all. This isn't surprising: By definition, the West is not monolithic. Left-leaning journalists don't identify with right-leaning colleagues (or right-leaning Catholic colleagues), and vice versa. Not all Christians, let alone all Catholics -- even all German Catholics -- identify with the pope either, and certainly they don't want to defend his every scholarly quotation.
Unfortunately, these subtle distinctions are lost on the fanatics who torch embassies and churches. And they may also be preventing all of us from finding a useful response to the waves of anti-Western anger and violence that periodically engulf parts of the Muslim world. Clearly, a handful of apologies and some random public debate -- should the pope have said X, should the Danish prime minister have done Y -- are ineffective and irrelevant: None of the radical clerics accepts Western apologies, and none of their radical followers reads the Western press. Instead, Western politicians, writers, thinkers and speakers should stop apologizing -- and start uniting.
By this, I don't mean that we all need to rush to defend or to analyze this particular sermon; I leave that to experts on Byzantine theology. But we can all unite in our support for freedom of speech -- surely the pope is allowed to quote from medieval texts -- and of the press. And we can also unite, loudly, in our condemnation of violent, unprovoked attacks on churches, embassies and elderly nuns. By "we" I mean here the White House, the Vatican, the German Greens, the French Foreign Ministry, NATO, Greenpeace, Le Monde and Fox News -- Western institutions of the left, the right and everything in between. True, these principles sound pretty elementary -- "we're pro-free speech and anti-gratuitous violence" -- but in the days since the pope's sermon, I don't feel that I've heard them defended in anything like a unanimous chorus. A lot more time has been spent analyzing what the pontiff meant to say, or should have said, or might have said if he had been given better advice.
All of which is simply beside the point, since nothing the pope has ever said comes even close to matching the vitriol, extremism and hatred that pour out of the mouths of radical imams and fanatical clerics every day, all across Europe and the Muslim world, almost none of which ever provokes any Western response at all. And maybe it's time that it should: When Saudi Arabia publishes textbooks commanding good Wahhabi Muslims to "hate" Christians, Jews and non-Wahhabi Muslims, for example, why shouldn't the Vatican, the Southern Baptists, Britain's chief rabbi and the Council on American-Islamic Relations all condemn them -- simultaneously?
Maybe it's a pipe dream: The day when the White House and Greenpeace can issue a joint statement is surely distant indeed. But if stray comments by Western leaders -- not to mention Western films, books, cartoons, traditions and values -- are going to inspire regular violence, I don't feel that it's asking too much for the West to quit saying sorry and unite, occasionally, in its own defense. The fanatics attacking the pope already limit the right to free speech among their own followers. I don't see why we should allow them to limit our right to free speech, too.
Comment: This year, 2006, has seen two attempts by reactionary muslim politicians to browbeat the West on questions of free speech. They have not been totally successful. However, the very principle of attacking free speech must be opposed relentlessly by Western governments and leading personalities.
The future can only hold the success of the principle of free speech. If muslims have problems with free speech, they must change their view of Islam. All progress in history has been based on free speech...the advocates of progressive change always encountered opposition. Their ability to use free speech enabled them to eventually make the better case for progressive change and thus our societies and cultures moved forward.
The current Islamic hostility to free speech (which did not exist in the early days of Islam) is the reason for the widespread backwardness of all muslim countries. Proponents of progressive change in muslim countries always face jail, or worse, for advocating change. This current aspect of contemporary Islam must be fought against, both by Westerners and by progressive muslims.
Saturday, September 23, 2006
An Intelligent Muslim Scholar
Note: this posting is from Professor Mona Siddiqui, an intelligent muslim scholar who works in Scotland.
Read and learn...
On the path to mutual respect
Faith, Reason and Islam
Mona Siddiqui
Muslims must learn that differing views are at the core of a civil society, according to a leading Islamic scholar, and violent calls for revenge over perceived slights only fuel criticism of their religion
Once again we are seeing images of Muslims rioting, burning effigies and shouting for more deaths. Even the more respectable press is speculating on the precise nature of the link between Islam - more specifically the Qur'an - and violence. And once again "moderate" Islam is being asked to explain the actions of a menacing few. Except that the increasing worry is that it might not be a few and that the images of violence are actually a reflection of the hostility that most Muslims feel towards any criticism of their faith, culture or history.
As a Muslim I remain perplexed. Why are Muslims magnifying every incident to the level of a global conflict? Adulation and veneration of the Prophet may be laudable qualities but is this really what this furore is about? I don't think so. The ease with which marches are mobilised and threats directed are symptoms of a community not only feeling under siege but slightly revelling in their victim status. From Cairo to London, we have seen calls for apologies for a comment that could have been consigned to the annals of papal intellectualism; instead the comment became yet another mark of mutual distrust and suspicion between some Muslims and the Western world. This has damaged no one but it has made Islam appear like a complete idiosyncrasy in the West. Islam is a major world religion which doesn't need this kind of weak defence.
I'm sure that Pope Benedict did not deliberately intend to offend the Prophet in particular. But as someone who was previously the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, he is not naive and must have known that his speech could be contentious and open to all sorts of interpretations. Whether he was ill advised or advised at all, the fact remains that he now symbolises far more than his academic credentials.
This incident is not about defending freedom of speech - that red herring brought out as the ultimate achievement of Western civilisation - it is about recognising that pitting one faith against another to show the superiority of one and the deficiencies of the other is a dangerous and arrogant exercise. By all means, explore genuine theological differences, but not on the assumption that one faith perspective has all the right answers. Both Christianity and Islam have blood on their hands. Both are missionary religions often struggling to accept the essential truth of any other faith. Both come together mostly when they want to condemn certain sexual or fertility practices as an affront to human dignity.
Intellectuals and academics must have the right to posit any arguments they want if they can support them with rigorous evidence. But in this speech one of the connections being made by the Pope was that Islamic views of divine transcendence have left very little room for reason or logos in Islam. This is unlike in Christianity, where reason and revelation have complemented each other for a very long time and provided the fundamental basis for Western society, a society where religious violence and coercion have no place. Eradicating religious violence must be a desirable objective for all of us.
The problem here is that if we continue to judge Islam only by the current images of violence then there will be very little desire to tolerate this faith, never mind see it as a legitimate expression of the Divine. Why some Muslims are so quick to resort to violent acts may be more about political self-interest than any genuine search for justice. There are no easy answers as to why acts of intense violence have become such a defining aspect of the Muslim faith.
Unfortunately, very little seems to have changed since the Rushdie affair. But let's remember that there have always been different intellectual conversations and ideologies within Islam and, even today, it would be completely wrong to think that such debates are no more than peripheral or academic to mainstream Islam. One has only to look at the discussions around sharia law and pluralism to understand that there are many people from all levels of society who are actively engaged in working for a more inclusive and just world.
The real reason why Pope Benedict's lecture touches on so many sensitivities is because the theological analysis carries within it serious political ambitions. For Pope Benedict, Christianity cannot just be Europe's past; it must also be Europe's future. It is the Pope's aspirations to make Christianity once again a living force in the West that underlies so much of his current thinking both in relation to other faiths and in his attempts to unify the Christian Church. As a Pope, he has every right to work towards this goal but Europe is not just the Catholic Church, nor is the Catholic Church just the pontificate.
The Pope cannot ignore the growing diversity within his own faith nor in the other faiths that are also a major part of Europe. True, he is concerned about the challenge of secularism, which sees itself as the repository of reason, but if religion and reason are to come together to face contemporary challenges, can it be any religion or can it only be Christianity?
Muslims must learn that differing viewpoints and multiple voices are the very essence of civil society. Even when the viewpoint touches on something as sacred as the Prophet and his legacy, responses must be dignified and respectful. This would reflect the true essence of Islam; calling for revenge and retribution is doing little more than proving all the critics right.
Professor Mona Siddiqui is Director of the Centre for the Study of Islam at Glasgow University.
Comment: Can anyone in Canberra bring this scholar to Australia to give a series of lectures? How about giving her a visa and stop giving visas to the Wahhabi fascists who come here to poison the local muslim youth.
Is anyone awake in Canberra?
Read and learn...
On the path to mutual respect
Faith, Reason and Islam
Mona Siddiqui
Muslims must learn that differing views are at the core of a civil society, according to a leading Islamic scholar, and violent calls for revenge over perceived slights only fuel criticism of their religion
Once again we are seeing images of Muslims rioting, burning effigies and shouting for more deaths. Even the more respectable press is speculating on the precise nature of the link between Islam - more specifically the Qur'an - and violence. And once again "moderate" Islam is being asked to explain the actions of a menacing few. Except that the increasing worry is that it might not be a few and that the images of violence are actually a reflection of the hostility that most Muslims feel towards any criticism of their faith, culture or history.
As a Muslim I remain perplexed. Why are Muslims magnifying every incident to the level of a global conflict? Adulation and veneration of the Prophet may be laudable qualities but is this really what this furore is about? I don't think so. The ease with which marches are mobilised and threats directed are symptoms of a community not only feeling under siege but slightly revelling in their victim status. From Cairo to London, we have seen calls for apologies for a comment that could have been consigned to the annals of papal intellectualism; instead the comment became yet another mark of mutual distrust and suspicion between some Muslims and the Western world. This has damaged no one but it has made Islam appear like a complete idiosyncrasy in the West. Islam is a major world religion which doesn't need this kind of weak defence.
I'm sure that Pope Benedict did not deliberately intend to offend the Prophet in particular. But as someone who was previously the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, he is not naive and must have known that his speech could be contentious and open to all sorts of interpretations. Whether he was ill advised or advised at all, the fact remains that he now symbolises far more than his academic credentials.
This incident is not about defending freedom of speech - that red herring brought out as the ultimate achievement of Western civilisation - it is about recognising that pitting one faith against another to show the superiority of one and the deficiencies of the other is a dangerous and arrogant exercise. By all means, explore genuine theological differences, but not on the assumption that one faith perspective has all the right answers. Both Christianity and Islam have blood on their hands. Both are missionary religions often struggling to accept the essential truth of any other faith. Both come together mostly when they want to condemn certain sexual or fertility practices as an affront to human dignity.
Intellectuals and academics must have the right to posit any arguments they want if they can support them with rigorous evidence. But in this speech one of the connections being made by the Pope was that Islamic views of divine transcendence have left very little room for reason or logos in Islam. This is unlike in Christianity, where reason and revelation have complemented each other for a very long time and provided the fundamental basis for Western society, a society where religious violence and coercion have no place. Eradicating religious violence must be a desirable objective for all of us.
The problem here is that if we continue to judge Islam only by the current images of violence then there will be very little desire to tolerate this faith, never mind see it as a legitimate expression of the Divine. Why some Muslims are so quick to resort to violent acts may be more about political self-interest than any genuine search for justice. There are no easy answers as to why acts of intense violence have become such a defining aspect of the Muslim faith.
Unfortunately, very little seems to have changed since the Rushdie affair. But let's remember that there have always been different intellectual conversations and ideologies within Islam and, even today, it would be completely wrong to think that such debates are no more than peripheral or academic to mainstream Islam. One has only to look at the discussions around sharia law and pluralism to understand that there are many people from all levels of society who are actively engaged in working for a more inclusive and just world.
The real reason why Pope Benedict's lecture touches on so many sensitivities is because the theological analysis carries within it serious political ambitions. For Pope Benedict, Christianity cannot just be Europe's past; it must also be Europe's future. It is the Pope's aspirations to make Christianity once again a living force in the West that underlies so much of his current thinking both in relation to other faiths and in his attempts to unify the Christian Church. As a Pope, he has every right to work towards this goal but Europe is not just the Catholic Church, nor is the Catholic Church just the pontificate.
The Pope cannot ignore the growing diversity within his own faith nor in the other faiths that are also a major part of Europe. True, he is concerned about the challenge of secularism, which sees itself as the repository of reason, but if religion and reason are to come together to face contemporary challenges, can it be any religion or can it only be Christianity?
Muslims must learn that differing viewpoints and multiple voices are the very essence of civil society. Even when the viewpoint touches on something as sacred as the Prophet and his legacy, responses must be dignified and respectful. This would reflect the true essence of Islam; calling for revenge and retribution is doing little more than proving all the critics right.
Professor Mona Siddiqui is Director of the Centre for the Study of Islam at Glasgow University.
Comment: Can anyone in Canberra bring this scholar to Australia to give a series of lectures? How about giving her a visa and stop giving visas to the Wahhabi fascists who come here to poison the local muslim youth.
Is anyone awake in Canberra?
Friday, September 22, 2006
" Show Anger And Hatred"
Note: Presumably the Islamic Propagation Office in an Islamic Republic would have some idea of what REAL ISLAM is. In Tehran REAL ISLAM involves 'anger' and hatred'. Presumably these qualities were preached by Mohammad of Mecca. If he didn't preach 'anger' and 'hatred', why would an Islamic Propagation Office promote them?
Perhaps the Islamic Republic of Iran has officials who do not know Islam. Is this possible?
Confused enough? Now read on....
21 September, 2006
IRAN - VATICAN
Ahmadinejad proclaims respect for pope but Iran has strange anti-Catholic coalition
by Dariush Mirzai
Foreigners, Armenians and minorities have taken to the streets, but the “students” have not. Tomorrow, however, the Islamic Propagation Office has called a rally in Teheran to “show anger and hatred”.
Teheran (AsiaNews) – Despite Ahmadinejad’s proclamations of “respect” for Benedict XVI, the anti-pope controversy is not yet over in the Islamic republic of Iran. However, there is no popular uprising and the regime so far has not used the fervent ranks of “bassij”, the “students”, as it did in the controversy about the Muhammad cartoons in February. But tomorrow, Friday, a day of prayer, the
Islamic Propagation Office has invited Iranian Muslims to a demonstration in Teheran, to “show the anger and hatred” of the faithful against the “anti-Islamic” statements of the pope.
The tenors of the regime, the Supreme Guide Khamenei and the powerful and very rich Hashemi Rafsanjani, stoked controversy against the pope, accusing him of collusion with Zionist and US circles (Khamenei) or of “irrationality” (Rafsanjani).
Yesterday’s demonstrations were quite strange: authorised if not organised by the authorities, they gathered “strangers” and “minorities”. A group of Armenians and other demonstrators gathered outside Hosseinieh Ershad mosque to protest against the pope’s “anti-Islamic” attitude. In Iran, the Armenians constitute quite an important minority that enjoys historic status of “privileged” inferiority. What’s more, they are Orthodox, but there is also an Armenian Catholic community – a Salesian priest of Armenian rite was recently ordained in Teheran. This demonstration is one of those typical signs of “peace” and obedience that allow Iranian minorities to survive.
Another particular demonstration was that held by foreign Islamic “seminarians” of Qom, including a group of Americans who shouted, apart from the classic “Down with America” and “Down with Israel”, a bizarre “Down with the pope”. Gathered outside Qom’s World Center for Islamic Sciences, they approved a manifesto addressed to “Mr Pope” and accused Christianity of having caused the last two world wars and thus of being without reason and without any right to criticize the use of violence in the name of religion.
Photos of the leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah, Nasrallah, have been taken down from the streets of Teheran and right now, the faces of “martyrs” (shahid) from the Iraq war are exposed.
On Friday at 7am, a traditional military parade will take place near the Mausoleum of Khomeini. In this atmosphere, the next attack of propaganda should not target religious minorities but rather “arrogant” states opposed to Iran’s nuclear policy. This was announced by Ahmadinejad’s address in New York yesterday.
Comment: The sheer ignorance of ordinary norms is one of the stand out points in dealing with religious muslims. Their insularity is so pronounced they are unable to discover the simplest things, like proper modes of address and even the most rudimentary knowledge of events outside their own air tight worlds.
The application of this problem in Australia is the existence of muslim schools. They should be incorporated into the state education system. Muslims in Australia need a full education in the Australian and Western norms. Continued life in the hermetically sealed world of Islam does not do Australia any good...nor the muslims, for that matter.
Close the muslim schools and educate the muslims with other Australians. Without this how will they ever properly integrate and conform to life here?
Is anyone awake in Canberra?
Perhaps the Islamic Republic of Iran has officials who do not know Islam. Is this possible?
Confused enough? Now read on....
21 September, 2006
IRAN - VATICAN
Ahmadinejad proclaims respect for pope but Iran has strange anti-Catholic coalition
by Dariush Mirzai
Foreigners, Armenians and minorities have taken to the streets, but the “students” have not. Tomorrow, however, the Islamic Propagation Office has called a rally in Teheran to “show anger and hatred”.
Teheran (AsiaNews) – Despite Ahmadinejad’s proclamations of “respect” for Benedict XVI, the anti-pope controversy is not yet over in the Islamic republic of Iran. However, there is no popular uprising and the regime so far has not used the fervent ranks of “bassij”, the “students”, as it did in the controversy about the Muhammad cartoons in February. But tomorrow, Friday, a day of prayer, the
Islamic Propagation Office has invited Iranian Muslims to a demonstration in Teheran, to “show the anger and hatred” of the faithful against the “anti-Islamic” statements of the pope.
The tenors of the regime, the Supreme Guide Khamenei and the powerful and very rich Hashemi Rafsanjani, stoked controversy against the pope, accusing him of collusion with Zionist and US circles (Khamenei) or of “irrationality” (Rafsanjani).
Yesterday’s demonstrations were quite strange: authorised if not organised by the authorities, they gathered “strangers” and “minorities”. A group of Armenians and other demonstrators gathered outside Hosseinieh Ershad mosque to protest against the pope’s “anti-Islamic” attitude. In Iran, the Armenians constitute quite an important minority that enjoys historic status of “privileged” inferiority. What’s more, they are Orthodox, but there is also an Armenian Catholic community – a Salesian priest of Armenian rite was recently ordained in Teheran. This demonstration is one of those typical signs of “peace” and obedience that allow Iranian minorities to survive.
Another particular demonstration was that held by foreign Islamic “seminarians” of Qom, including a group of Americans who shouted, apart from the classic “Down with America” and “Down with Israel”, a bizarre “Down with the pope”. Gathered outside Qom’s World Center for Islamic Sciences, they approved a manifesto addressed to “Mr Pope” and accused Christianity of having caused the last two world wars and thus of being without reason and without any right to criticize the use of violence in the name of religion.
Photos of the leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah, Nasrallah, have been taken down from the streets of Teheran and right now, the faces of “martyrs” (shahid) from the Iraq war are exposed.
On Friday at 7am, a traditional military parade will take place near the Mausoleum of Khomeini. In this atmosphere, the next attack of propaganda should not target religious minorities but rather “arrogant” states opposed to Iran’s nuclear policy. This was announced by Ahmadinejad’s address in New York yesterday.
Comment: The sheer ignorance of ordinary norms is one of the stand out points in dealing with religious muslims. Their insularity is so pronounced they are unable to discover the simplest things, like proper modes of address and even the most rudimentary knowledge of events outside their own air tight worlds.
The application of this problem in Australia is the existence of muslim schools. They should be incorporated into the state education system. Muslims in Australia need a full education in the Australian and Western norms. Continued life in the hermetically sealed world of Islam does not do Australia any good...nor the muslims, for that matter.
Close the muslim schools and educate the muslims with other Australians. Without this how will they ever properly integrate and conform to life here?
Is anyone awake in Canberra?
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Muslims Confused About Pope Benedict's Speech.
Note: As the usual mainstream muslim violent reaction subsides, the speech by Pope Benedict has brought forth some new reponses from the various parts of the muslim world. Some trot out that old standard nonsense about how the offending person doesn't know enough about Islam...yad yada yada...others demand some sort of 'respect' for Islam, despite the failure of muslims themselves to show any behaviour worthy of respect.
The poor muslims have a long way to go to catch up with the modern world.
19 September, 2006
ISLAM – VATICAN
More calls for dialogue in a Muslim world angered by Pope
The Holy See’s diplomatic offensive seems to be working. Iran’s parliament hopes the Pope won’t fall “in the trap” set by those seeking a clash of civilisations. More and more Islamic media detail the Pope’s full speech, demand greater knowledge of each other’s religion.
Beirut (AsiaNews) – As some pour over Benedict XVI’s entire Regensburg speech instead of focusing on a single sentence about Muhammad taken out of context, others accept what the Pope said on Sunday, namely that what he quoted did not reflect his thought, and others even see that in the end the Holy Father did apologise. Overall, the Holy See’s diplomatic offensive that has had nuncios working overtime trying to explain to the governments of Muslim countries the real meaning of what the Pope said in Regensburg is bearing fruit.
AsiaNews’s sources are saying that the situation in some countries is still tense, but mass protest and incendiary statements appeared to have died down, except for terrorist groups that are still feeding the fire in order to politically exploit the situation.
In Iran, in a statement by President Ahmadinejad read to parliament and published in the semi-official ISNA news agency, Ahmad Mousavi said that it “is expected of the Pope to have a sense of his elevated place and to think about the consequences of his words ” and show “respect” for Islam. Mousavi expressed “hope the Pope does not fall in the trap of those who see their benefits in war between Muslims and Christians”. As for the controversial speech, the Iranian official said that the “remarks made by the Pope [. . .] were made on a poor foundation of knowledge regarding Islam”.
For Saudi online paper Arab News, “[w]hatever views people may have about Pope Benedict’s controversial speech at Regensburg University last week; it underlines the urgent need for greater dialogue between people of different faiths. There is a dangerous chasm of ignorance about other faiths and it affects Muslims, Christians, Jews and practitioners of other religions equally; it is dangerous because it is so easily exploited by bigots and opportunists for their own political ends.”
The paper goes on to say that the “Danish cartoon row should have provided the stimulus to intensify efforts. It did not. Maybe now, in the full fury of the papal row, the message will get through. It has to. In today’s global village, we cannot afford to be ignorant of each other’s faiths. Ignorance breeds fear and fear breeds hate—and hate is scarcely a step away from war and conflict.”
For its part, Turkish daily Hurriyet, which led the protest, now writes that “the reaction of radical Islamists to the pope’s speech justifies claims that Islam is a religion of violence. But if we carefully read the speech by Pope Benedict XVI, we can see that the dialogue between cultures as well as religions will be difficult.”
It adds that it “would also be wrong to demand an apology from the pope. He would say that they were the words of the Byzantine emperor. But that's not the essence of all this. It's important to emphasize the common points in a dialogue between cultures and accepting each other the way we are.”
For Jordan’s Al Ra’i, the Pope’s Angelus, many excerpts of which it reprinted, was a step in the right direction, whilst Syria’ SANA news agency briefly reported protests in some Muslim countries without any comments and without talking about any reactions in Syria itself.
Hasyim Muzadi, chairman of Indonesia’s largest Islamic association Nadhlatul Ulama, said that Muslims must accept Pope Benedict XVI's “apology” for offending Muslims, saying it was “an obligation” according to Islamic teachings.
The Jakarta Post reports that for Hasyim Benedict XVI’s regrets were “enough” and that any further resentment on the part of Muslims would only justify the Pope’s claims. “If the rage continues, perhaps what the pope said is true,” it said.
Taking its cue from Card Julius Darmaatmadja, the Bishops’ Conference of Indonesia said that it hoped “this incident does not damage the religious harmony we have tried to build all this time,” insisting that “the act of forgiving each other will be the basis for better dialogue in our coexistence.”
A singular perspective has been voiced in an editorial article in Asia Times. The paper’s editorialist claims that the Pope has called “for the conversion of the Muslims” and for this reason is dangerous. The jihad against which Benedict has spoken “is the fundamental sacrament of Islam, the Muslim cognate of the Lord's Supper in Christianity, that is, the unique form of sacrifice by which the individual believer communes with the Transcendent. [. . .] To ask Islam to become moderate, to reform, to become a peaceful religion of personal conscience is the precise equivalent of asking Catholics to abolish Mass. For this reason the Islamic world sees in Benedict XVI a danger and with “reason”.
As for Benedict characterising jihad as an insult to Reason, Muslims might have responded by asking the Pope how much rationality is there in a God that sends his son to die on a cross or in a belief that during mass bread and wine can really be turned into the flesh and blood of his dead and risen son.
For the Gulf Today and the Middle East Time, the Pope’s attempt to placate the anger of the Muslim world is a failure as demonstrations and al-Qaeda’s threat to “conquer Rome” make clear.
Today though there have been no demonstrations but in Indonesia the Islamic defence Front is still protesting. The group complained that the Pope expressed regrets but did not apologise. For the group’s spokesman, the Pope must instead apologise directly to Muslims.
Comment: This uproar shows very clearly how useful it would be if the Australian government had a program to get sensible muslim writers into the local muslim papers. Muslims in Australia will not make necessary steps to proper integration unless their minds are exposed to modern muslim writers and ideas. Unless the poison of the imams is countered, we will end up with serious problems; just as Europe now has.
Is anyone awake in Canberra?
The poor muslims have a long way to go to catch up with the modern world.
19 September, 2006
ISLAM – VATICAN
More calls for dialogue in a Muslim world angered by Pope
The Holy See’s diplomatic offensive seems to be working. Iran’s parliament hopes the Pope won’t fall “in the trap” set by those seeking a clash of civilisations. More and more Islamic media detail the Pope’s full speech, demand greater knowledge of each other’s religion.
Beirut (AsiaNews) – As some pour over Benedict XVI’s entire Regensburg speech instead of focusing on a single sentence about Muhammad taken out of context, others accept what the Pope said on Sunday, namely that what he quoted did not reflect his thought, and others even see that in the end the Holy Father did apologise. Overall, the Holy See’s diplomatic offensive that has had nuncios working overtime trying to explain to the governments of Muslim countries the real meaning of what the Pope said in Regensburg is bearing fruit.
AsiaNews’s sources are saying that the situation in some countries is still tense, but mass protest and incendiary statements appeared to have died down, except for terrorist groups that are still feeding the fire in order to politically exploit the situation.
In Iran, in a statement by President Ahmadinejad read to parliament and published in the semi-official ISNA news agency, Ahmad Mousavi said that it “is expected of the Pope to have a sense of his elevated place and to think about the consequences of his words ” and show “respect” for Islam. Mousavi expressed “hope the Pope does not fall in the trap of those who see their benefits in war between Muslims and Christians”. As for the controversial speech, the Iranian official said that the “remarks made by the Pope [. . .] were made on a poor foundation of knowledge regarding Islam”.
For Saudi online paper Arab News, “[w]hatever views people may have about Pope Benedict’s controversial speech at Regensburg University last week; it underlines the urgent need for greater dialogue between people of different faiths. There is a dangerous chasm of ignorance about other faiths and it affects Muslims, Christians, Jews and practitioners of other religions equally; it is dangerous because it is so easily exploited by bigots and opportunists for their own political ends.”
The paper goes on to say that the “Danish cartoon row should have provided the stimulus to intensify efforts. It did not. Maybe now, in the full fury of the papal row, the message will get through. It has to. In today’s global village, we cannot afford to be ignorant of each other’s faiths. Ignorance breeds fear and fear breeds hate—and hate is scarcely a step away from war and conflict.”
For its part, Turkish daily Hurriyet, which led the protest, now writes that “the reaction of radical Islamists to the pope’s speech justifies claims that Islam is a religion of violence. But if we carefully read the speech by Pope Benedict XVI, we can see that the dialogue between cultures as well as religions will be difficult.”
It adds that it “would also be wrong to demand an apology from the pope. He would say that they were the words of the Byzantine emperor. But that's not the essence of all this. It's important to emphasize the common points in a dialogue between cultures and accepting each other the way we are.”
For Jordan’s Al Ra’i, the Pope’s Angelus, many excerpts of which it reprinted, was a step in the right direction, whilst Syria’ SANA news agency briefly reported protests in some Muslim countries without any comments and without talking about any reactions in Syria itself.
Hasyim Muzadi, chairman of Indonesia’s largest Islamic association Nadhlatul Ulama, said that Muslims must accept Pope Benedict XVI's “apology” for offending Muslims, saying it was “an obligation” according to Islamic teachings.
The Jakarta Post reports that for Hasyim Benedict XVI’s regrets were “enough” and that any further resentment on the part of Muslims would only justify the Pope’s claims. “If the rage continues, perhaps what the pope said is true,” it said.
Taking its cue from Card Julius Darmaatmadja, the Bishops’ Conference of Indonesia said that it hoped “this incident does not damage the religious harmony we have tried to build all this time,” insisting that “the act of forgiving each other will be the basis for better dialogue in our coexistence.”
A singular perspective has been voiced in an editorial article in Asia Times. The paper’s editorialist claims that the Pope has called “for the conversion of the Muslims” and for this reason is dangerous. The jihad against which Benedict has spoken “is the fundamental sacrament of Islam, the Muslim cognate of the Lord's Supper in Christianity, that is, the unique form of sacrifice by which the individual believer communes with the Transcendent. [. . .] To ask Islam to become moderate, to reform, to become a peaceful religion of personal conscience is the precise equivalent of asking Catholics to abolish Mass. For this reason the Islamic world sees in Benedict XVI a danger and with “reason”.
As for Benedict characterising jihad as an insult to Reason, Muslims might have responded by asking the Pope how much rationality is there in a God that sends his son to die on a cross or in a belief that during mass bread and wine can really be turned into the flesh and blood of his dead and risen son.
For the Gulf Today and the Middle East Time, the Pope’s attempt to placate the anger of the Muslim world is a failure as demonstrations and al-Qaeda’s threat to “conquer Rome” make clear.
Today though there have been no demonstrations but in Indonesia the Islamic defence Front is still protesting. The group complained that the Pope expressed regrets but did not apologise. For the group’s spokesman, the Pope must instead apologise directly to Muslims.
Comment: This uproar shows very clearly how useful it would be if the Australian government had a program to get sensible muslim writers into the local muslim papers. Muslims in Australia will not make necessary steps to proper integration unless their minds are exposed to modern muslim writers and ideas. Unless the poison of the imams is countered, we will end up with serious problems; just as Europe now has.
Is anyone awake in Canberra?
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Tehran Reaction To Pope Benedict.
Note: Readers will note that some of the more intelligent muslim leaders (usually Shia)are now 'asking for time to read the Pope's address'. This may take some time as the address will need to be very carefully translated into Arabic and Farsi.
In future I would hope that the Vatican can arrange translations into these important languages before a major speech is given. It shouldn't be too difficult, surely.
Read on...
18 September, 2006
IRAN - VATICAN
Not all Teheran behind ayatollahs in anti-pope criticism
by Darius Mirzai
In the eyes of many Iranians, Benedict XVI enjoys considerable moral prestige for his criticism of the links between religion and violence. But Christians face the threat of increased marginalization.
Teheran (AsiaNews) – In ayatollah land, not everyone agrees that the pope should be rapped. Quite the contrary, some think his criticism of the links between religion and violence vests him with great moral prestige. But the Christian community risks being marginalized more than ever. Yesterday, the Foreign Affairs Minister called the Vatican Nuncio, Mgr Angelo Mottola (described as “Cardinal Angelo Michele” by the official news agency IRNA) to express “profound anxiety and objection to the anti-Islamic statements of Benedict XVI”.
For days, the mullah Ahmad Khatami has repeated clamorous statements against the pope, who “has not even read the Koran”, who “backs the policies of Bush”, and so on. But only 200 people participated in a rally held yesterday by the theological schools of Qom (the birthplace of Khomeini). This could be a sign of weakness or else, perhaps, an impact of the statement by Cardinal Bertone, reported on the front pages of all Iranian newspapers. The press is talking about the “apology” of the pope to Muslims.
Another sign of detachment from anti-pope rhetoric is the stand taken by the ex-president, Mohammed Khatami, who has suspended judgment on the speech of Benedict XVI in Regensburg until he reads it himself. Even the current Iranian president Ahmadinejad has prudently called for “Islamic theological analysis” into the papal address.
In reality, the Shiite clergy in Iran is using the polemic about the pope for its new upsurge in victimization. The Iranian year 1384 (2205 – 2006), which started shortly after the controversy of the Muhammad cartoons, has been dedicated by the authorities in Teheran to the figure of the prophet of Islam. For some months, the Iranian regime has been availing itself of every opportunity to present itself as the victim of “Islamophobia”, partly not to lag behind in the race to lead international Islamism and partly to alienate people from economic problems and domestic politics.
So the pope was criticized for having called into question the link between Islam and the jihad.
But that the concept of “jihad” should be condemned is not an insult for the majority of Iranians. On the streets of Teheran, there are large frescoes extolling the glory of the local “shahid” (so-called martyrs). There is also one of a Palestinian mother who is ready to kill herself, with the slogan: “I love my child, but I love martyrdom more”. But nearly no one believes them: passers-by, somewhat embarrassed or disgusted, pay no attention. After all, in Teheran, after the “divine victory” of the Shiite Nasrallah in Lebanon, there were no manifestations of joy. For the Iranian regime, it is becoming increasingly difficult to use the pope’s words to boost its Islamic politics. Perhaps, in a few days, time, it will serve the purposes of propaganda better to exaggerate the import of the “apologies of the Church towards the Muslims”.
The “Assembly of Experts”, a group of around 80 mullahs who have the power to choose or even to depose the Supreme Guide, yesterday made public a statement of apologetics about the jihad, an expression of the struggle of the oppressed. The assembly condemned the “anti-Islamic statements” of Pope Ratzinger and attributed them to the influence of arrogant political leaders. On a political level, the assembly questioned why the pope forgot the crimes committed by the Zionist regime (Israel) and failed to mention problems in Iraq, Afghanistan, and so on.
For many Iranians, the important thing in the current controversy is what has not been said: the interlocutor of Manuel II Paleologus, in the controversial quote in the papal address, is Inb Hazn, a Persian. The pope’s rejection of the link between religion and violence is used to boost local criticism of the ayatollahs. And no one has forgotten that the German pope went on pilgrimage to Auschwitz, and this is a further criticism of the Iranian leadership that denies the Holocaust. Thus, in several circles, the words of the pope drew deep emotions that revealed the moral prestige enjoyed by the Successor of Peter in the Islamic Republic.
After years of Khomeinism, the Iranian people are largely anti-clerical, but religiosity and patriotism are strong. Ahmad Khatami will not convince anyone of his own sincerity, but the image of Christianity in Iranian society could suffer because of the present controversy.
What will happen to Christians in Iran? The tendency to exile and semi-forced conversion will continue thanks to discriminatory laws and social marginalization. It is likely that some Christian MPs will be forced to voice modern criticisms against the Vatican, the price to pay to be left in peace. Soon, all this controversy will be forgotten except by extremists, by definition closed to dialogue, and alas, by Christian minorities. Yesterday, 200 seminarians of Qom were on the streets, but some Christians were prompted by fear to stay in, and did not go to church.
Comment: There is no need to comment on this article.
In future I would hope that the Vatican can arrange translations into these important languages before a major speech is given. It shouldn't be too difficult, surely.
Read on...
18 September, 2006
IRAN - VATICAN
Not all Teheran behind ayatollahs in anti-pope criticism
by Darius Mirzai
In the eyes of many Iranians, Benedict XVI enjoys considerable moral prestige for his criticism of the links between religion and violence. But Christians face the threat of increased marginalization.
Teheran (AsiaNews) – In ayatollah land, not everyone agrees that the pope should be rapped. Quite the contrary, some think his criticism of the links between religion and violence vests him with great moral prestige. But the Christian community risks being marginalized more than ever. Yesterday, the Foreign Affairs Minister called the Vatican Nuncio, Mgr Angelo Mottola (described as “Cardinal Angelo Michele” by the official news agency IRNA) to express “profound anxiety and objection to the anti-Islamic statements of Benedict XVI”.
For days, the mullah Ahmad Khatami has repeated clamorous statements against the pope, who “has not even read the Koran”, who “backs the policies of Bush”, and so on. But only 200 people participated in a rally held yesterday by the theological schools of Qom (the birthplace of Khomeini). This could be a sign of weakness or else, perhaps, an impact of the statement by Cardinal Bertone, reported on the front pages of all Iranian newspapers. The press is talking about the “apology” of the pope to Muslims.
Another sign of detachment from anti-pope rhetoric is the stand taken by the ex-president, Mohammed Khatami, who has suspended judgment on the speech of Benedict XVI in Regensburg until he reads it himself. Even the current Iranian president Ahmadinejad has prudently called for “Islamic theological analysis” into the papal address.
In reality, the Shiite clergy in Iran is using the polemic about the pope for its new upsurge in victimization. The Iranian year 1384 (2205 – 2006), which started shortly after the controversy of the Muhammad cartoons, has been dedicated by the authorities in Teheran to the figure of the prophet of Islam. For some months, the Iranian regime has been availing itself of every opportunity to present itself as the victim of “Islamophobia”, partly not to lag behind in the race to lead international Islamism and partly to alienate people from economic problems and domestic politics.
So the pope was criticized for having called into question the link between Islam and the jihad.
But that the concept of “jihad” should be condemned is not an insult for the majority of Iranians. On the streets of Teheran, there are large frescoes extolling the glory of the local “shahid” (so-called martyrs). There is also one of a Palestinian mother who is ready to kill herself, with the slogan: “I love my child, but I love martyrdom more”. But nearly no one believes them: passers-by, somewhat embarrassed or disgusted, pay no attention. After all, in Teheran, after the “divine victory” of the Shiite Nasrallah in Lebanon, there were no manifestations of joy. For the Iranian regime, it is becoming increasingly difficult to use the pope’s words to boost its Islamic politics. Perhaps, in a few days, time, it will serve the purposes of propaganda better to exaggerate the import of the “apologies of the Church towards the Muslims”.
The “Assembly of Experts”, a group of around 80 mullahs who have the power to choose or even to depose the Supreme Guide, yesterday made public a statement of apologetics about the jihad, an expression of the struggle of the oppressed. The assembly condemned the “anti-Islamic statements” of Pope Ratzinger and attributed them to the influence of arrogant political leaders. On a political level, the assembly questioned why the pope forgot the crimes committed by the Zionist regime (Israel) and failed to mention problems in Iraq, Afghanistan, and so on.
For many Iranians, the important thing in the current controversy is what has not been said: the interlocutor of Manuel II Paleologus, in the controversial quote in the papal address, is Inb Hazn, a Persian. The pope’s rejection of the link between religion and violence is used to boost local criticism of the ayatollahs. And no one has forgotten that the German pope went on pilgrimage to Auschwitz, and this is a further criticism of the Iranian leadership that denies the Holocaust. Thus, in several circles, the words of the pope drew deep emotions that revealed the moral prestige enjoyed by the Successor of Peter in the Islamic Republic.
After years of Khomeinism, the Iranian people are largely anti-clerical, but religiosity and patriotism are strong. Ahmad Khatami will not convince anyone of his own sincerity, but the image of Christianity in Iranian society could suffer because of the present controversy.
What will happen to Christians in Iran? The tendency to exile and semi-forced conversion will continue thanks to discriminatory laws and social marginalization. It is likely that some Christian MPs will be forced to voice modern criticisms against the Vatican, the price to pay to be left in peace. Soon, all this controversy will be forgotten except by extremists, by definition closed to dialogue, and alas, by Christian minorities. Yesterday, 200 seminarians of Qom were on the streets, but some Christians were prompted by fear to stay in, and did not go to church.
Comment: There is no need to comment on this article.
Monday, September 18, 2006
Pope Benedict and Suicide Bombs In Sydney.
Note: This posting is in two parts.The first is the official statement from Pope Benedict on his recent speech in Bavaria. It is not an apology(as none was required) but an expression of regret that so many unintelligent people (who haven't read the speech) could have been so manipulated as to be upset. If they had real lives they could have been getting on with them.
The second part is a newspaper report on the growing web of Wahhabi jihad being taught to our local unintelligent muslim youth. This teaching of terrorist violence is completely within the parameters of orthodox and mainstream Islam.
Read on...
Before this morning's Angelus, the Pope read out a one-paragraph statement in Italian, which the Holy See has issued five languages worth of official translations to.
Here's the one in English:
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
The Pastoral Visit which I recently made to Bavaria was a deep spiritual experience, bringing together personal memories linked to places well known to me and pastoral initiatives towards an effective proclamation of the Gospel for today. I thank God for the interior joy which he made possible, and I am also grateful to all those who worked hard for the success of this Pastoral Visit. As is the custom, I will speak more of this during next Wednesday’s General Audience. At this time, I wish also to add that I am deeply sorry for the reactions in some countries to a few passages of my address at the University of Regensburg, which were considered offensive to the sensibility of Muslims. These in fact were a quotation from a medieval text, which do not in any way express my personal thought. Yesterday, the Cardinal Secretary of State published a statement in this regard in which he explained the true meaning of my words. I hope that this serves to appease hearts and to clarify the true meaning of my address, which in its totality was and is an invitation to frank and sincere dialogue, with great mutual respect.
Sydney Islamic clerics 'preaching jihad'
Monday Sep 18 06:32 AEST
Islamic clerics in Sydney and Melbourne are preaching martyrdom and jihad to young followers, terrorism analysts say.
Singapore-based terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna says religious leaders in the two capitals are preaching violence to impressionable followers.
Dr Gunaratna says the teachings are increasing the risk of a terrorist attack, most likely a suicide bombing, in Australia.
"We have seen a number of Australian clerics preaching jihad and martyrdom," Dr Gunaratna told The Australian without naming names.
"The most likely form of attack in Australia is a suicide attack for jihad. You will need to make arrests in time."
Australian terrorism expert Clive Williams, who runs a course at the Australian Defence Force Academy, said young Muslims were being recruited for jihad through "Koran classes".
"They are doing it differently now," Mr Williams told The Australian without identifying any of the recruiters.
"They are advertising for Koran classes and then selecting a few people for (their) inner circle."
Sydney's Sheikh Taj Aldin Alhilali has rejected the claims.
"There is no evidence to substantiate these claims," he told the newspaper.
Melbourne's Sheikh Mohammed Omran said he was unaware any such preaching was going on.
"If it was true, the authorities will take care of it," he said.
Comment: This site thinks that Pope Benedict should not have said anything about the speech. Let it stand. It is never wise to reply to the yowling of the ignorant.
The report on the teaching of jihad (which is the spreading of Islam by violence and coercion, as Mohammad ordered)in Sydney is only to be expected. This stupid government in Canberra insists on allowing the Wahhabi teachers of jihad to be given visas so they can come here and plot murder.
I will make a prediction: the suicide bomber who finally goes off in Sydney will be an Aboriginal boy convert. The jails in NSW are full of confused Aboriginal boys who are wandering into the slavery of Islam. One of them will be poisoned by some filthy Wahhabi imam to commit mass murder. The event will most likely occur in City Road outside the main bus stop for Sydney University. Maximum carnage with packed buses.
The imam will flee Australia before the explosion.
Someone in Canberra should stop these poisonous imams entering the Commonwealth and expel all the Wahhabis who are here.
The second part is a newspaper report on the growing web of Wahhabi jihad being taught to our local unintelligent muslim youth. This teaching of terrorist violence is completely within the parameters of orthodox and mainstream Islam.
Read on...
Before this morning's Angelus, the Pope read out a one-paragraph statement in Italian, which the Holy See has issued five languages worth of official translations to.
Here's the one in English:
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
The Pastoral Visit which I recently made to Bavaria was a deep spiritual experience, bringing together personal memories linked to places well known to me and pastoral initiatives towards an effective proclamation of the Gospel for today. I thank God for the interior joy which he made possible, and I am also grateful to all those who worked hard for the success of this Pastoral Visit. As is the custom, I will speak more of this during next Wednesday’s General Audience. At this time, I wish also to add that I am deeply sorry for the reactions in some countries to a few passages of my address at the University of Regensburg, which were considered offensive to the sensibility of Muslims. These in fact were a quotation from a medieval text, which do not in any way express my personal thought. Yesterday, the Cardinal Secretary of State published a statement in this regard in which he explained the true meaning of my words. I hope that this serves to appease hearts and to clarify the true meaning of my address, which in its totality was and is an invitation to frank and sincere dialogue, with great mutual respect.
Sydney Islamic clerics 'preaching jihad'
Monday Sep 18 06:32 AEST
Islamic clerics in Sydney and Melbourne are preaching martyrdom and jihad to young followers, terrorism analysts say.
Singapore-based terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna says religious leaders in the two capitals are preaching violence to impressionable followers.
Dr Gunaratna says the teachings are increasing the risk of a terrorist attack, most likely a suicide bombing, in Australia.
"We have seen a number of Australian clerics preaching jihad and martyrdom," Dr Gunaratna told The Australian without naming names.
"The most likely form of attack in Australia is a suicide attack for jihad. You will need to make arrests in time."
Australian terrorism expert Clive Williams, who runs a course at the Australian Defence Force Academy, said young Muslims were being recruited for jihad through "Koran classes".
"They are doing it differently now," Mr Williams told The Australian without identifying any of the recruiters.
"They are advertising for Koran classes and then selecting a few people for (their) inner circle."
Sydney's Sheikh Taj Aldin Alhilali has rejected the claims.
"There is no evidence to substantiate these claims," he told the newspaper.
Melbourne's Sheikh Mohammed Omran said he was unaware any such preaching was going on.
"If it was true, the authorities will take care of it," he said.
Comment: This site thinks that Pope Benedict should not have said anything about the speech. Let it stand. It is never wise to reply to the yowling of the ignorant.
The report on the teaching of jihad (which is the spreading of Islam by violence and coercion, as Mohammad ordered)in Sydney is only to be expected. This stupid government in Canberra insists on allowing the Wahhabi teachers of jihad to be given visas so they can come here and plot murder.
I will make a prediction: the suicide bomber who finally goes off in Sydney will be an Aboriginal boy convert. The jails in NSW are full of confused Aboriginal boys who are wandering into the slavery of Islam. One of them will be poisoned by some filthy Wahhabi imam to commit mass murder. The event will most likely occur in City Road outside the main bus stop for Sydney University. Maximum carnage with packed buses.
The imam will flee Australia before the explosion.
Someone in Canberra should stop these poisonous imams entering the Commonwealth and expel all the Wahhabis who are here.
Sunday, September 17, 2006
Internet Reactions To Muslim Violence.
Note: This posting is a selection of 11 comments from around the world to various internet sites concerning the violent muslim reaction to Pope Benedict's suggestion that violence has no legitimite place in religion.
If readers are persistent they will be able to look beyond the crazed violence of the muslims to see the declaration the 'Islam is a religion of Peace'.
The evidence of your eyes will tell you that Islam is not a religion of peace.
Read on...
1.Reaction Proving Pope's Point
The Pope's message was that religion must be divorced from violence. While Jeudaism and Christianity had a long history in Violence they have long ago been divorced and are today a driving force only of Peace. However Islam has not yet decided on this Path. When someone reacts to comments that they should not be violent with violence they are proving the point. Muslims are now burning churches and threatning the entire world with violence because the Pope explained tha Islam is violent and must stop being violent this is proving the Pope's point. It is said that a silent majorit of Muslims are not for violence and are moderate and only want peace however if this is true than they are a real silent silent majority. Islam the choice is yours it seems the Pope just held up the mirror to you and you must choose what you see. Salam.
2.Palestinians that forced the 2 reporters to convert to Islam
It is hypocritical of Palestinians to act offended when it was Palestinians that forced the 2 kidnapped Fox reporters to convert to Islam.
That they [Radical Palestinian terrorists] are guilty of exactly what the Pope described?
Joel Schaffer , Belleair Bluffs, FL
3.Shaka (09.16.06)Title: Pope got it right
Name: Stingray
City: Rome State:
If other people were as brave as to clearly define Islam, expecially radical Islam that is cropping up everywhere, maybe Islam could be checked from starting attacks on the civilized countries of the world.
Political correctness is to rampant today. Clearly label radical Islam as an evil that all must resist and defeat.
4.Title: hamas preachers can say all things about christians, jews
Name: mike
City: State:
but no one can say anything about islam. even if it is true.
hypocritically pathetic.
5. Title: MUSLIM LOGIC-IF YOU CALL ME VIOLENT, I`LL BEHEAD YOU !!
Name: Mitch Iginer
City: Toronto State: Canada
It`s the cartoon scandal all over again.
If anyone accuses Islam of being a violent religion the Muslims rise up and GET VIOLENT.
It would almost be funny if it wasn`t SO backwards and scary.
6.Title: Imams/mullahs never condemned the terrorism done thru islam
Name: Murugan
City: Chennai State: Tamilnadu - India
These mullahs and immams has to behave in the same manner when terrorists are bombing and killing the peoples in the name of ALLAH.
They never condemn the Jihadis or islamic Terrorists attacks around the world. All the terrorists holds Koran in one hand and gun on other hand. They justify their terror acts thru the koran and mohammed's life and teachings. It is time for the world to wake up. September 11th was the wakepup call. See some of the verses preaching violence in koran. Imams and mullahs will never condemn the terrorism and violence committed in the name of islam, because the koran and mohammed's preaching supports it.
Koran 8:12
Remember Thy Lord inspired the angels (with the message): "I am with you: give firmness to the believers, I will instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers, Smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger tips of them."
Here Mohammed is giving step by step instruction on how to torture and kill Kafirs
7.Title: Terrorism is the Death Rattle of Islam
Name: rick
City: NY State: NY
A cult based on violence and intolerance can last for some time but eventually it will wither and die. What we see now in the name of the bin Laden types and the mullah minions who call for jihad and death to someone or other is a last gasp of a dying philosophy. Islam has degenerated into a cult of death and hate. No real religion can continue with such a foundation.
The failure of the Arab and Muslim world to cast off medieval chains, break the misogynic culture that enslaves half of their population, continue to brand others as infidels and targetable for death, etc. reinforced with the economic and political failure of their societies has spelled doom for Islam. Without a Reformation, Islam will not exist in 100 years. The very religion that it battled for centuries -Christianity - will replace it because Christianity has evolved and reformed. Islam today stands with the past. The female Muslim populations will be the first to embrace it.
8.Title: Mohammad Resume
Name: Peter
City: State: US
When reading the Life of Mohammad by Karen Armstrong recently I learn that Mohammad himself ordered the killing of 700 civilian Jews in the City of Medina when his men where uncertain what to do. That picture the man. This is the only mass grave that I know of before Hitler. Also I learnt that his income and of his Muslim movement was financed by assaulting caravan and taken over the riches of the city of Mecca. Also that the voice of God he received are related to events of his political contemporary life, so general that can be interpreted as you like. It is all these right?? This must be proved one way or another otherwise this problem will remain for ever. Title: FACTS ABOUT MUHAMMED ??
9.Name: Bill.
City: State: NZ
Born in Mecca 570 ad . Was an epileptic in his youth . He Married 15 wives , one a year after his first wife Khadija ( a rich widow twice married before ) died . 2nd wife Sauda , a widow two months after khadija`s death . 3rd wife Ayisha when she was 7 years of age . 4th wife Hafsa . 5th wife Zainab his adopted sons wife ( to acheive this he proclaimed that allah gave her to him . To save his reputation due to great scandal he wrote Surat 33:50 . 6th wife Juwariyah wife of one of the chiefs whom he attacked , murdered and plundered . 7th Raihana ( Jewess ) ( After slaughtering the Quraiza Jews - she declined islam became his bond slave because she could not escape with her life .)
8th wife Maryam( an egyptian christian slave girl ) 9th wife Safiya A Khaiba Jewess ( the wife of Kinana the Khaiba Chief whom he slaughtered - she was 15 and very beautiful )10th Um Habecba a widow
11th Maimuna of mecca . On 8th. June 632 ad. he died, violently afflicted and tormented by a fever lasting 2weeks
afTitle: Islam needs to apologize
10.Name: d.dor
City: J-town State: Israel
and return all lands and make restitution to all the Jews and Christians it forced into Muslim ranks on pain of death during it`s first century. The Christian Crusades were weak attempts to liberate OUR lands that had been taken from US (Christian and Jews) by Islamic terror and violence. Make no mistake, the tenets of Islam have not changed. Why do you think the news media always calls it a `stampede` when Muslims riot and kill each other? Mindless, senseless, unreasonable, unthinking, emotionally charged masses pulled and pushed by silver tongued devils. The war has begun, make no mistake. The clash of cultures is upon us once again. This time it`s a world conflagration the likes of which Nostradamus could not even imagine.
11.Title: The Pope Has Been Proven 100% Correct
Name: Nannette
City: London State: UK
The Pope says that jihad violence is against God`s nature, and officials feared that in response, Muslims enraged by this insult will commit...jihad violence - which they have done today by burning Churches.
Comment: The fundamental problem faced by muslims in dealing, intellectually, with the West is their inability to discuss their religious views calmly and rationally. They react to questions with outbursts of anger and threats of violence, especially if the question concerns the centrality of anger and violence in Islam.
The fantasy that 'Islam is a religion of Peace' is not believed by most Westerners who see the real Islam on the TV screens regularly. Only the terminally deluded in the West(or haters of Christianity)proclaim their belief in this fantasy.
The only solution for Westerners in the face of this storm of islamic madness is to passively resist as was done in relation to resisting the Communist menace in the 20th century.
If readers are persistent they will be able to look beyond the crazed violence of the muslims to see the declaration the 'Islam is a religion of Peace'.
The evidence of your eyes will tell you that Islam is not a religion of peace.
Read on...
1.Reaction Proving Pope's Point
The Pope's message was that religion must be divorced from violence. While Jeudaism and Christianity had a long history in Violence they have long ago been divorced and are today a driving force only of Peace. However Islam has not yet decided on this Path. When someone reacts to comments that they should not be violent with violence they are proving the point. Muslims are now burning churches and threatning the entire world with violence because the Pope explained tha Islam is violent and must stop being violent this is proving the Pope's point. It is said that a silent majorit of Muslims are not for violence and are moderate and only want peace however if this is true than they are a real silent silent majority. Islam the choice is yours it seems the Pope just held up the mirror to you and you must choose what you see. Salam.
2.Palestinians that forced the 2 reporters to convert to Islam
It is hypocritical of Palestinians to act offended when it was Palestinians that forced the 2 kidnapped Fox reporters to convert to Islam.
That they [Radical Palestinian terrorists] are guilty of exactly what the Pope described?
Joel Schaffer , Belleair Bluffs, FL
3.Shaka (09.16.06)Title: Pope got it right
Name: Stingray
City: Rome State:
If other people were as brave as to clearly define Islam, expecially radical Islam that is cropping up everywhere, maybe Islam could be checked from starting attacks on the civilized countries of the world.
Political correctness is to rampant today. Clearly label radical Islam as an evil that all must resist and defeat.
4.Title: hamas preachers can say all things about christians, jews
Name: mike
City: State:
but no one can say anything about islam. even if it is true.
hypocritically pathetic.
5. Title: MUSLIM LOGIC-IF YOU CALL ME VIOLENT, I`LL BEHEAD YOU !!
Name: Mitch Iginer
City: Toronto State: Canada
It`s the cartoon scandal all over again.
If anyone accuses Islam of being a violent religion the Muslims rise up and GET VIOLENT.
It would almost be funny if it wasn`t SO backwards and scary.
6.Title: Imams/mullahs never condemned the terrorism done thru islam
Name: Murugan
City: Chennai State: Tamilnadu - India
These mullahs and immams has to behave in the same manner when terrorists are bombing and killing the peoples in the name of ALLAH.
They never condemn the Jihadis or islamic Terrorists attacks around the world. All the terrorists holds Koran in one hand and gun on other hand. They justify their terror acts thru the koran and mohammed's life and teachings. It is time for the world to wake up. September 11th was the wakepup call. See some of the verses preaching violence in koran. Imams and mullahs will never condemn the terrorism and violence committed in the name of islam, because the koran and mohammed's preaching supports it.
Koran 8:12
Remember Thy Lord inspired the angels (with the message): "I am with you: give firmness to the believers, I will instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers, Smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger tips of them."
Here Mohammed is giving step by step instruction on how to torture and kill Kafirs
7.Title: Terrorism is the Death Rattle of Islam
Name: rick
City: NY State: NY
A cult based on violence and intolerance can last for some time but eventually it will wither and die. What we see now in the name of the bin Laden types and the mullah minions who call for jihad and death to someone or other is a last gasp of a dying philosophy. Islam has degenerated into a cult of death and hate. No real religion can continue with such a foundation.
The failure of the Arab and Muslim world to cast off medieval chains, break the misogynic culture that enslaves half of their population, continue to brand others as infidels and targetable for death, etc. reinforced with the economic and political failure of their societies has spelled doom for Islam. Without a Reformation, Islam will not exist in 100 years. The very religion that it battled for centuries -Christianity - will replace it because Christianity has evolved and reformed. Islam today stands with the past. The female Muslim populations will be the first to embrace it.
8.Title: Mohammad Resume
Name: Peter
City: State: US
When reading the Life of Mohammad by Karen Armstrong recently I learn that Mohammad himself ordered the killing of 700 civilian Jews in the City of Medina when his men where uncertain what to do. That picture the man. This is the only mass grave that I know of before Hitler. Also I learnt that his income and of his Muslim movement was financed by assaulting caravan and taken over the riches of the city of Mecca. Also that the voice of God he received are related to events of his political contemporary life, so general that can be interpreted as you like. It is all these right?? This must be proved one way or another otherwise this problem will remain for ever. Title: FACTS ABOUT MUHAMMED ??
9.Name: Bill.
City: State: NZ
Born in Mecca 570 ad . Was an epileptic in his youth . He Married 15 wives , one a year after his first wife Khadija ( a rich widow twice married before ) died . 2nd wife Sauda , a widow two months after khadija`s death . 3rd wife Ayisha when she was 7 years of age . 4th wife Hafsa . 5th wife Zainab his adopted sons wife ( to acheive this he proclaimed that allah gave her to him . To save his reputation due to great scandal he wrote Surat 33:50 . 6th wife Juwariyah wife of one of the chiefs whom he attacked , murdered and plundered . 7th Raihana ( Jewess ) ( After slaughtering the Quraiza Jews - she declined islam became his bond slave because she could not escape with her life .)
8th wife Maryam( an egyptian christian slave girl ) 9th wife Safiya A Khaiba Jewess ( the wife of Kinana the Khaiba Chief whom he slaughtered - she was 15 and very beautiful )10th Um Habecba a widow
11th Maimuna of mecca . On 8th. June 632 ad. he died, violently afflicted and tormented by a fever lasting 2weeks
afTitle: Islam needs to apologize
10.Name: d.dor
City: J-town State: Israel
and return all lands and make restitution to all the Jews and Christians it forced into Muslim ranks on pain of death during it`s first century. The Christian Crusades were weak attempts to liberate OUR lands that had been taken from US (Christian and Jews) by Islamic terror and violence. Make no mistake, the tenets of Islam have not changed. Why do you think the news media always calls it a `stampede` when Muslims riot and kill each other? Mindless, senseless, unreasonable, unthinking, emotionally charged masses pulled and pushed by silver tongued devils. The war has begun, make no mistake. The clash of cultures is upon us once again. This time it`s a world conflagration the likes of which Nostradamus could not even imagine.
11.Title: The Pope Has Been Proven 100% Correct
Name: Nannette
City: London State: UK
The Pope says that jihad violence is against God`s nature, and officials feared that in response, Muslims enraged by this insult will commit...jihad violence - which they have done today by burning Churches.
Comment: The fundamental problem faced by muslims in dealing, intellectually, with the West is their inability to discuss their religious views calmly and rationally. They react to questions with outbursts of anger and threats of violence, especially if the question concerns the centrality of anger and violence in Islam.
The fantasy that 'Islam is a religion of Peace' is not believed by most Westerners who see the real Islam on the TV screens regularly. Only the terminally deluded in the West(or haters of Christianity)proclaim their belief in this fantasy.
The only solution for Westerners in the face of this storm of islamic madness is to passively resist as was done in relation to resisting the Communist menace in the 20th century.
Saturday, September 16, 2006
Peace Loving Muslims Riot Over Disagreement...Again.
Note: This posting is a bit of a yawn...more whinging muslims complaining about something they have not read...so what else is new?
Read it and laugh at the hopelessness of being stuck in Islam...pointless, ignorant and going nowhere.
Thousands march against Pope Benedict's speech
Saturday 16 September 2006,
Several thousand Palestinians marched in the Gaza Strip
Several thousand muslims have held demonstrations around the world in protest against comments made by Pope Benedict about Islam.
About 2,000 Palestinians protestors marched in the Gaza Strip on Friday waving the green flags of Hamas and chanting praises to "God and his prophet".
Palestinian prime minister Ismail Haniya criticised the pope's comments, saying: "These remarks go against the truth and touch the heart of our faith.
"The pope should revise his comments and stop attacking Islam, which is the religion of more than 1.5 billion people."
In Gaza City, four small makeshift bombs exploded at a youth centre run by the city's oldest Christian church, breaking doors and shattering glass but causing no casualties. The Greek Orthodox church itself was undamaged.
In Egypt, about 100 worshippers demonstrated after Friday prayers at the country's prominent al-Azhar mosque in Cairo, chanting: "Oh Crusaders, oh cowards! Down with the pope!"
One worshipper said: "These Christians are all infidels. Benedict himself is an infidel and a blind man. Doesn't he see that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places were waged by Christians?"
Hundreds of Egyptian riot police surrounded the mosque, preventing protesters from spilling over into the streets.
In Pakistan, groups held rallies and chanted anti-pope slogans in the capital, Islamabad, and other major cities including Karachi, Quetta, Peshawar and Multan.
"These Christians are all infidels. Benedict himself is an infidel and a blind man. Doesn't he see that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places were waged by Christians?"
Worshipper at al-Azhar mosque in Cairo, Egypt
Pakistan's foreign ministry summoned the Vatican's ambassador to express regret over the remarks and parliament passed a resolution condemning the comments.
In the US, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which calls itself the largest Islamic civil liberties group in America, said: "The proper response to the pope's inaccurate and divisive remarks is for Muslims and Catholics worldwide to increase dialogue and outreach efforts aimed at building better relations between Christianity and Islam."
Controversial remarks
During a speech on Tuesday at a German university, the pope quoted from a book recounting a conversation between 14th century Byzantine Christian emperor Manuel Paleologos II and a Persian scholar on the truths of Christianity and Islam.
"The emperor comes to speak about the issue of jihad, holy war," the pope said.
"He said, I quote, 'Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached'."
Benedict did not explicitly agree with the words nor repudiate them, but went on to say that "violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul".
The Vatican said the pope did not intend the remarks to be offensive, but sought to draw attention to the incompatibility of faith and violence.
But Lebanon's most senior Shia Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, told worshippers in his Friday prayers sermon: "We do not accept the apology through Vatican channels ... and ask him [the pope] to offer a personal apology - not through his officials - to Muslims for this false reading."
Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, the Malaysian prime minister and chairman of the 56-nation Organisation of the Islamic Conference, said: "The pope must not take lightly the spread of outrage that has been created. The Vatican must now take full responsibility over the matter and carry out the necessary steps to rectify the mistake."
Analysts' view
But some analysts, such as the Reverend Robert Taft, a specialist in Islamic affairs at Rome's Pontifical Oriental Institute, said it was unlikely that the pope miscalculated how some Muslims would receive his speech.
The Vatican says Pope Benedict
XVI did not mean to offend Muslims
Analysts said the Catholic leader's speech was a sign that he intends to carry on with his strong defence of the values of the Christian West rather than compromise for the sake of building bonds with Islam.
John Voll, director of the Centre for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University in Washington, said the speech suggested deep dismay over the conditions of Christians in the Muslim world.
"This reflects the intention of Pope Benedict to distinguish himself from his predecessor on his approach to interfaith dialogue ... it means more reciprocity," said Voll.
As the chief watchdog on Roman Catholic doctrine for his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, Benedict - the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger - had little role in shaping the Vatican's contact with Islam and other faiths.
Some say his deep theological scholarship leaves him ill-equipped to deal with Islam at a time when suspicions and tensions dominate relations between the West and Muslim world.
The Reverend Khalil Samir, a Vatican envoy for interfaith links in Lebanon, said: "They went to the speech expecting to meet Pope Benedict, but instead they met Professor Ratzinger."
Comment: What can be said about yet another attempt by mainstream muslims to get some respect? Their stupidity clearly knows no bounds. The modern world is so far away from these poor people that it is almost unfair to expect any sort of serious behaviour from them.
If the muslims have a case against the remarks of Pope Benedict why can't they make that case in a proper and intellectual manner?
The reason is that Islam itself is pointless as a religion because it cannot bring its adherents forward. The condition of the muslim world, the actual condition of the poor muslims, shows that Islam cannot function in the modern world. Lack of education, lack of freedom and lack of prosperity just re-inforces the real truth about Islam...it is a form of slavery for its adherents.
Do we need this in Australia?
Read it and laugh at the hopelessness of being stuck in Islam...pointless, ignorant and going nowhere.
Thousands march against Pope Benedict's speech
Saturday 16 September 2006,
Several thousand Palestinians marched in the Gaza Strip
Several thousand muslims have held demonstrations around the world in protest against comments made by Pope Benedict about Islam.
About 2,000 Palestinians protestors marched in the Gaza Strip on Friday waving the green flags of Hamas and chanting praises to "God and his prophet".
Palestinian prime minister Ismail Haniya criticised the pope's comments, saying: "These remarks go against the truth and touch the heart of our faith.
"The pope should revise his comments and stop attacking Islam, which is the religion of more than 1.5 billion people."
In Gaza City, four small makeshift bombs exploded at a youth centre run by the city's oldest Christian church, breaking doors and shattering glass but causing no casualties. The Greek Orthodox church itself was undamaged.
In Egypt, about 100 worshippers demonstrated after Friday prayers at the country's prominent al-Azhar mosque in Cairo, chanting: "Oh Crusaders, oh cowards! Down with the pope!"
One worshipper said: "These Christians are all infidels. Benedict himself is an infidel and a blind man. Doesn't he see that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places were waged by Christians?"
Hundreds of Egyptian riot police surrounded the mosque, preventing protesters from spilling over into the streets.
In Pakistan, groups held rallies and chanted anti-pope slogans in the capital, Islamabad, and other major cities including Karachi, Quetta, Peshawar and Multan.
"These Christians are all infidels. Benedict himself is an infidel and a blind man. Doesn't he see that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places were waged by Christians?"
Worshipper at al-Azhar mosque in Cairo, Egypt
Pakistan's foreign ministry summoned the Vatican's ambassador to express regret over the remarks and parliament passed a resolution condemning the comments.
In the US, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which calls itself the largest Islamic civil liberties group in America, said: "The proper response to the pope's inaccurate and divisive remarks is for Muslims and Catholics worldwide to increase dialogue and outreach efforts aimed at building better relations between Christianity and Islam."
Controversial remarks
During a speech on Tuesday at a German university, the pope quoted from a book recounting a conversation between 14th century Byzantine Christian emperor Manuel Paleologos II and a Persian scholar on the truths of Christianity and Islam.
"The emperor comes to speak about the issue of jihad, holy war," the pope said.
"He said, I quote, 'Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached'."
Benedict did not explicitly agree with the words nor repudiate them, but went on to say that "violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul".
The Vatican said the pope did not intend the remarks to be offensive, but sought to draw attention to the incompatibility of faith and violence.
But Lebanon's most senior Shia Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, told worshippers in his Friday prayers sermon: "We do not accept the apology through Vatican channels ... and ask him [the pope] to offer a personal apology - not through his officials - to Muslims for this false reading."
Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, the Malaysian prime minister and chairman of the 56-nation Organisation of the Islamic Conference, said: "The pope must not take lightly the spread of outrage that has been created. The Vatican must now take full responsibility over the matter and carry out the necessary steps to rectify the mistake."
Analysts' view
But some analysts, such as the Reverend Robert Taft, a specialist in Islamic affairs at Rome's Pontifical Oriental Institute, said it was unlikely that the pope miscalculated how some Muslims would receive his speech.
The Vatican says Pope Benedict
XVI did not mean to offend Muslims
Analysts said the Catholic leader's speech was a sign that he intends to carry on with his strong defence of the values of the Christian West rather than compromise for the sake of building bonds with Islam.
John Voll, director of the Centre for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University in Washington, said the speech suggested deep dismay over the conditions of Christians in the Muslim world.
"This reflects the intention of Pope Benedict to distinguish himself from his predecessor on his approach to interfaith dialogue ... it means more reciprocity," said Voll.
As the chief watchdog on Roman Catholic doctrine for his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, Benedict - the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger - had little role in shaping the Vatican's contact with Islam and other faiths.
Some say his deep theological scholarship leaves him ill-equipped to deal with Islam at a time when suspicions and tensions dominate relations between the West and Muslim world.
The Reverend Khalil Samir, a Vatican envoy for interfaith links in Lebanon, said: "They went to the speech expecting to meet Pope Benedict, but instead they met Professor Ratzinger."
Comment: What can be said about yet another attempt by mainstream muslims to get some respect? Their stupidity clearly knows no bounds. The modern world is so far away from these poor people that it is almost unfair to expect any sort of serious behaviour from them.
If the muslims have a case against the remarks of Pope Benedict why can't they make that case in a proper and intellectual manner?
The reason is that Islam itself is pointless as a religion because it cannot bring its adherents forward. The condition of the muslim world, the actual condition of the poor muslims, shows that Islam cannot function in the modern world. Lack of education, lack of freedom and lack of prosperity just re-inforces the real truth about Islam...it is a form of slavery for its adherents.
Do we need this in Australia?
Thursday, September 14, 2006
More Information On Real Islamic Beliefs From The Koran.
Note: This posting concerns the idea of the 'dhimmi'. This is the Islamic view on the situation of non muslims in a muslim state. Not a happy place.
Read and be warned....
Dhimmitude
To understand the role of the dhimmi in Muslim controlled societies, one must first examine the world view of the Muslims envisioned by Islam’s foundation documents, namely the Quran, the Hadith or traditions, and the Sharia or law code. Muslims view the entire world as the possession of Allah and his surrogates on earth, the Muslims. This world domination by Islam is called “khilafah” and it remains the goal of Islam. Jihad or “holy war” is the means by which the infidels are conquered and the goal of khilafah is achieved. All humanity must submit to Islam as the natural order of the universe. The exception, mentioned above, allowed to Christians and Jews, was and remains, as stated, mere sufferance, not an acceptable alternative. Muslims divide humanity into two kinds – believers or Muslims called by the Quran “the best of nations raised up to rule over all others” Surah III, 110, and “kufr” or infidels defined by the Quran as “the vilest of animals” Surah VIII, 55. Christians and Jews, while not pagans, remain infidels, “may Allah destroy them” Surah IX 3.
The world is divided by Muslims into the House of Islam where Muslims prevail and the House of War where infidels prevail. Between the two abodes of mankind perpetual war called jihad reigns as the natural condition or relationship. All Muslims are called to jihad as a moral mandate to subdue the House of War and establish the universal rule of Islam, khilafah. All Muslim society everywhere is contained in the “umma”, the universal brotherhood of Muslims. In the early centuries following Muhammad the umma was led by the “khalif”, the Commander of the Faithful, as the successor of Muhammad, in whom all matters of religion and state were combined. Islam, then as now, sees no distinction between the religion and the state.
Islam has no notion of inalienable natural or human rights such as envisioned by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence. Moreover, Islam does not acknowledge civil rights, i. e. rights which inure to people by virtue of their membership in a political state. The only rights possessed by Muslims and dhimmi are religious rights recognized in the Quran and codified in the Sharia. In this scheme of things, the despised dhimmi fare badly, for they are excluded from the umma and remain subordinated to it in law as well as in practice. Muslims are even forbidden to befriend dhimmi Surah V, 51. By rough analogy the status of dhimmi may be likened to that of the Negroes in the South during the worst days of Jim Crow. [6]
Seen in the above context and supported by 14 centuries of practice, the Muslims are trapped in a “closed circle” of their own making which denies them the opportunity to regard and deal with infidels in any manner except that which is contemplated by their religion and culture. Because the mandates of the Quran represent the complete, final, eternal, literal and unalterable revelation of their deity, the Muslims are frozen in the Bedouin mentality of the 7th century and unprepared to deal with dhimmi or other infidels according to the universal human rights standards of the present. As stated by the author, Bat Ye’or, in her book, referenced below, entitled THE DECLINE OF EASTERN
CHRISTIANITY UNDER ISLAM:
“Jihad and dhimma, emanations of the Creator’s will, are invested with divine attributes: immutability, perfection, justice, infallibility; considered as perfect systems, they brook no criticism. The subjugation of Christians and Jews in Islam, in accordance with the
divine will, is achieved by the perfection of the dhimma. Any criticism of jihad and dhimma – that is to say of the temporal realm – becomes a sacrilege because of the unity
of the temporal and the spiritual.” p 242
Although the above standards apply generally to the relationships between the umma and the dhimmi in all times and places, the practical application in many Muslim states has yielded to outside influences and political realities. Accordingly the practical applications have been modified resulting in a variety of situations in which Muslim states have deviated from the norm, allowing in some cases more benign treatment of dhimmi. In some states like Baathist Iraq, Baathist Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Tunisia and Morocco the governments eschew the overt persecution of Christians, although the Jews were run off decades ago. Other states like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan and Sudan apply the full vigor of Quranic discrimination.
The exodus of Christians from the Middle East is varied and complex. In the 19th century the European powers began to intervene increasingly in the affairs of Muslim countries, pressing the rulers to grant relief to the dhimmi from the worst of their burdens. In addition, European Churches moved in to establish schools, printing presses and mutual aid societies to aid the Christians thereby exposing them to new ideas. Those who went abroad to study seldom returned. Awareness of greater economic opportunities and notions of liberty gave Christians in Muslim countries a growing appreciation that conditions elsewhere were better than those which they knew so well. Political turmoil and periodic rampages by Muslims against Christians motivated interest in emigration. With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I, the emigration of Christians to the Americas began in earnest.
The second massive emigration began after World War II with the influx of Jewish refugees into the British Mandate of Palestine. The concomitant conflict between Palestinians and Jews created instability and inured to the harm of the Christian communities. The Palestinian and other Middle Eastern Christians and their Churches sided largely with the Muslims in opposing Jewish presence in the Middle East. With the restoration of the people of Israel to the land of Israel in the State of Israel the conflicts grew. Rejecting the United Nations’ partition of the Mandate into Jewish and Muslim parts and as a result of the four wars initiated and lost by the Palestinians and their Arab allies against Israel, the condition of the Christians became increasingly bad. The Israelis regard Arab Christians as untrustworthy and the Muslims continue to treat them as despised infidels. Consequently the movement of Christians from the region of the former Mandate to the West accelerates. Elsewhere in the Muslim world where there are no Jews or Israelis the same is happening. The growth and increasing intolerance of militant Islam, the continuing discrimination against them as despised dhimmi, economic opportunity elsewhere and the universal longing of people to be free, prompt Christians to leave the lands of their ancestors and to seek a better life in freedom elsewhere. As their sons go abroad for education, their families in an ever widening circle of kin and friends follow which is emptying out the Christian communities of the Middle East.
Comment: These Islamic ideas, of course, have no place in modern Australia. Teachers of this rubbish should be excluded from the Commonwealth. The spiritually impoverished local muslims have no defence from the Wahhabi fascist 'lecturers' who come to Australia to poison the minds of the local muslims. No Australian public policy is promoted by the admission of these poisonous Wahhabis. BAN THEM.
Is anyone awake in Canberra?
Read and be warned....
Dhimmitude
To understand the role of the dhimmi in Muslim controlled societies, one must first examine the world view of the Muslims envisioned by Islam’s foundation documents, namely the Quran, the Hadith or traditions, and the Sharia or law code. Muslims view the entire world as the possession of Allah and his surrogates on earth, the Muslims. This world domination by Islam is called “khilafah” and it remains the goal of Islam. Jihad or “holy war” is the means by which the infidels are conquered and the goal of khilafah is achieved. All humanity must submit to Islam as the natural order of the universe. The exception, mentioned above, allowed to Christians and Jews, was and remains, as stated, mere sufferance, not an acceptable alternative. Muslims divide humanity into two kinds – believers or Muslims called by the Quran “the best of nations raised up to rule over all others” Surah III, 110, and “kufr” or infidels defined by the Quran as “the vilest of animals” Surah VIII, 55. Christians and Jews, while not pagans, remain infidels, “may Allah destroy them” Surah IX 3.
The world is divided by Muslims into the House of Islam where Muslims prevail and the House of War where infidels prevail. Between the two abodes of mankind perpetual war called jihad reigns as the natural condition or relationship. All Muslims are called to jihad as a moral mandate to subdue the House of War and establish the universal rule of Islam, khilafah. All Muslim society everywhere is contained in the “umma”, the universal brotherhood of Muslims. In the early centuries following Muhammad the umma was led by the “khalif”, the Commander of the Faithful, as the successor of Muhammad, in whom all matters of religion and state were combined. Islam, then as now, sees no distinction between the religion and the state.
Islam has no notion of inalienable natural or human rights such as envisioned by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence. Moreover, Islam does not acknowledge civil rights, i. e. rights which inure to people by virtue of their membership in a political state. The only rights possessed by Muslims and dhimmi are religious rights recognized in the Quran and codified in the Sharia. In this scheme of things, the despised dhimmi fare badly, for they are excluded from the umma and remain subordinated to it in law as well as in practice. Muslims are even forbidden to befriend dhimmi Surah V, 51. By rough analogy the status of dhimmi may be likened to that of the Negroes in the South during the worst days of Jim Crow. [6]
Seen in the above context and supported by 14 centuries of practice, the Muslims are trapped in a “closed circle” of their own making which denies them the opportunity to regard and deal with infidels in any manner except that which is contemplated by their religion and culture. Because the mandates of the Quran represent the complete, final, eternal, literal and unalterable revelation of their deity, the Muslims are frozen in the Bedouin mentality of the 7th century and unprepared to deal with dhimmi or other infidels according to the universal human rights standards of the present. As stated by the author, Bat Ye’or, in her book, referenced below, entitled THE DECLINE OF EASTERN
CHRISTIANITY UNDER ISLAM:
“Jihad and dhimma, emanations of the Creator’s will, are invested with divine attributes: immutability, perfection, justice, infallibility; considered as perfect systems, they brook no criticism. The subjugation of Christians and Jews in Islam, in accordance with the
divine will, is achieved by the perfection of the dhimma. Any criticism of jihad and dhimma – that is to say of the temporal realm – becomes a sacrilege because of the unity
of the temporal and the spiritual.” p 242
Although the above standards apply generally to the relationships between the umma and the dhimmi in all times and places, the practical application in many Muslim states has yielded to outside influences and political realities. Accordingly the practical applications have been modified resulting in a variety of situations in which Muslim states have deviated from the norm, allowing in some cases more benign treatment of dhimmi. In some states like Baathist Iraq, Baathist Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Tunisia and Morocco the governments eschew the overt persecution of Christians, although the Jews were run off decades ago. Other states like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan and Sudan apply the full vigor of Quranic discrimination.
The exodus of Christians from the Middle East is varied and complex. In the 19th century the European powers began to intervene increasingly in the affairs of Muslim countries, pressing the rulers to grant relief to the dhimmi from the worst of their burdens. In addition, European Churches moved in to establish schools, printing presses and mutual aid societies to aid the Christians thereby exposing them to new ideas. Those who went abroad to study seldom returned. Awareness of greater economic opportunities and notions of liberty gave Christians in Muslim countries a growing appreciation that conditions elsewhere were better than those which they knew so well. Political turmoil and periodic rampages by Muslims against Christians motivated interest in emigration. With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I, the emigration of Christians to the Americas began in earnest.
The second massive emigration began after World War II with the influx of Jewish refugees into the British Mandate of Palestine. The concomitant conflict between Palestinians and Jews created instability and inured to the harm of the Christian communities. The Palestinian and other Middle Eastern Christians and their Churches sided largely with the Muslims in opposing Jewish presence in the Middle East. With the restoration of the people of Israel to the land of Israel in the State of Israel the conflicts grew. Rejecting the United Nations’ partition of the Mandate into Jewish and Muslim parts and as a result of the four wars initiated and lost by the Palestinians and their Arab allies against Israel, the condition of the Christians became increasingly bad. The Israelis regard Arab Christians as untrustworthy and the Muslims continue to treat them as despised infidels. Consequently the movement of Christians from the region of the former Mandate to the West accelerates. Elsewhere in the Muslim world where there are no Jews or Israelis the same is happening. The growth and increasing intolerance of militant Islam, the continuing discrimination against them as despised dhimmi, economic opportunity elsewhere and the universal longing of people to be free, prompt Christians to leave the lands of their ancestors and to seek a better life in freedom elsewhere. As their sons go abroad for education, their families in an ever widening circle of kin and friends follow which is emptying out the Christian communities of the Middle East.
Comment: These Islamic ideas, of course, have no place in modern Australia. Teachers of this rubbish should be excluded from the Commonwealth. The spiritually impoverished local muslims have no defence from the Wahhabi fascist 'lecturers' who come to Australia to poison the minds of the local muslims. No Australian public policy is promoted by the admission of these poisonous Wahhabis. BAN THEM.
Is anyone awake in Canberra?
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Hopeful Sign In Pakistan.
Note: This posting is a good and hopeful sign from Pakistan. Many people in the West will be unaware of this event.
Read on and have hope...
12 September, 2006
PAKISTAN
Converts from Islam on pilgrimage to Mariamabad, “Asia’s Lourdes”
by Qaiser Felix
Hundreds of thousands of Christians and Muslims take part in the 57th annual national pilgrimage to the shrine of the Virgin. Here is Mubarak Masih’s story, a convert from Islam, who, rejected by his family, continues to believe despite a difficult life, thanks to Our Lady’s help.
Mariamabad (AsiaNews) – The 57th annual Marian pilgrimage came to an end without any sectarian tensions in an atmosphere “free from any kind of religious discrimination”, with Christians and Muslims thronging together to the great Marian shrine in Mariamabad, one of Asia’s most venerated religious sites.
The pilgrimage, held between September 7 and 10, drew hundreds of thousands of people, including many Muslims.
Known as “Asia’s Lourdes”, Mariamabad is some 80 kilometres from Lahore in north-eastern Pakistan.
Mubarak Masih, 31, converted to Christianity five years ago from Islam. He told AsiaNews that he heard about the pilgrimage from some friends. “My life is difficult because of my conversion, but praying to Our Lady is a source of comfort. She is the one who keeps me going,” he said.
“When my relatives found out that I had converted to Christianity, they attacked me like a pack and broke my right leg. During my recovery and convalescence, I prayed to Mary who helped me feel less pain and heal more quickly.”
“There were times when I felt a sharp pain in my leg and so I offer it [to Mary] and it went away. Now I am doing well, and I feel the Virgin is close to me”.
Muhammad Husain, 28, completed the journey with his friend Niamat Ali, 22, both devout Muslims. They work in a factory in Gujranwala and heard about the event from a Christian workmate. “We respect a lot Mary and came to show it,” they said.
“We have been coming here, every year, since we were kids,” said four other young Muslims. “We repeat the experience because of the atmosphere. There are no religious tensions, no discrimination, just love and faith.”
Indrias Yaqoob is a catechist who accompanied a group of faithful to the shrine. He told AsiaNews that “as early as a week before the pilgrimage, thousands of people had already arrived from every corner of the country, including many Muslim women. People have a special devotion to Mary. They wait long hours just to touch the statue and leave their gifts.”
Safia Bibi, 50, has been coming to the shrine for the past 22 years. Speaking to AsiaNews she said: “I had been married for eight years but had not yet had any children. I came here to ask to be blessed with child and pledged that I would keep coming if my request was granted. Now I have four children and I keep on coming to give thanks. And I’ll do this with my family until I die.”
Comment: These pilgrimages are a good thing. It would be useful for the whole nation for the religious leaders in Australia to develop a pilgrimage site that could be used by both Christians and Muslims.
Read on and have hope...
12 September, 2006
PAKISTAN
Converts from Islam on pilgrimage to Mariamabad, “Asia’s Lourdes”
by Qaiser Felix
Hundreds of thousands of Christians and Muslims take part in the 57th annual national pilgrimage to the shrine of the Virgin. Here is Mubarak Masih’s story, a convert from Islam, who, rejected by his family, continues to believe despite a difficult life, thanks to Our Lady’s help.
Mariamabad (AsiaNews) – The 57th annual Marian pilgrimage came to an end without any sectarian tensions in an atmosphere “free from any kind of religious discrimination”, with Christians and Muslims thronging together to the great Marian shrine in Mariamabad, one of Asia’s most venerated religious sites.
The pilgrimage, held between September 7 and 10, drew hundreds of thousands of people, including many Muslims.
Known as “Asia’s Lourdes”, Mariamabad is some 80 kilometres from Lahore in north-eastern Pakistan.
Mubarak Masih, 31, converted to Christianity five years ago from Islam. He told AsiaNews that he heard about the pilgrimage from some friends. “My life is difficult because of my conversion, but praying to Our Lady is a source of comfort. She is the one who keeps me going,” he said.
“When my relatives found out that I had converted to Christianity, they attacked me like a pack and broke my right leg. During my recovery and convalescence, I prayed to Mary who helped me feel less pain and heal more quickly.”
“There were times when I felt a sharp pain in my leg and so I offer it [to Mary] and it went away. Now I am doing well, and I feel the Virgin is close to me”.
Muhammad Husain, 28, completed the journey with his friend Niamat Ali, 22, both devout Muslims. They work in a factory in Gujranwala and heard about the event from a Christian workmate. “We respect a lot Mary and came to show it,” they said.
“We have been coming here, every year, since we were kids,” said four other young Muslims. “We repeat the experience because of the atmosphere. There are no religious tensions, no discrimination, just love and faith.”
Indrias Yaqoob is a catechist who accompanied a group of faithful to the shrine. He told AsiaNews that “as early as a week before the pilgrimage, thousands of people had already arrived from every corner of the country, including many Muslim women. People have a special devotion to Mary. They wait long hours just to touch the statue and leave their gifts.”
Safia Bibi, 50, has been coming to the shrine for the past 22 years. Speaking to AsiaNews she said: “I had been married for eight years but had not yet had any children. I came here to ask to be blessed with child and pledged that I would keep coming if my request was granted. Now I have four children and I keep on coming to give thanks. And I’ll do this with my family until I die.”
Comment: These pilgrimages are a good thing. It would be useful for the whole nation for the religious leaders in Australia to develop a pilgrimage site that could be used by both Christians and Muslims.
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Real Sharia In Action.
Note: This site has recently been told by Usama that it doesn't know anything about Sharia...which, presumably, is a wonderful thing for muslims...so here is a small item about Sharia in Action. Presumably, Usama will tell me that the Somalis are not real muslims. We all know that old muslim propaganda trick.
September 11, 2006
Somalia station shut down for love songs
Sharia Alert from AP:
MOGADISHU, Somalia - Islamic militants controlling much of southern Somalia shut down a radio station Sunday for playing love songs and other music, the latest step to impose strict religious rule which has sparked fears of an emerging, Taliban-style regime.
Since sweeping to power over much of southern Somalia, including the capital Mogadishu, in June, the Islamists have banned movie viewing, publicly lashed drug users and broke up a wedding celebration because a band was playing and women and men were socializing together.
The group closed Radio Jowhar because the programs were un-Islamic, Islamic official Sheik Mohamed Mohamoud Abdirahman said. It was the only radio station in Jowhar, some 55 miles from Mogadishu.
"It is useless to air music and love songs for the people," Abdirahman said.
Said Hagaa Ahmed, Radio Jowhar's director, confirmed the station had been closed but declined further comment.
The Islamic militants have brought a semblance of order to Somalia after years of anarchy.
But the United States accuses the Islamic leaders of harboring al-Qaida militants responsible for deadly bombings at the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.
Jowhar resident Ali Musse said closing the radio station was a violation of freedom.
"This directive is like the Taliban," Musse told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "It is censorship against independent media and freedom of expression."
In other words, Sharia.
Comment: One of the reasons Australian authorities need to promote an Australian version of Islam is to ensure that the 'slave chains' of Sharia are not allowed in Australia.
Readers should stay alert to Sharia. Sharia is the technique by which the poor enslaved muslims are kept in their slavery.
September 11, 2006
Somalia station shut down for love songs
Sharia Alert from AP:
MOGADISHU, Somalia - Islamic militants controlling much of southern Somalia shut down a radio station Sunday for playing love songs and other music, the latest step to impose strict religious rule which has sparked fears of an emerging, Taliban-style regime.
Since sweeping to power over much of southern Somalia, including the capital Mogadishu, in June, the Islamists have banned movie viewing, publicly lashed drug users and broke up a wedding celebration because a band was playing and women and men were socializing together.
The group closed Radio Jowhar because the programs were un-Islamic, Islamic official Sheik Mohamed Mohamoud Abdirahman said. It was the only radio station in Jowhar, some 55 miles from Mogadishu.
"It is useless to air music and love songs for the people," Abdirahman said.
Said Hagaa Ahmed, Radio Jowhar's director, confirmed the station had been closed but declined further comment.
The Islamic militants have brought a semblance of order to Somalia after years of anarchy.
But the United States accuses the Islamic leaders of harboring al-Qaida militants responsible for deadly bombings at the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.
Jowhar resident Ali Musse said closing the radio station was a violation of freedom.
"This directive is like the Taliban," Musse told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "It is censorship against independent media and freedom of expression."
In other words, Sharia.
Comment: One of the reasons Australian authorities need to promote an Australian version of Islam is to ensure that the 'slave chains' of Sharia are not allowed in Australia.
Readers should stay alert to Sharia. Sharia is the technique by which the poor enslaved muslims are kept in their slavery.
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Useful Facts And Figures About The Islamic World Today.
Note: These facts and figures are most important for persons who want to think clearly about the reality of the Islamic world and not be absorbed in the 'make believe' muslim world, so popular with professional promoters of Islam.
Read and learn
CRISIS OF FAITH IN THE MUSLIM WORLD
PART 1: Statistical evidence
By Spengler
Given the prominence of what Westerners call "Islamic fundamentalism", it seems odd to speak of a crisis of faith in the Islamic world. Several authors, including George Weigel [1] and Phillip Longman [2], support my contention that death of religious faith in Western Europe underlies its demographic decline. In slower motion, Islam faces a crisis of faith that will bring about a demographic catastrophe in the middle of the present century. I have called attention to the disturbing demographics of Islam in the past (The demographics of radical Islam, August 23), and here will offer evidence that the source of its demographic troubles is to be found in a failure of faith.
Striking statistical evidence supports this conclusion, which I
shall present below. A wide range of fertility rates characterizes the Islamic world. Most of the variation in fertility can be explained by a single factor, namely, literacy: as Muslims (and especially Muslim women) learn to read, they drift away from traditional faith. The birthrate drops in consequence.
Radical Islam should be interpreted as a cry of despair in the face of the ineluctable decline of Islamic society. Read carefully, the leading Islamists say precisely this. At the close of the 19th century the Ottoman Empire was the sick man of Europe, and its former territories today comprise the incurables ward of geopolitics. From this vantage point, America's attempt to foist its own form of democracy on the Islamic world seems delusional.
As I have reported before, the demographic position of the Islamic world has set a catastrophe in motion. It is hard enough for rich nations to care for a growing elderly population, but impossible for poor nations to do so. Iran, along with most of the Muslim world, faces a population bust that will raise the proportion of dependent elderly in the population to 28% in 2050, from just 7% today.
If America faces discomfort, and Europe faces crisis, Muslim countries face breakdown. America now has a per capita gross domestic product (GDP) of US$40,000 and a diversified economy. Iran has a per capita GDP of just $7,000 and depends on oil exports for the state subsidies that keep its population fed and clothed - and Iran will no longer be able to export oil after 2020, according to some estimates.
America can ameliorate the impact of an aging population by raising productivity (so that fewer workers produce more GDP), attracting more skilled immigrants (and increasing its tax base), and, in the worst of all cases, tightening its belt. American life will not come to an end if more people drive compact cars instead of SUVs, or go camping for vacation instead of to Disney World. But the Islamic world is so poor that any reduction in living standards from present levels will cause social breakdown.
In 2002, the United Nations' Arab Development Report offered a widely-quoted summation of the misery of the present position of the Arab World, noting:
The average growth rate of per capita income during the preceding 20 years in the Arab world was only one-half of 1% per annum, worse than anywhere but sub-Saharan Africa
One in five Arabs lives on less than $2 per day
Fifteen percent of the Arab workforce is unemployed, and this number could double by 2010
Only 1% of the population has a personal computer, and only half of 1% use the Internet
Half of Arab women cannot read.
Negotiating the demographic decline of the 21st century will be treacherous for countries that have proven their capacity to innovate and grow. For the Islamic world, it will be impossible. That is the root cause of Islamic radicalism, and there is nothing that the West can do to change it.
Among the Muslim states, Iran has seen the future most clearly, and drawn terrible conclusions. President Mahmud Ahmadinejad understands that life as Iranians know it is coming to an end, and has proposed drastic measures commensurate with the need.
In a program made public on August 15, Iran's new president proposed a pre-emptive response to the inevitable depopulation of rural Iran. He plans to reduce the number of villages from 66,000 to only 10,000, relocating 30 million Iranians out of a population of 70 million. In relative terms, that would be the biggest population transfer in history, dwarfing Joseph Stalin's collectivization campaign of the late 1920s.
A generation hence, Iran will not have the resources to provide infrastructure for more than 50,000 rural villages inhabited mainly by elderly and infirm peasants. In response, Iran will undertake the biggest exercise in social engineering in recorded history, excepting perhaps Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge.
America's fertility rate - the average number of children per woman - has stabilized at just around the replacement level. That is why America's elderly dependency ratio will stabilize around 2030. But the fertility rate of the Muslim world is falling much faster.
In the case of Iran, Algeria and many other Muslim countries, the fertility rate in 2050 is expected to fall below two children per woman. Replacement is 2.1. Even Saudi Arabia, the bastion of Islamic conservatism, will show a fertility rate below the replacement level, according to UN projections. I think the UN estimates err on the high side. Modernization is likely to push fertility down further than the demographers now calculate.
What is killing the fertility rate in the Muslim world? There really is no such thing as a "Muslim" fertility rate, but rather a wide spectrum of fertility rates that express different degrees of modernization. Where traditional conditions prevail, characterized by high rates of illiteracy (and especially female illiteracy) the fertility rate remains at the top of the world's rankings.
But where the modern world encroaches, fertility rates are plummeting to levels comparable to the industrial world. No single measure of modernization captures this transformation, but the literacy rate alone explains most of the difference in fertility rates among Muslim countries. Among the 34 largest Arab countries, just one factor, namely the difference in literacy rates, explains 60% of the difference in the population growth rate in 2005.
The population of Somalia, where only a quarter of adults can read, is growing at an enormous 4% per year. At that rate, the number of Somalis will double in just 18 years. But in Algeria, where 62% of adults can read, the population growth rate is only 1.4% per year. At that rate it would take 50 years for the population to double. Qatar, with a literacy rate close to 80%, has a population growth rate of just 1.2%.
Comment: A major problem for the world is the appaling state of development within the muslim/arab world. The West, for its own benefit, needs to do something useful about this problem. Surely this pandemic of backwardness is a contributory element in the current turmoil engulfing the muslim world.
Read and learn
CRISIS OF FAITH IN THE MUSLIM WORLD
PART 1: Statistical evidence
By Spengler
Given the prominence of what Westerners call "Islamic fundamentalism", it seems odd to speak of a crisis of faith in the Islamic world. Several authors, including George Weigel [1] and Phillip Longman [2], support my contention that death of religious faith in Western Europe underlies its demographic decline. In slower motion, Islam faces a crisis of faith that will bring about a demographic catastrophe in the middle of the present century. I have called attention to the disturbing demographics of Islam in the past (The demographics of radical Islam, August 23), and here will offer evidence that the source of its demographic troubles is to be found in a failure of faith.
Striking statistical evidence supports this conclusion, which I
shall present below. A wide range of fertility rates characterizes the Islamic world. Most of the variation in fertility can be explained by a single factor, namely, literacy: as Muslims (and especially Muslim women) learn to read, they drift away from traditional faith. The birthrate drops in consequence.
Radical Islam should be interpreted as a cry of despair in the face of the ineluctable decline of Islamic society. Read carefully, the leading Islamists say precisely this. At the close of the 19th century the Ottoman Empire was the sick man of Europe, and its former territories today comprise the incurables ward of geopolitics. From this vantage point, America's attempt to foist its own form of democracy on the Islamic world seems delusional.
As I have reported before, the demographic position of the Islamic world has set a catastrophe in motion. It is hard enough for rich nations to care for a growing elderly population, but impossible for poor nations to do so. Iran, along with most of the Muslim world, faces a population bust that will raise the proportion of dependent elderly in the population to 28% in 2050, from just 7% today.
If America faces discomfort, and Europe faces crisis, Muslim countries face breakdown. America now has a per capita gross domestic product (GDP) of US$40,000 and a diversified economy. Iran has a per capita GDP of just $7,000 and depends on oil exports for the state subsidies that keep its population fed and clothed - and Iran will no longer be able to export oil after 2020, according to some estimates.
America can ameliorate the impact of an aging population by raising productivity (so that fewer workers produce more GDP), attracting more skilled immigrants (and increasing its tax base), and, in the worst of all cases, tightening its belt. American life will not come to an end if more people drive compact cars instead of SUVs, or go camping for vacation instead of to Disney World. But the Islamic world is so poor that any reduction in living standards from present levels will cause social breakdown.
In 2002, the United Nations' Arab Development Report offered a widely-quoted summation of the misery of the present position of the Arab World, noting:
The average growth rate of per capita income during the preceding 20 years in the Arab world was only one-half of 1% per annum, worse than anywhere but sub-Saharan Africa
One in five Arabs lives on less than $2 per day
Fifteen percent of the Arab workforce is unemployed, and this number could double by 2010
Only 1% of the population has a personal computer, and only half of 1% use the Internet
Half of Arab women cannot read.
Negotiating the demographic decline of the 21st century will be treacherous for countries that have proven their capacity to innovate and grow. For the Islamic world, it will be impossible. That is the root cause of Islamic radicalism, and there is nothing that the West can do to change it.
Among the Muslim states, Iran has seen the future most clearly, and drawn terrible conclusions. President Mahmud Ahmadinejad understands that life as Iranians know it is coming to an end, and has proposed drastic measures commensurate with the need.
In a program made public on August 15, Iran's new president proposed a pre-emptive response to the inevitable depopulation of rural Iran. He plans to reduce the number of villages from 66,000 to only 10,000, relocating 30 million Iranians out of a population of 70 million. In relative terms, that would be the biggest population transfer in history, dwarfing Joseph Stalin's collectivization campaign of the late 1920s.
A generation hence, Iran will not have the resources to provide infrastructure for more than 50,000 rural villages inhabited mainly by elderly and infirm peasants. In response, Iran will undertake the biggest exercise in social engineering in recorded history, excepting perhaps Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge.
America's fertility rate - the average number of children per woman - has stabilized at just around the replacement level. That is why America's elderly dependency ratio will stabilize around 2030. But the fertility rate of the Muslim world is falling much faster.
In the case of Iran, Algeria and many other Muslim countries, the fertility rate in 2050 is expected to fall below two children per woman. Replacement is 2.1. Even Saudi Arabia, the bastion of Islamic conservatism, will show a fertility rate below the replacement level, according to UN projections. I think the UN estimates err on the high side. Modernization is likely to push fertility down further than the demographers now calculate.
What is killing the fertility rate in the Muslim world? There really is no such thing as a "Muslim" fertility rate, but rather a wide spectrum of fertility rates that express different degrees of modernization. Where traditional conditions prevail, characterized by high rates of illiteracy (and especially female illiteracy) the fertility rate remains at the top of the world's rankings.
But where the modern world encroaches, fertility rates are plummeting to levels comparable to the industrial world. No single measure of modernization captures this transformation, but the literacy rate alone explains most of the difference in fertility rates among Muslim countries. Among the 34 largest Arab countries, just one factor, namely the difference in literacy rates, explains 60% of the difference in the population growth rate in 2005.
The population of Somalia, where only a quarter of adults can read, is growing at an enormous 4% per year. At that rate, the number of Somalis will double in just 18 years. But in Algeria, where 62% of adults can read, the population growth rate is only 1.4% per year. At that rate it would take 50 years for the population to double. Qatar, with a literacy rate close to 80%, has a population growth rate of just 1.2%.
Comment: A major problem for the world is the appaling state of development within the muslim/arab world. The West, for its own benefit, needs to do something useful about this problem. Surely this pandemic of backwardness is a contributory element in the current turmoil engulfing the muslim world.
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