au1929 wrote:Great response.
Why don't you read several of the links and respond to them? What is your opinion is Islam at war with the west?
Of course Islam isn't at war with the west. The black helicopters aren't after you, the aliens did not build the pyramids, and the body of jesus isn't sitting in Scotland. Good grief...find a hobby.
Hobit, I think Au has a very strong bias, doesn't mean he takes it to a level of hatred. In fact, I am willing to wager that he doesn't.
Au,
I think Islam is at war with the west and that the west is at war with Islam. I'd clarify the war as a notmal culture war and go so far as to predict "victory" by western culture.
I think a fringe group of Islam is at literal war with the US. What do I think? The same as I think about fringe idiots everywhere. They get too much attention and people try to paint their societies with a broad brush based upon the actions of few.
Hobitbob
I do not hate anyone. However, I am convinced that the Moslem religion teaches hate of everyone not a Moslem. In fact it teaches hate of fellow Moslims who are not of the same branch of Islam.
As far as Islam being at war with the infidel. IMO they are. Moslems can live in the West and practice their religion as they see fit. Can the same be said about the Moslem nations? Try Saudi Arabia for a start. IMO The concept of conversion by the sword still prevails in Moslim culture.
A) Conversion by the sword was never a Muslim concept. It is actually a Christian concept.
B)What you describe is fundamentalist Islam. The vast majority of Muslims are not fundamentalists. The fundys are just louder (rather like some Christians I know).
C) Buy a Koran and actually read the thing. Don't rely on internet versions, many of which are actually put up by protestant Christian orgs and are meant to foment hatred via mistranslation. Then read the Oxford History of Islam (you can even read the illustrated one, if you like). After you have done these things, you will be able to discuss this intelligently.
Au,
I think both of you guys have valid points that might need to be merged.
I think hobit is understating the prevalence of Muslim fundamentalists. When I spoke of fringe, I spoke of terrorists.
But when it comes to Muslim fundamentalists the situation is far worse and there is a lot more than just fringe.
Saudi Arabia is a good example, they are, by and large, a nation that is fundamentalist to its core.
Hobit is right in that there are a great many Muslims who are not fundamentalist at all (think HAkeem Olajuwon for e.g.) but that the loudmouths are the most visible. I'd only ad the caveat that when it comes to Muslim fundamentalists there is, indeed, a great deal of them.
Hobitbob
Looking at occurances around the world I find your statements hard to accept.
This is long and a bit of a digression. But I thought it was worth posting here.
Palestinian Liberal Columnist On: The Palestinian 'All or Nothing'
Policy
*********************************************************************
To mark the 106th anniversary of the first Zionist Congress in Basel,
Switzerland, the liberal Palestinian writer Tawfiq Abu Bakr published
an article criticizing the years long Palestinian "all or nothing"
policy. This policy, he said, had brought the Palestinians to their
current situation. In the article, which appeared on September 3,
2003 in the Palestinian Authority daily Al-Ayyam, Abu Bakr argued
that the Palestinian policy stands in sharp contrast to the pragmatic
Zionist policy that led to the establishment of the State of Israel.
According to Abu Bakr, the Palestinians should have followed the
Zionist model instead of wasting time with misleading visions and
should now seek a two-state solution as a prelude to one, unified,
large democratic state. The following are excerpts from the
article:(1)
The Zionists Never Demanded the Impossible
"August 29, 1897 is the date of the first Zionist Congress in Basel,
Switzerland. This congress signified the birth of political Zionism,
which attained [its vision of] a state within 50 years from the day
it was founded.
"At that congress, Herzl said: 'We will establish the state within
the next five decades.' [These words] were no more than an optimistic
prophecy that might have turned into a nightmare or might not have
borne fruit had it not been for the right policy implemented by the
[Zionists], and the wrong policy implemented by us. [The Zionists]
exploited every possible chance to transform the history of the five
decades prior to the establishment of the state into a series of
opportunities from which they extracted everything possible. The
Zionists never demanded the impossible, and never placed ideology at
the head of their list of priorities, but rather adopted a pragmatic
policy in all their alliances. The leading faction in the Zionist
movement, headed by David Ben Gurion, decided to act to [establish] a
Jewish state on any of the falsely claimed promised land they could
plunder.
"Those who called themselves the revisionist faction, led by of
Jabotinsky, and then by Menahem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir, and others who
inherited it, accused [Ben Gurion and his supporters] of being
submissive, of walking with their heads low, settling for little and
relinquishing the dream of 'the return to Zion,' according to which a
state would be established on the entire [territory] of the promised
land. This accusation is identical, down to the very words, to the
one directed to this very day by Palestinian extremists at
Palestinian moderates.
"Had this [revisionist Zionist] faction won out - I wish it did - the
State of Israel would have never been established, because they would
have insisted on an 'all or nothing' policy when it was impossible to
realize all the goals at once. They sacrificed the impossible for the
possible. As Ben Gurion said in 1937: 'I want a state, any state,
even if it's the size of a tablecloth.'"
We Burnt Our Chances in Cold Blood
"Our leadership at that time enabled [the Zionists] to succeed at
every opportunity through political means, with its 'all or nothing'
policy, by rejecting every proposal for compromise, rejecting
proposals to give it a state on most of the land of Palestine (since
it was a period in which the Jews in Palestine were merely offered
autonomy).
"[But] we kicked them in the shins. Our pure-minded leadership
[kicked] the shins of the White Paper of 1939 that prohibited Jewish
immigration to Palestine for five years. [It should be noted] that
Jewish immigration was the source of the disease and the only human
basis for the establishment of their state. We rejected everything.
At that time, we destroyed all possible chances. The disaster was
that we burned [our chances] in cold blood... Had [the Zionists] had
a leadership like this, they would have never established a state,
nor half a state.
"I write this now because I am optimistic about the current
Palestinian leadership, since it decided in 1974 - at the 12th
[Palestinian] National Council - to relinquish the 'all or nothing'
policy, to struggle for what was possible and not sell it for the
impossible. The Palestinian leadership has adhered to this policy for
a long time, and arrived at many
accomplishments: It got back part of the land, began the stage of
building a national entity, and has made much progress."
When a State Became an Option in 2000, We Reverted to 'All or Nothing'
"[Yet] when a state became a definite option following the Clinton
initiative in late 2000, and when the moment of truth arrived, we
reverted to the 'all or nothing' policy. We kicked away all our words
over the past three decades, and we went back to square one: the very
beginning. This is the disaster that led to the [current] disaster,
which is evident in every alleyway and every street of our land.
"I write these words now because I have heard Palestinian officials,
some of them from the PLO, from among those who exploited their
appearance on the satellite channels, crowing like roosters until the
last star disappeared that Israel is an aging state and will live no
longer than [only] 10 more years while we are still in the spring of
our youth.
"It is difficult to find a greater and more deeply rooted culture of
self-deception than that in our Arab and Palestinian arena; a culture
of daydreams in the height of a burning summer. People cling
stubbornly to rosy dreams and delude themselves that these are the
facts because they have failed to realize all their dreams."
Schizophrenia is an Extremely Common Ailment in Our Land
"Schizophrenia is an extremely common ailment in our land that
strikes our confused youth. [Its symptom] is that the individual has
two images: one real and one imaginary. The nations and the peoples,
like the individuals and to the same extent, escape at moments of
weakness into daydreams. Instead of investing in serious and diligent
work, they create new facts that tip the scales gradually, and sell
false dreams about the imminent collapse of the enemy...
"In the days leading up to the war of June 1967, our media spoke of
the 'cowards' [Israelis] who would run from the battlefield with the
outbreak of fighting when faced with [our] heroic lions. When an
Israeli officer caught me during the 'Tank-Trip War' or the 'Deluxe
War,' as they called it, he asked me: 'Is it really proven that we
are cowards?' Afterwards, I listened to our radio speaking about the
flight of the cowards - of their success in grabbing an area three
times bigger than the area of their state and with minimal means.
This self-deception continues to this [very] day.
"I cannot, on the birthday of the Zionist policy, write that the plan
of the Zionist Congress in Basel was fully realized, since two thirds
of the Jews in the world live outside Israel while the main goal [of
political Zionism] was and remains the ingathering of all the Jews of
the world in Palestine. But this is not the whole story. In the heart
of our land, [the Zionists] established a state armed from head to
toe with all types of weaponry, and yet have not attained security
for their people.
"This is the main point of my words: If this is so, there is no
solution but to attain a balance of interests without clinging to a
balance of power... There is no way around living together in two
countries - a situation that will take decades and will be a prelude
to shared life in one democratic state, in accordance with our motto
in the PLO in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
"Everyone must arrive at this realization today rather than tomorrow.
If not, blood will be spilled on the land of the prophets for decades
to come - and in the end we will reach the same solution: living
together when neither of the sides can neutralize the other.
"Why not stop the waterfalls of blood and bring hope to both our
peoples? Why do we glorify death lovers and not the lovers of life?
This is the big question. A great challenge faces us all."
Endnote:
(1) Al-Ayyam (PA), September 3, 2003.
Hmmm.....
And these guys WEREN'T a threat!
Quote:Sep. 16, 2003. 01:00 AM
Editorial: Affront to Muslim voices of peace
Ahamad Kutty is a leading Canadian Islamic scholar and cleric in a community of 600,000, the nation's biggest religious group after Christians. He is also a voice of decency and tolerance.
After the 9/11 terror attacks in the United States he denounced such attacks as "un-Islamic," saying: "This . . . is against all the values the majority of Muslims hold dear." The Qu'ran explicitly declares that "God does not love aggressors," he warned those who might be tempted to turn the mass murderers into heroes.
Kutty firmly believes that Muslims today "have no enemy greater than fanatics in their midst," and he routinely preaches "pluralism and tolerance" in sermons and on the Internet.
And as Canadians debated the political correctness of wishing each other "Merry Christmas," and skittish corporations erased it from greeting cards, Kutty argued that Muslims should take no offence, but join the spirit of goodwill by wishing "Happiness to you" in reply.
These are the attitudes Kutty and a Canadian companion, Abdool Hamid, carried with them to Orlando, Fla., on Thursday, the second anniversary of 9/11. They were to lead prayers at an international Muslim gathering. Any sensible American official would have rolled out the red carpet.
Instead, U.S. immigration officials broke out handcuffs, called in the Federal Bureau of Investigation which found no reason to detain them, yet still declared them inadmissible on security grounds.
Their troubles began at a stopover in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Kutty and Hamid were stopped, questioned for an absurd 16 hours, jailed and offered the choice of returning to Canada or being held for months to be vetted. "You picked a bad day to fly," one official said. They came home.
Yes, the men were flying on a day when security was ultra-tight. And yes, the Americans can bar whomever they like. But 16 hours? Then expulsion? A phone call to the American consulate in Toronto might have established their moderate credentials in minutes.
This is an affront to two Canadian citizens, it exposes the ignorance of U.S. officialdom and it is bad publicity for U.S. President George Bush's "war on terror." Kutty's preaching would have been an ideal way to mark the 9/11 anniversary. Instead he was silenced.
Prime Minister Jean Chrétien plans to raise this matter with American officials. He should do it immediately. He should call in the U.S. ambassador for a little chat. Today would be a good day. And he should raise it with Bush, directly. This incident threatens to turn many other Canadians off cross-border travel.
Kutty and Hamid deserve an apology, and the right to go south.
Bush insists "the enemy of America is not our many Muslim friends." He says terrorism "perverts the peaceful teachings of Islam." And he promises "we respect your faith." Fine sentiments, those.
But American border policies must reflect them. They evidently do not. Canadian scholars preaching religious pluralism, tolerance and moderation deserved better treatment.
This is what fear mongering like that of AU leads to. Not a pretty thought, eh?
