Where is Conscience?

[asianchick]

Sorry i just need to vent my frustrations and lash out at these inconsiderate idiots who bombed S. Thailand recently. What were they thinking?!!! As if Thailand has not been sufficiently hit by the recent tsunami catastrophe? Thailand is still strugglign to get back on their feet and these idiots can somehow find it in their conscience to BOMB it?! While the rest of the world is trying to help victims, they create more? Where is the basic human conscience of these muslims?

Live in Singapore most of my life and have also been an advocate of racial harmony. But I've had it w these acts of inhumanity all in the name of "religion". Where is their sense of "religion" when the nation with the biggest number of their "brothers" hit by the tsunami? It wasnt the other muslim nations that ran to their rescue. It was the very countries that they have been trying to attack and destroy.

What is this world coming to?

[Joseph27]

Understand the frustration - I dont know what some people are thinking but the violence and murders carried out in the name of securing ones own state with shariah law is sickening.  God taught us all to love - these animals dont know anything but violence.  

[Potemkin Cruise]

I agree, it is frustrating, but just keep in mind the huge difference between Islam as a religious identity and the *reactionary* elements of political Islam which are responsible for these atrocities.  If an insufficient effort is made to keep the two separate, one ends up blaming (or appearing to blame) an innocent majority for the acts of a guilty few.

That may not bother some people, but also keep in mind that it is a sense of alienation or threat that feeds most reactionary ideology, be it Bush's or Bin Laden's.  If we tar people with too broad a brush, we can end up creating the wrong type of solidarity and handing the terrorists a second victory.

I know it seems unfair to expect victims to show sensitivity, but rage, revenge and frustration are tricky things, and if focused on the wrong targets, they tend to make the world worse, not better.

[Me goldfish]

Also bear in mind many legitimate grievances that the Muslim minority in Thailand's south does have.

Name one officer who has been punished from the Thai military or police following that ghastly incident last year in which 73 young men were crushed to death after being handcuffed and packed into trucks like sardines.

If the authorities show such scant regard for human life, why should those trying to overthrow it do any differently?

[Joseph27]

We all seem to be in aggreance - the mass of the population usually gets shafted by the opportunism of an minority who may at the core be fighting injustice.  In the end the majority gets tainted - the minority is too extreme and violence enschews.  

[Bitko]

The biggest problem with Islam today are not the non-Muslims, or their lack of understanding  of Islam, but the Muslims themselves, and their lack of understanding Islam and its principles.
Due to lack of education, and being guided by the blind(Saudis), the followers of Islam today have truly become blind followers, not to mention utterly stupid.  But never the less one should refrain from making sweeping generalisation of all muslims for the actions of a minority few, just as we can not blame the entire Thai non-muslim population for the police brutality.

[This message has been edited by Bitko (edited 06-04-2005).]

[Publius]

The seeds of this "reactionary ideology" are in the text of the Koran. The punishment for infidels is death.

Unfortunately, "jihad" today is regarded as a litmus test of loyalty to the faith. This transcends race, ethnicity, borders, gender, and even socio-economic class. One need only look at the polling data on the subject taken in most Middle Eastern countries today to see how sizable the numbers are. Wealthy Kuwaiti attorneys, Jordanian doctors, Saudi businessmen, Libyan mothers, even school children in Iran proclaim their willingness to die -and kill- for Shari'a law and express "joy" in taking up arms against "infidels."

And the numbers are growing.

Potemkin- you mention the error of tarring people with "the same brush", yet you compare Bush to Osama Bin Laden. Bush is not fighting (and never has claimed to be fighting) a holy war for Christians. Religion is not why the US invaded Iraq or Afghanistan. The same cannot be said for OBL, who is waging war for and in the name of Islam (as convoluted as OBL's view of it may be).

If you were referring to American neo-conservatism as being a "reactionary ideology" and comparing it to OBL's fundamentalist Islam, the comparison is overdrawn.

[This message has been edited by Publius (edited 07-04-2005).]

[Bitko]

You for surely harbour lot of hatred for Muslims.
Can you tell me whom did Bush talk with just minutes before the decleration of the War in Iraq?
And can you name the group of 22+ million who pledged their vote for Bush during the last election. I will eagerly wait for your answer.
Al Qaeda is a small terrorist group, the US on the other hand is a terror group on a global scale. There is no debate in this, when your contry's security is not in jeopardy, nor is being attacked, you have no right to attack another country. Why should international law be different for US?

[Potemkin Cruise]

>> If you were referring to American neo-conservatism as being a "reactionary ideology" and comparing it to OBL's fundamentalist Islam, the comparison is overdrawn.

If you took my comment to mean that I believe the neo-conservatives in power in the US are as morally culpable as terrorists who intentionally target women and children, then, no, I don't equate the two.  If Bush were as bad as some like to paint him -- or as bad as OBL -- he would have already been lauching nukes into major population centers.  That would be a true "war on Islam".

On the other hand, conservatism (and more correctly religious conservatism as practiced in the US) is a reactionary ideology, just as political Islam and Hindu nationalism are in other parts of the world.  All grow stronger based on a real or imagined sense of cultural decline -- coupled with a real or imagined threat from "the other."

9/11 was a terrible event, but it undoubtedly gave conservative elements within the US sufficient breathing room (in a sense of national insecurity) to take action that the American public would not have otherwise supported.  That's what I mean by a "reactionary ideology" and thats very, very similar to the sense of threat, decline, marginalisation that motivates many terrorist ideologies -- including OBL's.  So, no, Bush and OBL are not morally culpable to the same degree, but yes they are motivated by very similar sociological factors.

[Joseph27]

"The biggest problem with Islam today are not the non-Muslims, or their lack of understanding of Islam, but the Muslims themselves, and their lack of understanding Islam and its principles".

Notwithstanding Publius's overt xenophobia – this thread/topic is quite constructive.  The above statement captures my sentiments exactly – Islam as practiced and taught in the Middle East and in some more radical schools in this region, has little to do with the true message of Islam.

My wife attended a pesantran in central Java and the religious teachers there taught all their pupils to question and attempt to understand the true meaning of Islam.  There was nothing about following blindly – if however she had gone to another village close by the teachings were from Bashir and that was entirely different and much more closely linked to Middle Eastern Islam.  Islam as practiced by most Indonesians – i.e. 200 million Muslims – about 20,000 radicals – mmm lets look at that as a percentage?  About 0.1% of the population

All three monolithic religions have some bizarre rules – if you judged Jewish people on the basis of every word written in the Old Testament then you may have entirely different view of them – and would possibly even say that violence is inherent in their character.  This is of course completely untrue however it didn’t stop a radical Jewish person from killing Rabin did it?

Islam for many people is based on both the text within the Quran and the life of Mohammed – personally I feel that to worship Mohammed is completely wrong because he is simply the messenger – and though very important his life should not overshadow the message.  The Taliban got it completely wrong – to them everything Mohammed did was holy – down to the ridiculous level of not playing music or men having to have beards.  This has nothing to do with Islam and a lot to do with certain peoples being little more than a primordial disease that often plagues humanity.  

This wasn’t what God taught when he sent his Angel Gabriel to Mohammed – he gave a message – a complicated message that takes a life time to uncover.  So my wife and I do not practice all the many supposed rules taught by ‘experts’; experts I would suggest with an agenda that doesn’t necessarily correspond with the intentions of the religion.  Our understanding of religion evolves and unless we allow it to do so we get stuck in the quagmire that Islam finds itself in today.  Many groups claim ownership and genuine progress is thwarted by bigotry and fear of change.  

[Publius]

Potemkin -I agree.

Joseph- I partially agree. Everything you say about the Bible is true (I edited out a longer version of my post that said what you say here). The Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the English Civil War, etc., etc., were all fought with specific passages of Scripture for backing. This exists in all religions.

Unfortunately, I wish it were true that this issue was just about a few thousand disaffected Muslims, but this is not the case. One need only look at the school textbooks used throughout the Arab world that openly condone violence against infidels (and Jews especially) to appreciate the scope of the problem. Without exaggeration, literally millions of school children in Saudi Arabia are fed this staple of hate on a daily basis. In virtually all of these textbooks, passages from the Koran are cited expressly. This is not xenophobia, but reality even if it does not fit with your pollyanna view of the Islamic world.

This said, I agree that 99% of Muslims are wonderful, peace-loving people who would never act on such teachings. It is the other one percent (10 million+) residing in places like northern Pakistan, southern Yemen, western Algeria, Tunisia, Afghanistan and Palestine who worry me. Apparently, they worry alot of other people too. Considering that suicide bombings are a fact of life in many of these countries, I would not call this xenophobia.

Anyhow, it was you who argued in 2003 that Bush's policies in Iraq were going to "radicalize" the Arab street. Well, I think this populist view of the situation was prescient. To say that religion plays no role in the nature of this response is not only disingenuous, its wrong.

Bitko- I don't hate anyone. I love everybody -especially you.

Yes, Bush received a high percentage of Christian votes. This said, John Kerry also received a high percentage of votes from blacks. Does this make Kerry a "black ideologue." I don't think so.

The Iraq War was about alot of things but religion was very low on the list. Remember, GWB was a coke-snorting playboy just a few years ago. Bush is an opportunist, not an ideologue. There's a difference.  

With regard to your second point, many (in fact most) world leaders seek spirutual guidance during moments of crisis. This doesn't mean that those to whom they turn are themselves creating the crisis. Jimmy Carter (the dove) was never away from the phone with Christian leaders during his presidency.

Lastly, as for your conclusion that Bush (or anybody) who launches a war for reasons other than self-defense is a terrorist, well, I suggest that you try to sell this argument to the 800,000 Muslim Kosovars whom NATO (led by the US) launched a war to the protect. Remember, the French and German planes that bombed Serbia in 1999 were also said to violate international law at the time.

You may not agree that ousting a genocidal meglomanic like Saddam Hussein is a noble pursuit, but that doesn't mean that those who disagree with you are "terrorists."

Even George W. Bush.

 

[This message has been edited by Publius (edited 08-04-2005).]

[Bitko]

Publius, instead of giving a straightforward answer you always give big murky explanation. I wish you simply answered my questions thats all.
In your statements, you are attacking Islam itself, not only Muslims. Are you an ex-Muslim yourself that you know so much about the school curriculam in muslim countries. I myself have studied in a Saudi International school, from kindergarten to grade 7, and we never studied anything about Jews or Americans or Christians, let alone learning negativities about them.
Yes there are certain religious schools, called Madrasah(religious education and boarding), that are funded by fundamentalist clerics in Saudi Arabai, for poor children in poor muslim countries, where the donours want the pupil getting religious education are also taught negativities about the west. To shut down these madrasah, would mean putting these poor kids on the street(no shelter and no food), perhaps rich arab dictators, friends of Bush, could help out these poor kids, and they would get proper education.
Nevertheless this indicident with these wahabi or la-madhab madrasahs are not in large scale, especially not at the level you are BSing about it. Please stop writing BS(making up stories), without knowing anything.
FYI, in United States, most universities have courses on Islam, and in most of them the teachers are non-muslims, and most of the texts used are written by non-Muslims. THIS IS NOT BS, THIS IS FACT.
And to top it all, there are innumerable anti-Muslim, propagandists websites, hosted by right-wing americans. Can you even show me 3, anti-Christian websites, hosted by Muslims. Is this your, or your people's way of showing love? If this is your love, I am too scared to thing of your hate.

[This message has been edited by Bitko (edited 08-04-2005).]

[This message has been edited by Bitko (edited 08-04-2005).]

[Publius]

Bitko- nothing about my post attacks "Islam itself." I said, "this exists in all religions." The gun-toting Jewish settlers being expelled from Gaza also appeal to religion to justify their extreme views.

The 'terror curriculum' in Saudi schools is notorious. On the BBC, 'Hard Talk' did a show about it a few weeks back. Tim Sebastian interviewed the Saudi education minister. It was an enlightening piece of television (I'm sure its on the web).

Like your earlier remarks, the second half of your post is poorly considered. As a thought experiment though, why don't you try to figure out why this might be the case. Think hard, because I don't have the energy.

[This message has been edited by Publius (edited 08-04-2005).]

[so what]

Be careful with blaming (any) religion for evil that is done by humans.

In almost all cases it is not religion causing evil to happen, but humans trying to find support of their evil by calling upon religion.
If religion is the standard to which we measure evil, then evil won't be evil if religion says it isn't.

In Islam a Muslim killing another human being is an act of evil. Unfortunately if that same killing takes place under the umbrella of  "Jihad", suddenly the killer becomes a hero.
This is in direct contradiction with the Christian (New Testamentic) teachings where killing another human being is evil, no matter what.

Some of you say that misinterpretation of the Quran is only happening by a small percentage of the Muslim population.
That is highly questionable.
Islam claims to have about 1 billion believers world wide.

Surah 2:256 reads that there should be no compulsion in religion.
Is there any Islamic country that allows complete and non-discriminative freedom of religion?

Or how about the fierce opression (or at least discrimination) of women in many conservative Muslim countries?

Whereas many Muslims who live in western societies are able to practice their religion under the protection of the law (they may build mosks, build schools, print magazines, form organizations etc etc), most non-Muslims living in Muslim countries find themselves legally discriminated against.

Misinterpretation of the Quran therefor is not a practice of a small minority.
It is the practice of complete nations.

Islam is a very peaceful and lenient religion...as long as you are Muslim and male.

[Bitko]

I for one admit that misinterpretation of the Quran is very widespread. But what Publius said was that it is not about misinterpretation, Quran itself clearly tells people to do bad acts, and hence vast majority of people support terrorism. It is this last bit that sounds very disturbing.