Letters to the Editor
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The pen is mightier than the sword.
The image of Mohammed with a bomb in his turban has now become the symbol of Islam in the minds of people all over the world as surely as the Golden Arches stand for hamburgers.
Islam has becoming increasingly associated with violence against Westerners for the last 3 decades. The Muslim "moderates" I keep hearing about failed to show their faces, raise their voices, and change its deadly course.
So now Islam has a new symbol, a bomb in a turban, just like Christians have a cross.
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May be...
"The pen is mightier than the sword."
Let's hope that it is the case...
Though, the muslim side is a bit short on sensible pieces like this one:
"We were brought up to hate - and we do"
By Nonie Darwish
http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/02/12/do1205.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2006/02/12/ixop.html
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- what isabel said..
And of course what Shukrallah said.
I think that for most Americans, what is happening right now in Europe would bring to mind the South during the fifties. It is confusing that religion has replaced race as the core issue, but as the Hareetz writer points out, it's not like we haven't seen this before.
Concerning this particular incident: there is no doubt that in Denmark, which has a very uniform population, the racism extends to everyone with a hint of colour. I've met several Christians from southern Europe, from Latin America and from Africa who can tell of regular racist incidents. Several of my cousins who are of French Huguenot and/or Jewish decent, and thus olive-skinned and brown-eyed, have been threatened on the street.
As a *compliment* to a well known Jewish journalist, whose family has lived here for 200+ years, a commentator noted that he spoke perfect Danish. What else does this guy imagine the journalist would speak??
Please do not believe the spin, that this has to do with freedom of speech.
The Islamists who have incited to violence are lying. But so are the extremists in Denmark who started all this. And our government is not doing a thing to stop the hating.
Well, read the Jytte Klausen article, it's fairly accurate.
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Again off the mark
"I think that for most Americans, what is happening right now in Europe would bring to mind the South during the fifties. It is confusing that religion has replaced race as the core issue, but as the Hareetz writer points out, it's not like we haven't seen this before."
Because Christian only bathrooms and water fountains have become so common in Europe right now.
There's a huge different between lynching someone because that person is black and having Europe concerned that people are blowing up their trains.
"As a *compliment* to a well known Jewish journalist, whose family has lived here for 200+ years, a commentator noted that he spoke perfect Danish. What else does this guy imagine the journalist would speak??"
That kind of thinking shows little actual effort. Once while in Germany a friend and I were exchanging idiomatic expressions. He'd teach me something in German, I'd tell him the expression in English. An American teacher heard us and complimented me on my English. You know why? Because to her I looked German and most people who look German in German don't get American idiomatic expressions correct.
If everyone in Denmark who had darker skin spoke perfect Danish then the person wouldn't have been complimented on it. That just shows that most people in Denmark with darker skin do not speak perfect Danish, and that's a problem. People need to speak the language of the Country they are in.
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Well, I'm sure you know more about it than me...
Since I'm the one living here.
I tried to explain in a civilized manner that yes, it is a real risk to have a different skin colour in certain parts of our cities and in some whole towns.
It is almost impossible to get work here, if you have the wrong colour.
Schools are almost totally segregated, and city councils oppose busing.
It is legal to build a mosque, but the process is constantly blocked by obscure arguments.
The Jewish journalist is very famous and his family background is well known. The remark was unintentionally bigotted, because what the commentator wanted to say was that Jews are human too. (Big News)
I understand that some people don't want to believe this is happening. I don't want to believe it. I'd much rather have we were really under siege by Islamists. Then I could fight them. But the truth is my country has been taken over by a weird collective hysteria with no end in sight. And what is worse: we are pulling everyone else with us into hell. I never thought that would be possible. If you really want to know how it feels, I recommend reading Sebastian Haffner's memoirs.
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Childish reactions to cartoons
Political cartoons are supposed to be offensive. Cartoons of George W. Bush with pointy ears and beady eyes are supposed to make him look stupid and convey that idea. This point of view has adherents and some who would disagree. However, so far, nobody is willing to kill anyone, burn down an embassy or boycott businesses of the country from which such a cartoon is published. That would be childish and stupid, wouldn't it?
Let me say for the record that for 7 years I was a devout Muslim. I was attracted to Islam by the Islamic Sufi theology of Allah's love for his creation. Islam stresses the oneness of Allah. Many Sufis carry this oneness further to say that there is no essential separateness between the Creator and creation. This realization of our oneness with each other and with the Creator should foster love and mutual respect. The Quakers talk about how we have "that of God in us." Mansur Al-Hallaj, the great 10th century Muslim Sufi, told a pilgrim to do tawaf (circumambulate) around him, instead of going to Mecca, as he was God – (or that he had "that of God in him.") Of course, Mansur Al-Hallaj was executed by the Islamic government of his day, just as the Danish cartoonists would be if Muslims less holy than Mansur Al-Hallaj could get at them. One would hope that if we can realize that there is "that of God in all of us," then we will not be able to behead innocent kidnap victims or fly planes into buildings full of innocent people. These actions by Muslims get little criticism from the Muslim world, but a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed with a bomb in his turban provokes massive, violent and, I submit, childish reactions. Why? Because the truth hurts. The bomb-in-the-turban cartoon and the one about heaven running out of virgins for the suicide bombers hit a Muslim nerve. It is the truth behind these cartoons that really offends Muslims.
There is a large, powerful, well-financed and dominant (Wahabi) faction of Islam that is very far from the loving Sufi Islam that I converted to in 1997. This childish faction of Islam strains at a level of minutia that is incredible. I visited prominent imams in Egypt where people asked long series of questions like, “If a woman washes for prayer and has nail-polish on, is the washing valid and will Allah accept her prayer?” (The answer was, “no.”) This trivial pursuit is at the opposite end of my Sufi point of view, which would echo the words of Jesus when faced with a similar question regarding clean hands and eating food. He said that it was the filthy words (and actions) that come from a person that defiles the person more than any dirt that may enter a person. It is violence that defiles the demonstrators more than an offensive cartoon, which may point out an uncomfortable truth.
I was faithful to my prayers and all the five pillars of Islam until, in 2004, I got as sick of Islamic hypocrisy as I had been previously of Christian hypocrisy. I just gave it all up.
To be perfectly honest, Islam is a religion founded on violence. Muslims venerate the battle of Badr as first Muslim battle victory, in which a small Muslim force from Medina defeated a large anti-Muslim force from Mecca. What the Muslims were trying and failed to do was raid a Meccan caravan and steal the contents. The Meccan defending force was defeated, but the caravan was saved. Later Muslim raids were more effective in stealing Meccan commerce until they were able to bring Mecca to its knees and the Prophet Mohammed entered the city unopposed. The Prophet Mohammed was a military commander who led forces that killed people and raided commerce. One can argue that given the circumstances, he was justified in doing what he did, but it is completely disingenuous to argue that Islam is a peaceful religion. I should also point out that other religions with much more pacifist founders have ended up just as violent.
What really offends me, however, about the Muslim reaction to the cartoons is the lack of proportion. There are Muslims in West Africa and in the Darfur region of Sudan who are suffering at the hands of government forces; other Sudanese Muslims and Christians were killed by Egyptian police forces in front United Nations High Commission for Refugees office in Cairo. Where is the Muslim outrage? The rest of the Muslim world could care less. Why? Those who dominate the religion don’t care about Muslims who are black and non-Arab. I became a Muslim when I believed that Islam was less racist than Christianity. I left Islam, when I found it to be just as racist as other religions. There is no Islamic outrage nor burning of embassies when the governments of Sudan, Egypt, Ivory Coast, China and Russia kill Muslims. The embassies of these countries are safe from Muslim outrage. However, Danish embassies are attacked and businesses boycotted because of cartoons! The cartoons were published in newspapers unconnected with the Danish government and boycotted businesses. Am I wrong to think the reaction is childish and lacks proportion?