Also see What is Terrorism? by Mojoey
Posts Tagged ‘islam’
Through the Lens of Righteousness [StOP Comic 20]
Saturday, November 7th, 2009
Women Beaten for Wearing Pants
Wednesday, August 5th, 2009I thought about writing up another satire to highlight the atrocity that is taking place in Sudan right now, but I determined that I couldn’t do those women enough justice.
Instead, I’m just going to ask a question or three of everyone.
Why are we not treating the Sudanese government like a terrorist organization?
Why are we not invading Sudan to put down the theocratic fascist regime?
How can we justify the invasion of Iraq because it “might” have weapons of mass destruction, but not invade countries like Sudan, whose government is currently, actively, and openly hurting women only because they are women?
Ignore for a moment the religious justifications these wicked men use to beat women for merely wearing pants. Ignore the fact that the government is based on religious law. Ignore the fact that western cultures once allowed and advocated the beating of people based solely on their color. Ignoring all of that, isn’t it our duty as citizens of the world to stop this atrocity? Why are we holding back, especially when we are so trigger-happy to invade other countries for trivial or falsified reasons (or for the spoils of victory)?
Women in Sudan have been protesting (i.e., sitting with signs) the trial of Sudanese journalist Lubna Hussein, who faces 40 lashes if found guilty. Guilty of wearing pants.1
What a satirical title that would make: Woman Flogged in Public for Wearing Pants While Crowd of Protesting Women Outside Beaten
Wouldn’t you be relieved if you read that and then found out it was satire? I would. Unfortunately for Lubna Hussein and the women of Sudan and everywhere in theocratic countries, this is no joke.
When a Muslim suicide bomber takes out a wedding procession, a bus, or a clinic, the moderate Muslims cry, “It was the work of extremists. That is not Islam!” I see that in the news regularly. Too regularly. But when women are beaten for wearing pants, and a woman is having to undergo a trial to determine if she was, indeed, wearing pants, and thus subject to 40 lashes, where are the moderate Muslims crying, “This is Muslim extremism. This is not Islam!”? No, they cannot cry that. For this is not Muslim extremism. It’s the Muslim government in a Muslim country.
What’s sadly funny is that Hussein is arguing that the indecency law prohibiting the wearing of pants by women is “un-Islamic,” despite the fact that it was based on an interpretation of Islam. Despite your troubles, Ms. Hussein, I must disagree with you. The law isn’t un-Islamic. It is inhumane. It is sexist. It is an example of what happens when you let power-hungry men rule a country with religion. Perhaps the first step needed to stop all of this madness is to help the victims of it shed their denial.
Poll Results:
Should the U.S. Invade Sudan?
********* No, we should recognize sovereignty and let countries run themselves, no matter how sick they are (45%, 9 Votes)
****** Yes, the Sudanese government is beating women for wearing pants; that’s terrorism (30%, 6 Votes)
***** Maybe, undecided (25%, 5 Votes)
Total Voters: 20
Muslims shun hygiene in favor of delusion
Tuesday, July 28th, 2009In another case of intolerable tolerance, Britain is straining under the pressure from Muslim council chiefs in Britain, who are commanding their loyal Muslim followers to refuse alcohol-based hand gels, which are essential to combat the spread of disease, including swine flu. According to those Muslims, the Koran bans its followers from consuming alcohol, and thus forbids the use of alcohol gels. Council chiefs replaced the gels with non-alcohol gels, which are less effective in killing germs.
Although not all Muslims agreed with the council, the decision has a deleterious effect on the medical industry, schools, and businesses, where the danger of spreading disease is the greatest.
This should be satire.
Sadly, it’s not.
(At least, I think it’s not. Source: Muslims refuse to use alcohol-based hand gels over religious beliefs, DailyMail.co.UK.)
I did a bit of searching, and found a more recent article, from the St Albans & Harpenden Review, which suggests that the original article might have been somewhat hyped:
Council leader Robert Donald told the Review: “We offered staff the option of using alcohol-free gel, not just for religious reasons but because some people are alergic to alcohol, and two took up our offer.
“The Mail on Sunday must have been desperate for a story.”
Abdul Hakim,who represents the multilingual mosque in Hatfield Road, St Albans, said individual Muslims had to make up their own minds on whether touch alcohol and follow their consciences.
He said: “I think it depends on an individual basis and the person. Everyone’s beliefs are different when it comes to faith.”
The question I think we (and the UK) need to be asking now is whether a policy based on safety should be subverted in favor of pandering to religious ritual and custom. Of course anyone would say that if JoeBob argued that killing a chicken and dousing himself with blood prior to operating on a patient, it couldn’t possibly be allowed, regardless of JoeBob’s sincerity in his belief. But doesn’t prevention of contamination and infection trump ALL sincere belief? Shouldn’t it? Why is it even a question?
Examine this case even more closely. Do these people really think that their holy book literally meant that even the mere touching of alcohol (that would sicken or kill them if ingested) is forbidden, even when the purpose of doing so is to save the lives of others? What happened to the argument that Islam was a religion of peace? This is nitpicking the details of a book meant to give lessons to desert dwellers a thousand or more years ago. Perhaps instead of treating people who take it literally with respect and deference, we should treat them as delusional.
What if people started taking other works of fiction literally? Would we be so quick to bend our backs to accommodate, say, an elected official who sincerely believes that Voldemort has yet again returned for revenge, and that the official has access to dark magics? Perhaps when he starts insisting on using his pet owl in place of email, and stocks up on mysterious and bubbly liquids for his private experiments, we’ll find a nice padded room for him. In the meantime, we elevate nutters who assert that their savior died and resurrected (and will return soon (very soon, I say, within our lifetime!) and take them to a magical place where they will be able to watch everyone else suffer in eternal flame), and that they have the ability not only to communicate directly with the creator of the universe, but that that very same creator grants wishes to the most pious, and when we allow veiled images of completely unidentifiable women to adorn identification badges, and when we allow the dissection of our baby boys and girls, and when we reserve special rights for some people while excluding those who don’t meet a divine criteria, and when we threaten to throw people in prison for uttering any critical remark about our deeply held beliefs… we’ve gone too far. We’ve been too far, and we’re in great danger of allowing more of it.
Fuck it. Go drink your Kool Aid with a bit of rum. But not on Sunday.
Only Muslims can commit terrorism
Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009Prepare yourself for an interesting and heinous contradiction.
As we all know by now, on Sunday, May 31, 2009, Dr George Tiller of Wichita, Kansas was murdered as he was engaging in church services in a Kansas church where he was a member. The alleged perpetrator of the murder is Scott Roeder, and his ex-wife, Lindsay Roeder, claims that he is “crazy”.
Is Scott Roeder “crazy”? If so, what caused it? If he did murder Dr Tiller, what caused him to do so? Was it merely a case of diminished mental capacity, or was it something more? Was the murder of Dr Tiller an act of terrorism?
I won’t bother trying to define terrorism as it seems too many people have different definitions of what comprises terrorism. Is a single heinous act terrorism? Perhaps. Are multiple acts toward the same target terrorism? Definitely. For many years, Dr Tiller was the target of multiple inflictions of personal injury and destruction of property. So were Towers 1 & 2 of the World Trade Center in New York City. Dr Tiller was not the first provider of abortion to be injured or murdered, and he probably won’t be the last. Neither was the World Trade Center. Abortion providers (physicians) have taken increasingly drastic steps to protect themselves, their employees, their clinics and their patients. The providers and their clinics have repeatedly been the subject of threats, bombings and shootings — all at the hands of perpetrators with a “pro-life agenda”. That irony is quite illogical but quite true. Even our government, by order of Attorney General Eric Holder, has dispatched US Marshalls to provide additional protections to abortion clinics throughout the United States. Why? Could it be that these abortion clinics are engaging in lawful activities? Yes, indeed they are. Could it be that the perpetrators of violence against abortion clinics are engaging in lawful activities? No, indeed they aren’t.
There are many cries that this act of murder is an act of terrorism. Just google it to read them. While I agree that the perpetrators of violence against abortion clinics are also engaging in terrorism, so are the pro-life supporters that encourage the perpetrators. The rhetoric the religious right uses to aid and abet these outcomes are acts of terrorism. They are no different than the IRA or the Taliban or Al-Qaeda gleefully taking responsibility for their latest acts of terrorism.
Here is the hypocritical contradiction of the United States . . .
Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, 24, a convert to Islam, is under arrest for allegedly murdering Pvt William Long and injuring Pvt Quinton Ezeagwula at a military recruiting center in Little Rock, Arkansas. Is Mr Muhammad being charged with murder and attempted murder? Yes, of course, but guess what else? He is being charged with “15 counts of engaging in a terrorist act” as “investigators believe there were ‘political and religious motives‘ in the shooting”.
I don’t know if Mr Muhammad has engaged in multiple acts of violence toward the same or similar targets, but with at least this one episode of violence toward these two men, Mr Muhammad is labeled as a terrorist. Really? Is it because he is a “darkie”? Is it because he is Muslim? Is it because he objected to the actions of the US military? Is it because he used to be named Carlos Bledsoe and likely engaged, although unclear and unknown, in some form of Christianity before converting to Islam?
How is Abdulhakim Muhammad a terrorst but Scott Roeder isn’t? How is Osama bin Laden a terrorist but Randall Terry isn’t?
This is yet another example of the religious and ethnic double-standard America has allowed the religious right to perpetrate upon the world, and continues to allow people like Randall Terry and Bill O’Reilly (and many others) to repeatedly make remarks, with impugnity, that inflame the issue and encourage people to act out in criminally terroristic ways. They are all terrorists.
So, terrorism is for Muslims only? It makes me sick.
Addendum: Frank Shaeffer has provided a mea culpa, a public apology, for his actions that contributed to the spawn of hatred for and violence toward abortion providers. Although Mr Shaeffer does not condone the act of abortion, he appreciates that it is a legal right for a woman to choose an abortion and believes that it is immoral to attack women who seek such services. He describes how this was not his position 30 years ago when he assisted the Religious Right (aka the Moral Majority) in spawning hate for anyone associated with an abortion.
Andrew Sullivan Still Doesn’t Get It
Thursday, April 9th, 2009I politely jeered at Andrew Sullivan in my last article for not going “straight” on religion. However, I revel in his attacks on his conservative brethren, because Andrew has the ability to be unforgiving. In this case, the target of his indignation hits close to home: gays. Andrew correctly states that conservatives of the NRO are saying that “homosexuals can go to hell”. Too bad Andrew fell short again.
But, here we are in front of the same issue as before. Is this really a cultural issue? Maybe. Everything that goes on in our society is in some way, culture. Culture comes from cultivate or to grow. Anything cultural stems from whatever growth we experience as a society. For to grow as a society, we must grow as a culture.
In his article, Andrew correctly identifies the stereotypical, culturally conservative position that is magnified in the NRO’s editorial as not giving a damn about homosexuals. They definitely don’t. However, again, Andrew misses the point. No wonder Andrew doesn’t accept comments on his blog.
The NRO editorial exemplifies the impact of religious culture in our society, even though the NRO never mentions the word religion. There is no reason to deny homosexuals any number of rights, privileges or recognitions in our society, and there never has been except for religion. Oh, the NRO mentions “social institution” and “public policy” as the reasons to deny homosexuals the right of marriage, but the NRO is intellectually bankrupt because the same arguments were used to keep blacks in slavery. You see, the only basis for denying homosexual marriage is religion. If the abrahamic faiths didn’t exist, very likely neither would mores against homosexuals and homosexual acts. Anti-homosexual positions may exist in non-abrahamic faiths, but Judaism, Christianity and Islam have done, by far, the most damage to homosexuals, among others, by sheer size and clout.
I must shout to Andrew over and above the din of mad clicking activity that happens at his blog to make him aware that while I agree with his view of the NRO editorial, he is yet again falling short on the real subject: religion has caused the anti-homosexual social practices, attitudes and laws that he is fighting against. Andrew can’t see the forest for the trees.
When will Andrew Sullivan give up on his religion and recognize it for the shortfall it has created in his life and others?
Update: Andrew, Andrew, Andrew … Deal With It, Maggie? Here it is, “But I can note that as one of the first and longest campaigners for marriage equality, my own commitment to religious freedom in America is as ferocious and as impassioned as any Christianist’s”. Andrew, you want religious freedom but you fail to understand that your desire to have religious freedom means that nobody gets any freedom from any of it. Christianity, above all faiths (just barely), requires proselytization, which means you must submit to my will. Do you get it yet?
