Friday, February 13, 2009

About Islam: What the West Needs/Wants to Know

A couple of interesting posts highlighting both sides of the question above, over at MereComments. The first, "What the West Needs to Know" highlights an interesting film Islam: What the West Needs to Know. It has, I believe been out for some time though I myself have not seen it. I think it might be worth the purchase.

It was a rational and non-hysterical inquiry into the history and teachings of Islam. Major interviewees from inside Islam: Bat Ye'or, Walid Shoebat, Abdullah Al-Araby, plus Serge Trifkovic and Robert Spencer. It made a pretty compelling case for viewing Islam as much more than a religion but really a political/religious ideology for world domination. Any truces are temporary, never long-term peace arrangements. There are peaceful aspects to parts of Islam, it seems, that can be appreciated by those not interested in world jihad, but such "moderates" ignore what the rest of the Koran as a whole is said to teach. The more violet sections are from chronologically later periods in the life of Mohammedan, and the god of the Koran seems to say that if he makes a statement later on that contradicts an earlier statement, ignore the earlier one. Mohammed's decapitation of several hundred Jews sets the tone for much of the rest, a tone that still lives on in the fierce and hateful rhetoric towards Israel. I suppose that statements about peaceful Islam on the part of government officials here can only be seen as either ill-informed statements, weak-kneed appeasement sop, or (at best) as attempts to set down admittedly minority of Islam that we hope will be practiced b growing number of "moderates," even if it turns its back on the example of Mohammed, which one of the interviewees noted was supposed to the example of the perfect man. Individual Muslims can be very peaceful, indeed, but the ideology of the Koran is anything but.
The second posting highlights an LA Times article asking some questions of Islam:
...Here are five of them:

(1) Why are you so quiet?
Since the first Israelis were targeted for death by Muslim terrorists blowing themselves up in the name of your religion and Palestinian nationalism, I have been praying to see Muslim demonstrations against these atrocities. Last week’s protests in Jordan against the bombings, while welcome, were a rarity. What I have seen more often is mainstream Muslim spokesmen implicitly defending this terror on the grounds that Israel occupies Palestinian lands. We see torture and murder in the name of Allah, but we see no anti-torture and anti-murder demonstrations in the name of Allah.

There are a billion Muslims in the world. How is it possible that essentially none have demonstrated against evils perpetrated by Muslims in the name of Islam? This is true even of the millions of Muslims living in free Western societies. What are non-Muslims of goodwill supposed to conclude? When the Israeli government did not stop a Lebanese massacre of Palestinians in the Sabra and Chatilla refugee camps in Lebanon in 1982, great crowds of Israeli Jews gathered to protest their country’s moral failing. Why has there been no comparable public demonstration by Palestinians or other Muslims to morally condemn Palestinian or other Muslim-committed terror?

(2) Why are none of the Palestinian terrorists Christian?
If Israeli occupation is the reason for Muslim terror in Israel, why do no Christian Palestinians engage in terror? They are just as nationalistic and just as occupied as Muslim Palestinians.

(3) Why is only one of the 47 Muslim-majority countries a free country?
According to Freedom House, a Washington-based group that promotes democracy, of the world’s 47 Muslim countries, only Mali is free. Sixty percent are not free, and 38% are partly free. Muslim-majority states account for a majority of the world’s “not free” states. And of the 10 “worst of the worst,” seven are Islamic states. Why is this?

(4) Why are so many atrocities committed and threatened by Muslims in the name of Islam?
Young girls in Indonesia were recently beheaded by Muslim murderers. Last year, Muslims – in the name of Islam – murdered hundreds of schoolchildren in Russia. While reciting Muslim prayers, Islamic terrorists take foreigners working to make Iraq free and slaughter them. Muslim daughters are murdered by their own families in the thousands in “honor killings.” And the Muslim government in Iran has publicly called for the extermination of Israel.

(5) Why do countries governed by religious Muslims persecute other religions?
No church or synagogue is allowed in Saudi Arabia. The Taliban destroyed some of the greatest sculptures of the ancient world because they were Buddhist. Sudan’s Islamic regime has murdered great numbers of Christians.
Instead of confronting these problems, too many of you deny them. Muslims call my radio show to tell me that even speaking of Muslim or Islamic terrorists is wrong. After all, they argue, Timothy McVeigh is never labeled a “Christian terrorist.” As if McVeigh committed his terror as a churchgoing Christian and in the name of Christ, and as if there were Christian-based terror groups around the world....(more)
Careful, I think there is a real journalist alive at the Times. Who knows what good might come of this...

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