Revolution is needed in Islam which can only happen if the majority of Muslims don't remain passive. by Hiba Tanvir
(centrist)
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
She was pure, as pure as a virgin. She had poise, she had a unique stature. At her inception, she was blasphemous. She challenged the evils around her.
She fearlessly stood up against injustice, discrimination and inequality. She was the first among her time to preach such a revolution. She was inclusive, she symbolized peace. She strived for progression; revolted against stagnant dogma. It was these attributes that contributed to her success in various arenas. She had a lot to brag about from Science to academics, from human rights to women empowerment; she was revolutionary.
Until the day she was kidnapped. Taken to an unknown mountainous terrain by a group of men. Bearded men who abused her for their pleasure and convenience. Robbed her of her essence;freedom. Deprived her of her fundamental right; the right to think,the right to disagree. They stole her identity, they murdered her progressive vision. They rendered her incapable of assimilating and co existing with others. Ironically, her most beautiful trait was her flexibility, and adaptability. For these qualities made it easier to seek her true goal; spirituality.
The assaults have become worse. The group of men is growing; they are enticing more innocent minds into this heinous crime. They've become her guardians; they and only they have the right to speak on her behalf. The rapist speaking on behalf of the victim; the irony. After all, it is they who have held her captive. Zealously preaching dogma in her name, the masses have become their gullible, thoughtless audience.
They slander her reputation. Her purity is tarnished everyday by each crime they commit in her name. They use her as a shield for their sins. The world has started questioning who she really is; is she inherently evil, violent, and intolerant? For it is in her name that blood is shed, authority demanded, and innocent minds poisoned.
I don't want to be a bystander while a crime only becomes uglier in grandeur. That's not what she taught, that's not what she symbolized. She needs to be rescued, she needs to be saved. Like everything else, these barbarians will leave her in mutilated pieces.
And we'll all be guilty. Guilty for doing nothing to find her, guilty for not challenging her abductors, guilty for remaining silent, guilty for passively listening to illogical, unfair dogmas, guilty for doing the most convenient thing; nothing.
She is my religion; Islam.
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Stop it already. You aren't kidding anyone except those who are willing to be blind. Those of us who study history objectively and read history with an unbiased mind know the truth. If you really believe this drivel, than you are brainwashed and unwilling to face the facts.
I don't care what you say about Christianity, or Judaism or Hinduism, or anything else.  Islam is what matters today because it is YOUR RELIGION that is waging war against the Western World. I don't care about the Catholic church because I don't believe they want to fly planes into buildings, or blow up airliners, or blow up train stations. Everywhere you people go, you take over and snuff out all resistance and diversity. In every Muslim country, non-Muslims are persecuted and mistreated and denied basic human rights. Even Muslims aren't treated well by their own people. And you turn a blind eye to the excesses and hypocrisys of all your leaders as long as they pay lip service to the faith in the name of public relations.
Sensible people are afraid of your religion. And for good reason.  It is suprematist, racist, xenophobic, anti-human, unyeilding and definitely opposed to freedom.
But I do have to admit... Middle Eastern tile work and ornamental metalwork is second to none. Absolutely beautiful.
Posted By: Jake, the Champion of the Constitution
Date: 2009-06-16 18:15:35
Dear Hiba Tanvir -
Welcome to the Chart! What a beautiful (though sad) poem! - though I confess that as I read Islam is not what I thought of, but Lady Liberty.Â
Dear Jonathan -Â
I do believe you being a bit ignorant here - you have no idea what the author's personal experiences are, and it's just an artistic poem. For what it's worth, I've met plenty of individuals who believe in Islam and they all treated me kindly - I would even compare their hospitality to the Gospel-thumping American South. Â
If you read my articles, you will find I believe the War on Terror has more to do with our continued wars of aggression and military presence abroad (for DECADES) than with either religion, though I'll certainly agree that religion intensifies the conflict. However, no religion can absolve the heinous act of 9/11, beheadings... or even Predator drones blowing up innocents in Pakistan.
Plus haven't WE given the Muslim world the idea its a religious war? Or perhaps you believe Bush misspoke below?
"This is a new kind of, a new kind of evil. And the American people are beginning to understand. This crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take a while. And American people must be patient. -- President George Bush, Washington, D.C., Sept. 16, 2001
Or perhaps you believe that a valiant few did not see what was occurring, and tried to stop the War on Terror from happening?
"We are in great danger of becoming involved in a vicious war for oil, as well as being drawn into a religious war that will not end in our lifetime. The potential for war in this region is great, and the next one could make the Persian Gulf War look small. Only a reassessment of our entire policy will keep us from being involved in a needless and dangerous war in this region."
- Dr. Paul, February 7th, 2001 from the Congressional record
All religions start as revolutionary, but then become crystalized centuries later into dogma, becoming like the very thing its early followers rebelled against. The only way to break out of that is to abandon dogma completely and trust in science.
I'll take it that "ignorance" is a euphemism for "not politically correct", Jake.
The poem is not purely artistic, although it is artistic. It's not a poem about the author's personal experiences. It's a poem about her perception of history. This has nothing to do with how nice individual Muslims are. I've met plenty of them too, in Africa, in Egypt, in Israel, in Indonesia, in the Philippines. I've never had an unpleasant interpersonal exchange with a Muslim. I think the Muslim world is much more stable than the progressive West.  I think the Muslim world values the family, the child and interpersonal relationships more than the progressive West. I think the Muslim world values many things more than the materialist post-Christian West does. But individual freedom and conscience are not included in them.  And neither are the human rights of non-Muslims.
I've never had the pleasure of reading your articles, but I will certainly look for them. I'm particularly interested in reading about our wars of aggression.
I don't think we've given the Muslim world the idea it's a religious war. We've bent over backwards to prove that it isn't.  No credible person in the Muslim world really believes this is about religion for the United States. Because, if they did, our problems would be exponentially worse.
 I think you are unfairly biased against the USA, Jake. It shows in subtle ways here.Â
Posted By: Walt Thiessen
Date: 2009-06-17 04:06:53
Jonathan: So, you don't think that the history of those nice Muslims you mentioned counts as history? The only thing that counts historically is what the bad Muslims do? Talk about blind prejudice!
A single Muslim writes a poem bemoaning how bad Muslims have harmed the author's religion, thereby harming those good, peaceful Muslims who engage in it, and you go off the deep end because you don't count the history of good Muslims. Then if someone criticizes your view, you call them anti-American. In doing so, you fall into the same trap as foreignors who slam Americans because of the evil policies of the American government. I don't support those policies, yet being an American I am held to their standard.
Thanks a lot, Jonathan. You just mistreated a new visitor to the site the same way I and others who favor non-interventionism have been mistreated by critics abroad.
Walt, I don't think the issue is about the good qualities of individuals who happen to be Muslims, and whose relative adherence to the tenets of their faith might vary in one way or another from others, according to individual temperment or taste. And that individual variance is certainly not a barometer for what Islam is, as an institution. Any more than we can define what Nazi Germany was all about based on the "niceness" of one German who never harmed any Jews at all.
But, my comment is directed toward the disparity between what her poem asserts about Islam as a whole, and what reality shows. Islam hasn't been "hijacked" by extremists. Islam isn't being "reinvented" by fundamentalists. Everyday life and reality in Muslim countries validates this.  It has nothing to do with how "nice" individuals are. These apparent moderates, if they are sincere, are engaged in wishful thinking. It has to do with what Islam fosters as a culture and social force.
And I didn't call Jake un-American, and I didn't call Jake un-American because he "criticized my viewpoint." What I did say was that I think he sounds unfairly biased against the US, based on some things he said in his post. Such as his mention of our "wars of aggression." Â
Posted By: Jake Towne, the Champion of the Constitution
Date: 2009-06-17 08:01:08
Dear Jonathan -
I don't particularly care about "politically correct" and I did mean ignorant... however, I did not mean it as an insult (though this is what happens). I meant it in a respectful way that perhaps you are not aware of some facts.
You wrote: "I've never had the pleasure of reading your articles, but I will certainly look for them. I'm particularly interested in reading about our wars of aggression."
Sure, try these, in the first note how we executed the Afghan war - by using the warlords as our proxies on the ground for 5 months. At least OBL was in this country when we attacked, Iraq surely wasn't an imminent threat to our national security.
http://www.nolanchart.com/article4475.html
This piece is about a woman I admire, she happens to be MuslimÂ
A Salute to Malalai Joya - Afghanistan's Tom Paine  http://www.nolanchart.com/article4449.html
Â
 Lastly, here's a piece I researched myself called "My Father's Vietnam is My Iraq - Disturbing Parallels" http://www.nolanchart.com/article3436.html
You wrote: "I think you are unfairly biased against the USA, Jake. It shows in subtle ways here."
Against the government? Yes, I am. But for good reasons! Against Americans? No way, but to believe me you would probably have to know me. Plus I try to treat everyone as an individual, not categorize by nationality
To be fair, 2 years ago I thought completely different about politics and even more or less supported the War of Terror.  It was because I didn't understand fully what was happening - I'll even venture I thought quite a bit like yourself.
You can call me ignorant, that's okay. I know it stems from the fact that you can't find a real way to refute my claims. You don't really address my claims, so you resort to  the classic tactics.
As a system of government, as a societal model, Islam is nothing like the poem describes. Individuals merely adapt in accordance with personal factors that are relative. But I assert this does not represent life under Islamic culture. Iran represents it. Saudi Arabia represents it. Egypt, Pakistan, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Somalia, represents it. At the individual level, Osama Bin Laden represents it. Not the poetry of "moderate" Islam. Islam hasn't been hijacked, unless you mean the moderates who are trying to hijack the religion themselves.Â
I can point to the everyday realities of life in an Islamic country for non-Muslims, for women. To the things that are taught about Jews and Christians in Middle Eastern schools.  To the things taught in madrassas and mosques all over the world.  I can point to history. I can point to Europe, Britain, where NATIVE BORN Europeans are JAILED if they dare speak a word against the Islamization of their countries. And meanwhile, Muslims in those countries riot and agitate and subvert and commit acts of Jihad with impunity. With arrogant impunity, they use the freedom of these lands to insult and overrun that freedom and incite repression against native inhabitants. I can point to Sudan. India. Even in the "moderate" Sultanate of Brunei, where the leadership of the country is a non-democratic monarchy that pacifies the people with oil money and tourism payola.
Islam has long been dormant in its true nature. Dormant for a variety of factors, since the time frame of the Middle Ages. And in that time, a more "laid back" definition has evolved as an offshoot.  But always, the urge to draw the sword nagging away incessantly as the West rose to acsendancy over the world with all its "unholy" and "blasphemous" practices unchecked.Â
And now, with the wealth and riches of oil flowing for the past century, Islam is able to react more and more stridently to the destabilizing influence of a new Israeli state, to a materialistic, humanist "Great Satan" culture, to the threats against the culture and power structure it has embraced for centuries with little change. And so, Islam has awakened again with new vitality against all the infidels, to overtake and subdue them by every strategem of war.
Jake, leave the self-destructiveness behind. You can't "wish" this problem away with happy thoughts.  Progressives aren't going to be able to reinvent Islam the way Catholicism has been reformed either.  There isn't  time.  We would need centuries to do that, if it can be done at all.  There are only decades at most, before all the Islamic Armageddon prophecies are self-fulfilled. I really don't see a rewrite of the Koran in the offing, anytime soon.
Posted By: Jake, the Champion of the Constitution
Date: 2009-06-17 20:41:15
Jonathan - Thx for posting comments in the other articles, I'll take a look in a bit.
Could you please inform me about these "Islamic Armaggeddon" prophecies? perhaps I have something to learn from you there.Â
Have you traveled to the countries and met the people you refer to? Truth might be different than the reality you have perceived. Â
Pardon me, but you are the one who is being self-destructive. Have you not watched Israel and the Palestinians go at each other? Or the Sudanese? Or the warring sects in Yugoslavia 10 years ago?  Or the Spanish Inquisition? Don't you think there is something of value to learn from these conflicts?
From my point of view bin Laden and his ilk were a marginalized group of outcasts in 2001 - international pariahs with only a few followers who were mostly looked down upon as radicals by the Ummah. Â
By leaping into an expensive conventional war with a small, unconventional enemy and causing plenty of collateral damage, we literally drove people to fight against us. Many of those who were on the sidelines then became either active or passive supporters of bin Laden. It was an act of imperial hubris (suggest the book by Michael Scheuer who worked in the bin laden unit for years if you havent read it)
In hindsight, 1) we never declared war and 2) we should have gone after the enemy with constitutional letters of marque and reprisal. Our society used to be founded on the rule of law. Read the Constitution, which is supposed to be our supreme law. So mark your enemies in a court of law and then capture them with your military or bounty hunters. If the enemy blows up a tower and kills a 1000 people, then authorize a reprisal strike where we blow up a target of equal value to the enemy.
So am I "wishing" away the problem with happy thoughts?Â
I would do a google search on Islamic eschatology, Islamic prophecy, etc, in order to learn a bit about the subject. But, to summarize it briefly... I am sure you are aware that Islam embraces all the major and minor prophets of the Bible, along with the general story line of the Old Testament. It's primary difference is in Mohammed as the "final prophet" and its rewrite of the Jesus story. But, Muslims believe in the second coming of Jesus, they believe in Armageddon and the end of the world. The primary difference is that the fundamentalists of Islam believe that, it is THEIR JOB to make Armageddon happen. Whereas Christians believe it is an event beyond human control according to God's timetable.  The jihadists are NOT afraid of nuclear war. They look forward to it. It will be the purifying fire that ushers in the global caliphate.
 As for the rest of your post, I certainly have observed the goings on of Israel and Palestine. That is why I call progressives self-destructive. Because they are appeasers. Realists who grasp history understand what is occurring. Progressives naively believe the world operates favorably using the principles of appeasing bullies and excusing their violence. It didn't work with Hitler and it won't work with Palestine.
Osama Bin Laden's philosophy is not a marginal fringe element.  Osama is not the central figure anyway and never was; he is a general in someone's guerilla army. Moderate Muslims are the marginals, useful for the moment as PR tools, but with no real effect as "revolutionaries." What the fundamentalists represent is the reawakening orthodox Islam that has been stagnant and dormant for centuries. Reawakened and reinvigorated by money, power and technological advances. Not to mention by the menacing advance of humanism, secularism, materialism and hedonism around the world.
So, Jake, if you want to exposite that we drove the fanatics to fight against us by being "imperialists", then you can. But, do you actually believe Islam will embrace feminism and gay rights and evolution - once Israel and the Great Satan are destroyed or made "progressive"?  Jake, Israel is progressive. The US is full of progressive Jews. Do you notice this? I predict to you that you will see no change now the US is being taken over by leftists and appeasers.  I predict there will be continuing attacks, even if Obama and the left run the country for 100 years.Â
Muslims use Palestine to postulate a grievance. They don't have one. They are rich. They are influential. They own the world's oil production. They own a whole continent's worth of land, plus more... and they can't spare a postage size stamp of land on the Mediterranean coast for the Israelis. Land they stole from the Israelis anyway. The Israelis are the native Americans in this scenario. The Muslims are the conquistadors. And yet they immigrate to our lands, enjoy our freedom, benefit from our system.
What Chutzpah! What incredible suprematist arrogance! What Imperialism! It is THEY who are the colonialists of the 21st century, and they colonize in a much more counterproductive fashion, with brutish disdain for their hosts. With devious design and ulterior intent.
Those who disdain America, Jake, base their opinions on historic myths and utopian scenarios that can be easily dispelled by research. Perhaps progressives just have some element of their personality that leads them to rebel, to want to destroy, or something. I don't know. But we can't afford to let them win. There's too much at stake. If progressives succeed in taking America down, it will leave the free world open to totalitarianism or corporate facism. Taiwan, South Korea, Europe, Israel. You will be handing domination over to the likes of Castro, Kim Il Jung, and the Ayatollahs or perhaps the global bankers.Â
Of course you are wishing the problem away with happy thoughts, Jake. That's what progressives do. I agree with you about the issue of declaring war - but the thing is, you wouldn't have liked it that way either. It's not about how we did it. It's that, we're America, and everything we do is bad in the minds of utopians.
Posted By: Jake, the Champion of the Constitution
Date: 2009-06-20 05:43:59
Dear Jonathan -
I am certainly not a "utopian" but I will let that slide. I am curious exactly what your definition of a "progressive" is - I thought it was a kind of car insurance. I had to look it up and google said it was "favoring or promoting progress".  Sounds like an adjective and not a noun, so I am curious what your definition is since you make it sound quite evil.
I may have to update my article "An Hypocrisy of Terms: Liberal and Conservative"Â http://www.nolanchart.com/article2716.html
I'm surprised a man running for state congressman thinks "progressive" means car insurance. Especially in your state. But, you were only kidding, right?
Do a google search on "What do Progressives Believe". You'll get a lot of great, but predictable, insights. I don't know about you, but I can spot a "progressive" a mile away. Or, when they tell me that they are "a Progressive", I know immediately what they believe about everything. It's easy. Therefore, there must be a definition.
Here's one good institutional website I found on the search engine.Â
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