9/11: DOB of Islamophobia

Re: # 49
Salim Jang Veer Bahadur Pasha-e-Pashima-Chawl (however gave you this name and title should be applauded to kingdom come) you have put the case very succinctly.

Beejkumar is a wee bit jealous of your abilities. Ignore the inarticulate guy!

Re: # 48
stop this bitching
save it for the cyber-jihadi eminence greaces (T)

Re: # 49 salim

Good post...

Janaba Irena sahiba,

Aisaa kijiye.

Aglee baar aap apnee article ko Salim Chauhan se dikhwa lijiye!

In fact, better still, let HIM write it.

Then delete every second line (for conserving space)

Then delete every one of your original sentences.

And, before you know it….

Presto! You got an article!

Irena,

Thank you for writing this timely article that addresses a painful situation from a personal perspective. Your anecdote concerning your sister`s hesitance to display her Muslim identity is repeated millions of times daily by Muslims residing in the west.

As usual, there are several sides to every issue:

First, people in the west are justifiably concerned about terrorism. If riding on trains, flying in airplanes, and working in tall buildings are invitations for mass murder, then most people will get annoyed and much more. If there is a self-proclaimed, almost boastful, religious, ethnic, or even political face behind these acts, then normal people will resort to bigoted paranoia and collective suspicion. This is the obvious consequence of terror inflicted by overtly evil, violent, and cruel perpetrators. People in this category are indeed victims of terrorism by those who proclaim to be inspired by extreme Islamic teachings.

Second, there are people who have always hated Muslims, mid-Easterners, and ``Ayrabs and Turks`` for a long long time. The acts of terror committed by murderers, in the name of Islam, have given new life, credence, and propaganda for the agenda of those who would have found one reason or another to voice their hatred. The main difference is that now they can spread their hatred with complete freedom and even encouragement from the otherwise decent majority and law-abiding citizens. Before terrorism, the key words that fanned these hatemongers` lust for animosity were oil, greed, polygamy, slavery, status of women, and lavish display of wealth by sheiks. They elected to ignore that Exxon, Enron, Mormons, slavery in the US South, prostitution, and the high-tipping Ugly American were primarily manifestations of the Judeo-Christian ``civilization`` of the west. The September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the all too frequent and nauseating audio and video tapes from AlKayda, the string of bombings in Kenya, Tanzania, Yemen, Bali, Madrid, London, Delhi, Mumbai, and elsewhere, and the rather convenient and timely botched plots to blow up every conceivable transport and structure, have all combined to provide priceless ammunition to those who hate Muslims. Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, George Bush, Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld, Emerson, ex-PMs Berlusconi, Sharon, and soon to be ex-PMs Blair and Olmert, have all been delighted by their chance to do some real Muslim bashing. These are the people who should really love the ``Muslim`` terrorists for giving them a raison d`etre, a pulpit, and a tremendous opportunity.

Third, you have the twice-victimized Muslims residing in the west. As travelers and citizens in western countries, these people are as much a target of violence as their non-Muslim compatriots. Additionally, they bear the burden of being perceived as security risks, fifth columnists, and the punching bags for the frustrations, apprehensions, and fear of many westerners, including governments. They are constantly being required to be cleaner than clean, more law abiding than the law, and totally immune to insults, injury, and blatant discrimination.

Lastly, you have the cowards who have done the most harm to Islam and Muslims. These are the so-called jihadist, mujahideen, right wing fundo whacko Sunni Wahabbi extremist terrorists. Based on some inexplicable lust for violence, death, killing, ``martyrdom,`` or notoriety, these killers are intent upon destroying whatever shred of independence or wealth that may be left among Muslims. They hide themselves in caves and teeming cities, emerging only to wreak havoc, death, and destruction upon innocent civilians - who just happen to be overwhelmingly Muslim.

President Mohammad Khatami of Iran said it beautifully when he stated at Harvard that ``those who make life a hell for others on earth will never find heaven in the next life.``

#46 Raaneejee

[You have a nice and easy style...]

Sometimes consisely (if unkindly) referred to as ``bitching``.

Okay, scratch that! That was mean and uncalled-for!

Sorry, ma`m Irena!

Re: # 43
Haider sahib, you have received the second best accolade.
This will not do. Please buck up your ideas and views ASAP. Second best will never do.

NOw based on your answers to our cyber-jihadi eminence grise Zeemax Sirjee`s question you will either receive an upgrade in your name or you will be sent the required presents and kisses from the very same.

Irena,
you have outlined the woes of the general innocent mass of the Islamic public. however, you have failed on two counts

(a) identifying the causes - okay I will succumb and use the cliche ``root causes``
(b ) identifying a way out of this morass

It would have been really intersting to see your PoV on this. For these woes are already very well documented here and else where. You could ofcourse say the same about the above two. However, it would have been interesting to hear you speculate/outline/pointificate on these two aspects.

You have a nice and easy style which should make the article readable.

Re: # 38

Haider sahib,
watch your back from on. You will be either called a ``macaca`` by our cyber-jihadi bros or better still a ``Bhaand`` by our cyber-jihadi eminence grise Zeemax Sirjee!

identifying

#38 by haider5

First, accept my heart felt congratulations for winning accolades from islamophobic_macacas.

Next, I have noted your assertion as follows:

and try not to use the term jihad for those people who are fighting their own personal wars.

I had posted the following list on another board. Kindly help me in adentifying which one/s is/are fighting for personal interest so I may immediately cease/desist from supporting them:

1) Hamas:

2) Hazballah:

3) Chechen:

4) Taliban:

5) Somalia Islamic Courts:

6) Bin Laden:

7) Muslim Brotherhood:

8) Jaish Muhammad:

9) Lashkar-e-Tayyaba:

10) Jamaa-e-Islamya (Far-East):

Thanks in advance.

>>>>Islamophobia may be more visible at airports. But its other strains could be found elsewhere. Like the Internet. You’d find many Muslims refraining from forwarding Islamic mails.<<<

The above says it all. Muslims now need internet to spread Islam. Just brilliant. What the fuk is ``Islamic mails``? And why use internet to forward these? Do you mean to tell us that this is how Islam was spread? You should really thank al-Gore for that.

Islamophobia has become so pervasive that even the Pope jumped into the fray and made a fool of himself. 9/11 or no 9/11, the west has been Islamophobic for ages. I am appending Karen armstrong`s comments on the Pope`s silly speech hereunder. What we need is more Karen Armstrongs and fewer fundamentalists like the Pope and the mullahs.
Mohammad Gill

---

We cannot afford to maintain these ancient prejudices against Islam

The Pope`s remarks were dangerous, and will convince many more Muslims that the west is incurably Islamophobic

Karen Armstrong
Monday September 18, 2006
The Guardian
In the 12th century, Peter the Venerable, Abbot of Cluny, initiated a dialogue with the Islamic world. ``I approach you not with arms, but with words,`` he wrote to the Muslims whom he imagined reading his book, ``not with force, but with reason, not with hatred, but with love.`` Yet his treatise was entitled Summary of the Whole Heresy of the Diabolical Sect of the Saracens and segued repeatedly into spluttering intransigence. Words failed Peter when he contemplated the ``bestial cruelty`` of Islam, which, he claimed, had established itself by the sword. Was Muhammad a true prophet? ``I shall be worse than a donkey if I agree,`` he expostulated, ``worse than cattle if I assent!``
Peter was writing at the time of the Crusades. Even when Christians were trying to be fair, their entrenched loathing of Islam made it impossible for them to approach it objectively. For Peter, Islam was so self-evidently evil that it did not seem to occur to him that the Muslims he approached with such ``love`` might be offended by his remarks. This medieval cast of mind is still alive and well.
Last week, Pope Benedict XVI quoted, without qualification and with apparent approval, the words of the 14th-century Byzantine emperor Manuel II: ``Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.`` The Vatican seemed bemused by the Muslim outrage occasioned by the Pope`s words, claiming that the Holy Father had simply intended ``to cultivate an attitude of respect and dialogue toward the other religions and cultures, and obviously also towards Islam``.
But the Pope`s good intentions seem far from obvious. Hatred of Islam is so ubiquitous and so deeply rooted in western culture that it brings together people who are usually at daggers drawn. Neither the Danish cartoonists, who published the offensive caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad last February, nor the Christian fundamentalists who have called him a paedophile and a terrorist, would ordinarily make common cause with the Pope; yet on the subject of Islam they are in full agreement.
Our Islamophobia dates back to the time of the Crusades, and is entwined with our chronic anti-semitism. Some of the first Crusaders began their journey to the Holy Land by massacring the Jewish communities along the Rhine valley; the Crusaders ended their campaign in 1099 by slaughtering some 30,000 Muslims and Jews in Jerusalem. It is always difficult to forgive people we know we have wronged. Thenceforth Jews and Muslims became the shadow-self of Christendom, the mirror image of everything that we hoped we were not - or feared that we were.
The fearful fantasies created by Europeans at this time endured for centuries and reveal a buried anxiety about Christian identity and behaviour. When the popes called for a Crusade to the Holy Land, Christians often persecuted the local Jewish communities: why march 3,000 miles to Palestine to liberate the tomb of Christ, and leave unscathed the people who had - or so the Crusaders mistakenly assumed - actually killed Jesus. Jews were believed to kill little children and mix their blood with the leavened bread of Passover: this ``blood libel`` regularly inspired pogroms in Europe, and the image of the Jew as the child slayer laid bare an almost Oedipal terror of the parent faith.
Jesus had told his followers to love their enemies, not to exterminate them. It was when the Christians of Europe were fighting brutal holy wars against Muslims in the Middle East that Islam first became known in the west as the religion of the sword. At this time, when the popes were trying to impose celibacy on the reluctant clergy, Muhammad was portrayed by the scholar monks of Europe as a lecher, and Islam condemned - with ill-concealed envy - as a faith that encouraged Muslims to indulge their basest sexual instincts. At a time when European social order was deeply hierarchical, despite the egalitarian message of the gospel, Islam was condemned for giving too much respect to women and other menials.
In a state of unhealthy denial, Christians were projecting subterranean disquiet about their activities on to the victims of the Crusades, creating fantastic enemies in their own image and likeness. This habit has persisted. The Muslims who have objected so vociferously to the Pope`s denigration of Islam have accused him of ``hypocrisy``, pointing out that the Catholic church is ill-placed to condemn violent jihad when it has itself been guilty of unholy violence in crusades, persecutions and inquisitions and, under Pope Pius XII, tacitly condoned the Nazi Holocaust.
Pope Benedict delivered his controversial speech in Germany the day after the fifth anniversary of September 11. It is difficult to believe that his reference to an inherently violent strain in Islam was entirely accidental. He has, most unfortunately, withdrawn from the interfaith initiatives inaugurated by his predecessor, John Paul II, at a time when they are more desperately needed than ever. Coming on the heels of the Danish cartoon crisis, his remarks were extremely dangerous. They will convince more Muslims that the west is incurably Islamophobic and engaged in a new crusade.
We simply cannot afford this type of bigotry. The trouble is that too many people in the western world unconsciously share this prejudice, convinced that Islam and the Qur`an are addicted to violence. The 9/11 terrorists, who in fact violated essential Islamic principles, have confirmed this deep-rooted western perception and are seen as typical Muslims instead of the deviants they really were.
With disturbing regularity, this medieval conviction surfaces every time there is trouble in the Middle East. Yet until the 20th century, Islam was a far more tolerant and peaceful faith than Christianity. The Qur`an strictly forbids any coercion in religion and regards all rightly guided religion as coming from God; and despite the western belief to the contrary, Muslims did not impose their faith by the sword.
The early conquests in Persia and Byzantium after the Prophet`s death were inspired by political rather than religious aspirations. Until the middle of the eighth century, Jews and Christians in the Muslim empire were actively discouraged from conversion to Islam, as, according to Qur`anic teaching, they had received authentic revelations of their own. The extremism and intolerance that have surfaced in the Muslim world in our own day are a response to intractable political problems - oil, Palestine, the occupation of Muslim lands, the prevelance of authoritarian regimes in the Middle East, and the west`s perceived ``double standards`` - and not to an ingrained religious imperative.
But the old myth of Islam as a chronically violent faith persists, and surfaces at the most inappropriate moments. As one of the received ideas of the west, it seems well-nigh impossible to eradicate. Indeed, we may even be strengthening it by falling back into our old habits of projection. As we see the violence - in Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon - for which we bear a measure of responsibility, there is a temptation, perhaps, to blame it all on ``Islam``. But if we are feeding our prejudice in this way, we do so at our peril.
• Karen Armstrong is the author of Islam: A Short History
comment@guardian.co.uk

Re:haider5#38

[...hope being muslims we should make other understand the real spirit of our objective leaving behind the things they say about us. give them love to change their hate into love. idealistic. but it can be tried at this forum.....]

Haider, very well said!! You are a wise and compassionate person, and a genuine muslim. What a nice change to hear from someone like you instead of the jaahil abusive hatemongers like masadi and zeemax. Those guys think they are protecting Islam, but they actually demean it with their rhetoric and abusive language. Bravo!! Please keep it up.

The reality is that at the end of the day, it is always someone or some civilzation with a positive message for mankind that triumphs. Western civilization has been on the top for so long because it provides for an excellent standard of living for the largest number of people. If muslim civilization wants to compete with it, it has to do so in terms of offering a positive alternative, not one of mindless violence and suicide bombings. Chinese civilzation and Indian civilization also compete with the west, but that competition is on the positive agenda of development and prosperity. Unfortunately the competition with Islamic civilization has degenerated into mindless violence and destruction.

#38 by haider5

and the jihadis you talk about are fighting their personal wars to satisfy their egos so they cannot be called jihadi in any sense.

Haider bhai, I used the word Jihadi to describe those who were involved in wanton acts of terror. Apologies anyway! And once again, thanks for an enlightening post.

Harish

{Yaar Haider, thanks for a sensible post. However, calling bjkumar a freak takes away some of the sheen off your post. His scathing posts are directed towards Pakis who are directly/indirectly responsible for the current state of affairs. He even makes a clear distinction between the ordinary Paki (who is as much a victim as anyone else) and the Jihadi Paki. Please reconsider your thoughts on this one.}


its clear. i am sorry for using such a word. at the end you said jihadi paki, which clearly attacks the concept of jihad, because every normal paki is jihadi. jihad for muslim ummah is as important as life, until it is in the way of Allah, wherever it is carried out to satisfy ones own ego it is not jihad, its personal war so its a very sacred word for us and the thinline between jihad and personal war needs to be understood. and the jihadis you talk about are fighting their personal wars to satisfy their egos so they cannot be called jihadi in any sense. had they been true muslims they must have waged jihad against hunger, agianst ignorance, against secretarianism, against hate, against war. i want to quote an event here in this reference of Hazrat Ali ``once in a jihad he got full control on an enemy and was about to kill him he suddenly spat on him hazrat Ali left him the moment he did this. people asked him why you left your enemy while you were in full position to kill him he said no i was fighting in the way of Allah but the moment he spat on me my own anger my own ego involved so i left him``. i request everyone on this forum to understand the real concept of jihad. and try not to use the term jihad for those people who are fighting their own personal wars. i know i might get lots of objections on my this comment but hope every muslim and non muslim should understand the feelings of eachother to make this place a better one.

masadi

{So, I`ll think of something else to call that concept which describes these pathetic fools on here like the no name fool to the dot. So after he fails to associate me with UBL he is now associating me with Polpot in #27, That is the strength of their reasoning ability, a totally pathetic mentality.}


man you are fantastic. i visited your website. you wrote so much man. great. but when i was going through your thinking i somewhere felt like you are contradicting yourself somewhere. you are at one side lamenting over that bjkumar and others are convicting you as polpot etc and on the other hand you are also trying to use the same kind of terms for them so there is no difference between you and bjkumar and others. when umar mukhtar was fighting against the western powers in one of fight he defeated the enemies one of their soldiers left behind umar mukhtar`s soldiers said we should kill him because they do the same with us he said no they are not our teachers whatever they will do we are not suppose to do the same things with them. i think we can learn a lot from such people. hope being muslims we should make other understand the real spirit of our objective leaving behind the things they say about us. give them love to change their hate into love. idealistic. but it can be tried at this forum.

hope you can understand. my knowledge is just a tiny dot in front of you. hope if i wrote anything wrong you will ignore it. i love your knowledge.
if i wrote anything wrong everyone is open to correct me.

thanks
haider