Ironies with Islam

Question:

This is one of the best articles I have ever read in usenet. replying to other newsgroups.

Nothing surprising about that. The hostility between any two religious/political groups has always tended to be inversely proportional to the difference in doctrine. Similar religions are natural competitors. What I wish, though, is that people would stop calling the Taliban and their ilk (Moslem or Christian) fundamentalists. Nothing could be more misleading and more likely to enhance the status of the idiots involved. Do you thing beards and burquas are "fundamentals" of Islam? No, they’re just product brand marks. The Taliban are superficialists, worshiping the brand marks of Islam and missing all the real fundamentals. In calling the Taliban fundamentalists you are, by implication, saying that moderate moslems are only moderately Islamic. A gratuitous insult.

Response:

This is one of the best articles I have ever read in usenet. replying to other newsgroups.

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – ISLAMIC IRONY Political and social conservatives in the United States are, predictably, the most eager for military solutions in the "war on terrorism". For almost any conflict, they tend to be among the most eager for "getting tough." There is a certain irony in how our conservative Islamic antagonists are in many ways exaggerated caricatures of their American counterparts. The Right in our country has always trumpeted "Family Values". They should be completely comfortable in this regard with Islamic conservatives. The following quote is from an article titled "Why is the Family so Important to Islam?" [1]" "The family is the foundation of Islamic society. The peace and security offered by a stable family unit is greatly valued and seen as essential for the spiritual growth of its members." Marriage is "sacred" to them, just as it is considered to be "sacred" by American conservatives. It is in fact so sacred to American conservatives, that they make heated effort to deny the same sacred right to others whom they do not approve. The Religious Right has always spat on feminism and gender equality. Many Islamic countries carry this to even greater degrees: women can’t drive cars, or be educators, or appear in public with exposed faces. Our Religious Right has always looked at gays as being dirty things, who have no legitimate place, with any dignity, within society. Some American extremists, such as the Christian Identity and Christian Reconstructionists, advocate Biblical death penalty for gays. The Taliban are way ahead of them. In Afghanistan, Islamic theologians debate at length as to what is the correct method to kill gay people- to topple walls on them, or to hurl them from cliffs. Osama bin Laden, the bloody murder, chastises Americans for being "immoral"- one of the favorite words, spouted most frequently, by American religious conservatives. Far from seeing themselves as being backward or hateful, the Islamic extremists consider themselves to be greatly superior, just as the American Religious Right considers itself to be a model of purity and virtue, relative to their despised opponents. In the theocratic governments, you can find such absurd things as the "Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice." So much similarity, so much mutual concern for family, tradition and virtue, yet put the two sides together, and you find them going to war with the greatest mutual enthusiasm. Now, why might that be? The two sides may differ in degree, but not in fundamental character. The primary difference is the perception of who is "my clan", or "my tribe", and who is "The Other". Instead of merely pointing a finger at gays, and making the accusation of "immorality", the Islamic extremists are pointing a finger at all Americans, and saying "immoral" or "Great Satan." Why do they say that about Americans? Is it just because homosexuals are not persecuted as ruthlessly as they are in Islamic countries? Is it just "guilt by association", aimed at any and every American, just as minorities are often held uniformly accountable for what any one of their numbers might do? No, it is more than that. They could point a finger even at conservative American women, and say "immoral". After, all, even Laura Bush speaks in public and shows her face. They say that America is "immoral" because it supports Israel, which in their eyes, has robbed their land and persecuted them. In the eyes of Islamic extremists, anyone who does not worship Mohammed might be considered "immoral." Members of other religions are frequently considered to be "insulting" Islam, just as gay people in Egypt were charged with "contempt of Islam." It is similar to the American habit, which holds that all religion is a good thing, but to be secular and have no religion at all is a sign of being morally suspect. Americans, of course, could look down their moral noses at the some of the family values in the Islamic world, considering that Osama bin Laden was the 17th son of 35 children, by many wives. To American moralists, polygamy might be seen as wickedly adulterous and primitively backward. American conservatives often protest how unfairly maligned they are. How unfair to call it "bigotry", they say. "This is not bigotry, it is my sincere religious belief, and that is entirely different." Is it? Is bigotry not bigotry, just because it is sincere, or widely shared, or rooted in tradition? Religion need not be something fundamentally different from bigotry. Perhaps the term that applies is simply "religious bigotry", which is not only still bigotry, but is one of the worst kinds of bigotry. Worst, because it is so recalcitrant, so immune to reason, or to compromise. Worst, because it fools so many people as to its true nature, with its successful mask of respectability. Is the bigotry less offensive, just because it is rooted in Scriptures and thousands of years of tradition? Sometimes, the duration of tradition shows merely the extreme tenacity of human bad habits. If this is not discussion has not been enough to convince you of the similarity between the religious extremisms, consider this poem posted by the Aryan Nations, entitled "America the Sinful" [2] O’ wicked land of sodomites Your World Trade Center’s gone With crashing planes and burning flames, To hell your souls have gone. America, America, God’s wrath was shown to thee One step to the right of even the Christian Coalition, can be seen the ultimate fruition of right-wing religious hatred: outright sympathy for the Islamic terrorists, total lack of empathy even in the face of a horrendous crime against humanity. The hatred of New York City has been widespread among American religious conservatives, for a long time. The Aryan Nations poem merely carries that to its ultimate conclusion. Americans are now asking "Why do they Hate Us"? Gay people are quite accustomed to religious hatred, and can offer insight into that question. You might assume that the real reasons that they hate you are explained by their stated reasons for hating you. That is an assumption which is not safe to make. Gays have found that the stated reasons for which right-wing Christians hate are often merely their excuses for hating. If you could succeed in undermining one of their excuses for hating, they would search for new excuses to hate. They want their hatred, and they do not want to give it up. Moralists moralize for the same reasons that sports teams play sports. It makes them feel so good, to think that they are so much better than someone else. It provides them with a safe outlet for instincts that are rooted in sheer sadism, that is a natural facet of their personalities. It is like a child mistreated by a bully in a schoolyard, asking, "Why does he hate me? What did I do?" It is not that the U.S has never done real things that naturally attract hatred. Few Americans are even aware of such things as the CIA-engineered coup that once installed the Shah of Iran, who proceeded to kill thousands of people. In 1976, Amnesty International listed the Shah’s Iran as one of the worst human rights abusers in the world. An editorial in Bay Windows, a Boston gay newspaper, lambasted American critics who suggested that U.S. foreign policy was responsible for the Trade Center attack. The editorial said that this was similar to blaming a raped woman for having worn a provocative dress. This notion is naive. To make it possible for murder and torture on a wide scale is hardly equivalent to wearing a provocative dress. However, the American critics who blame U.S. mistakes would probably also be in for a surprise, if they imagine that amending those mistakes would necessarily bring good will. That notion would also be a naive misunderstanding of the nature of religious hatred. A schoolyard bully doesn’t need a reason to hate. It is in his blood to hate. Anywhere that he went, you would find him with another victim of some kind, and another excuse. That phenomenon is not restricted to a few psychopaths. It is a streak running deep throughout much of the human race. It is merely more obvious and pronounced in the classic schoolyard bully. In many Islamic eyes, the U.S. is seen as the bully. Despite the power imbalance, the tendency is mutual. Islamic countries are often among the worst in bullying women, gays, or other religious minorities. In the standoff with the West, there is also the corrupting justification, "We are the underdog, and therefore we are entitled to resort to desperate means." The desperation tactics make their bullying more obvious than ours, but most all humans are capable of desperation when the power balance is working against them. Has the terrorism had the effect of creating disenchantment with the tendency of religion to foster hatreds? If anything, so far, it is the opposite. Americans are even less willing to question their own virtue, and are turning to religion even more for comfort. The night is still young. Perhaps in the longer run, when all is said and done, the more rational and more honestly self-critical worldviews will gain a new respectability. Tom Keske Boston, Mass. [1] http://www.discoverislam.com/20.html [2]

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