Saturday, September 23, 2006

 

the grandeur of delusion

The 5th anniversary of September 11 is a defining moment in many ways…notable to me among others on an ‘intellectual’ level are the catholic pope’s declaration of his true feelings and dangerous (mis)understanding of islam neatly encapsulated in an inflammatory quote from an obscure Byzantine emperor, martin amis’ combo rant on islam…one in a short story ‘the last days of Muhammad atta’ and another in an essay the age of horrorism….and a slew of new books highly critical of religions by some well known and not so well known atheists …

It is no coincidence that these writings highly critical of islam and religion per se appear at this point in time as the world has markedly become more dangerous now and a large part of the blame has to do with how people view and use religions for all kind of reasons…stands to reason that an equal and opposite reaction follows suit…

the world sees Islamic militancy as the main cause of all this and conveniently forgetting that in almost all cases the Islamic militancy and extremism is merely a REACTION (mostly justified and others misplaced) to the injustice (real and perceived) perpetrated on the muslims…although I’ve always known that some bad sectors of the US -the so called bible belt - is full of bible thumping crazies I’m still quite surprised to read in one recent survey that a huge majority of the US citizens (92%) believed in god … always thought that the US is a fairly godless country (except the bad sector in the bible belt) …but looks like I am wrong again,(too much watching holywood movies I guess)…stands to reason that bush is lead by the nose by all those Christian fundamentalists who are impervious to the sufferings in iraq, Afghanistan etc and even perhaps rubbing their hands with glee at the havoc they created as this only means one thing to their warped mind -their fucked up idea of Christian prophesy is slowly unfolding and coming to fruitation….the end is near!…

and although I’m not an atheist I don’t feel offended by the publications of these new books…and although I get easily worked up and turn talibanistic when i perceive insults to my religion and me as a muslim (as the pope did ) I always welcome erudite and responsible discussion on religions and matters of faith…so when Richard Dawkin’s book The God Delusion is published I’m genuinely looking forward to go and buy it… I have a couple of his other books looking sorry and dusty in my library unread, but never mind…. I’ll get to them one of these days…

That reminds me, a few years ago I read ‘the moriscoes of spain’ an account of the prosecution of the last muslims who remained in Spain and practise their religion in secrecy and subjected to forced conversion on pain of death and the notorious Spanish inquisition they were subjected to…it was a very sad read and I could manage a third of the book…in the light of the pope’s comment I guess I’ll dust the book again and continue reading it a bit more….

Comments:
i’m still quite surprised to read in one recent survey that a huge majority of the US citizens (92%) believed in god … always thought that the US is a fairly godless country

i think it's true. it's the brits and other europeans who are much more atheistic.

trouble with action and reaction etc. is that it escalates and no-one knows how to stop it before the unnecessary and stupid violence starts

the more militancy there is (read terrorism) the more hatred there is ... the more hatred, the less desire to understand or talk ... the more alienated many muslims become from their own religion (this is what many feel sadly)

we have to learn to build peace. it's a lot harder than suicide bombing.

i admire the balinese, who although deeply hurt by the bali bombings (which were intended to kill a few foreigners but more seriously to bring down the economy of a largely hindu island) express no hatred, have sought no retaliation at all. you don't see them getting hysterical and burning effiges though i think the world would understand if they did! kids are missing an education becasue parents can no longer afford school fees, the mortality rate for infants is way up ... all because a group of idiot bombers decided to make a point though what point it is neither they or we can puzzle out.... does any muslim organisation talk about this or care??

there are so many injustices to be healed ... better through the book than the bomb, through understanding than ignorance
 
i think there is no one in his right mind who hates peace, even the so called muslim terrorists...remove the cause of their problems and if they continue to blow themselves up in marketplace i'll be the first person to brand them as terrorists...

my wonder is why the finger is squarely pointed at the muslims as being militants and terrorists while the other side is always seen as benign savior of democracy and moral authority of the world...

this vicious circle of action and reaction which begets hatred and more hatred can not be blamed on muslim militants alone...history is nothing but these conflicts ...
i'll give a few stark examples that we all know...

action: japan bombed pearl harbour: reaction ; US dropped NUCLEAR bombs on nagasaki and hiroshima killing hundreds of thousands of innocents...action: north vietnamese occupies south vietnam: Reaction US -which has nothing to do with vietnamese -dropped firebombs and napalmed 2 million viets into oblivion; action: US double standard in dealing with palestinian/israel issue, allowing israel to build nuclear bombs, invade iraq (first iraq war) garrissioned in Saudi Arabia: reaction: Osama isn't too happy and the rest of it....and the US invaded iraq and afghanistan and snuffed the life of hundreds of thousands and still counting...

and so, who has more blood on their hands?...US (and britain) has always been the imperialists and will always continue to be so until they in turn gets their own medicine back...

and why are balinese so peaceful and don't retaliate? the reason is simply because they are not strong enough...consider other hindus...tamil tigers...and buddhists..the sinhalese... in short anybody can become murderers...

yes, i agree we need to put a stop to all these. The first step is to put your feet in the so called terrorists shoes and imagine what it's like from their point of view... and start the dialogue from there...
 
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