Islam Aggrieved
Are they being deliberately obtuse, or are they merely delusional, victim to the impact of their own strict and strident belief in the superiority of Islam? Alluding to The Organization of the Islamic Conference which has called upon Europe and the United States to undertake strenuous measures against "Islamophobia".Having identified that very particular and exceedingly undeserved phobia by the West against a noble and sacred theology as being the both the effect and the cause of growing jihadist terrorism. Blaming the victim, in other words, for all the evils that befall him, simply because he exists, and is there, ripe and ready for attack.
Western reaction to Islamist jihad is not to be tolerated because the repulsive response from the West to being attacked by murderous followers of Islam causes these bloodthirsty avengers to wreak havoc, not the other way around. The hatred spewed by the diehard Islamists who decry the West, its politics, freedoms, culture, social fabric as decadent and undeserving exists because the West does.
The warriors of Allah, committed to obeying the strictures in the Koran as interpreted by the angry mullahs, the judgemental ayatollahs against the excesses of the West, which bring dishonour to Islam by the very fact of their existence, according to the OIC, are but a function of Muslim reaction to the disdain evinced by the West in general against Islam. It's that ages-old conundrum of which came first; the chicken or the egg.
The thing of it is, people in the West generally view the wild hysteria of the Islamic mob mentality on display any time a Muslim cleric exhorts his obedient flock to demonstrate against any demonstrations emanating from Western sources which appear to be mocking of Islam, indicative of a fundamental sociopathological failing in Islam. The violent ferocity with which mobs of irate Muslims attack those perceived mockers-of-Islam, or of the Prophet, amazes the West.
The reactions are so far removed from the civil and social fabric of what is so familiar to those of the West, that they simply are incapable of giving credence to them. It is one thing to take umbrage, to be critical of the failings of others to respect that which one holds dear. It is entirely other to ramp up those feelings of umbrage to violent rage resulting in a rampage of destruction and bloodshed; that such deadly passions can be unleashed in defence of a religion of peace and goodness abrades rationality.
The report by the special Organization of the Islamic Conference monitoring group claimed it was facing an uphill struggle to impress upon the West the need to recognize that Islamophobia "has dangerous implications on global peace and security", in their process of explaining that western powers must do more.
Western powers "must do more"? When these egregious displays of violence and hateful back-lash emanate from Muslims themselves? When suspicion of Islam and the motivations and intents of Muslims in the West is born out of spontaneous assaults against western interests? As though the West remains blissfully unaware that Islamist-focused assaults against all vestiges of Western values demonstrate "dangerous implications on global peace and security".
The fact of the matter is that the West does very well understand that "the war against terror cannot be successful without the support of Muslim countries". And the understanding is that there are some Muslim countries, to save their own governments, whose actions and values appear antithetical to the values of fundamentalist Islamists, are fighting against terrorism.
But where are all the Islamic authorities, sages, scholars, clerics, whose collective voice is so still in condemning Islamist terrorism that we scarcely are aware that they find it behooves them to pull their moral weight in convincing their flocks to eschew jihadist action? The monitoring group speaks with the authority of moral conviction in calling upon Europe and North America to do more, through laws and social action, to protect Muslims from threats and discrimination, and to prevent insults against Islam's religious symbols.
But these are relative misdemeanors; threats and discrimination; insults against religious symbols, in comparison to attacks resulting in wholesale slaughter against people. Not only people in Europe and North America, but people in Islamic countries who are targeted for death by Islamists.
Where is the collective voice representing official Islam that unequivocally denounces murder and mayhem? There is obviously an undercurrent of unwillingness to do so, to state without equivocation that there are no assaults upon sensibilities sufficient to warrant the murder of individuals. Belying that oft-repeated mantra of Islam being a religion of respect, love, peace.
As long as respected and honoured spokespeople representing Islam, along with their aggregate organizations contend that these outrages against humanity result from umbrage against insult, they are excusing and tolerating these horrible abuses simply from an inability to face reality.
As long as they remain unwilling to admit to themselves, their followers and the world at large that Islam has within it components of stated behaviours that can be interpreted as do the jihadists, and thus the initial fault lies with Islam, requiring a more enlightened interpretation, the status quo will remain.
The OIC finds it expedient to blame the West for the fact that Islam has produced throughout the ages, and renascent today, a fundamentalist version of Islam dedicated to a holy struggle against the infidel. Whose very presence is taken as an assault against and insult toward, Islam. The response to which is deadly jihad. An imperial push toward victorious battle and ascendant subjugation.
Reform the Koran to more clearly represent a new reality, not the historical, cultural background that gave birth to Islam, through the appeasement of nomadic desert tribes. Shine a light on the noble inheritance of Islam that opened itself to a curiosity and resulting excellence in science, literature, philosophy, architecture and the social well being of diverse peoples.
Reject the Islam that appealed to the base nature of xenophobic tribal altercations set in an hostile environment of challenging for territory and the imperative of existence against all odds. For the fact appears to be that the illuminated Islam has dissolved, permitting the tribal warring Islam to dominate. And we're all threatened by it.
Labels: Realities, Religion, Terrorism
posted by Pieface @ Thursday, March 13, 2008
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