Keith's Beef
Why
are we so skittish about possibly
exacerbating Muslim sensibilities
over the bombing of Afghanistan?
In the current new world order,
it can't be avoided.
The
first order of business to ensure
that we prevail in this conflict,
over the long term, is to
actually identify the enemy, and
our real enemy isn't the Taliban
or even Bin Laden himself. These
are merely obvious symbols and
easy targets, manifestations of a
much larger and more sinister
adversary: religious and cultural
intolerance and hatred as defined
by contemporary Islam, and
embraced by mainstream Muslims
the world over.
Christianity,
too, experienced the ugly
paroxysms of fundamentalist
interpretation in it's history,
but that was centuries ago, and,
save for the I.R.A., has since
been relegated to the noisy
fringes. Islam must do the same,
lest it be compelled to do so by
outsiders.
A
closer look at classical Islamic
thought and teachings reveals
that a major religion has been
highjacked (skyjacked) by an
extremely conservative and
virulent form of interpretation,
disguising itself as a grassroots
spiritual movement, whose holy
mission is to rectify perceived
injustices perpetrated upon it by
"infidels", wherever
they exist, peace and love be
damned. And mainstream Muslims
believe it. This, then,
-contemporary Islam- is our real
enemy, and those who fail to see
that succumb to the dangerous
naivet' to which political
correctness sometimes leads.
The
Allah to whom contemporary
Muslims worship must be an evil
entity indeed, if murder, suicide
and gender intolerance are part
and parcel of his message, and
shame on Muslims for ignoring or
not recognizing this. They
prefer, instead, to blame
"infidels" for the
plight of the Muslim world, as if
the rest of us have nothing
better to do than lie awake at
night, thinking up ways to
antagonize Muslims. Their own
authoritarian oligarchs in
government and religion, in
making life difficult and even
harsh, don't seem to enter the
picture, and resentments find an
outlet through misguided and
false religious proclamations.
As
it turns out, this train of
thought appears to be
incorrigible, and bent on
becoming irrepressible. This is
what makes Islam today so
dangerous, as we witnessed on
September 11th. Muslims really
believe in this Jihad notion, as
rational thought and control, to
say nothing of peace and
tolerance, are abandoned in the
Islamic world, replaced instead
by pathetic victimization and
hateful rhetoric that would have
found succor in the Middle Ages.
If mainstream contemporary Islam
refuses to expunge the virus that
has invaded and infected its
heart, then it remains for the
free world to destroy its body in
order to save its soul.
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