Ok i still havent got an answer to my question posed on page 1. I am getting pretty ticked off that you lot can be so narrow minded about it. I will give you a very simple example. A kid steals an apple. He gets caught and is punished.
You understand the kid is poor. He is hungry. He has no choice. But does that make it morally right? Of course not. But does that mean you a innocent bystander has to apologise for the actions of the child who is not of your charge or related to you. Do you introspect on his actions even though you know you will never commit them nor will ever be part of such activities?
Do you understand? Or should i translate the paragraph in french, spanish, german and russian? I can do it into pig-latin for the ones still taking ESL classes.
OG take ESL classes. Please, because your comprehension of the english language is horrible. I said religion. I did not say actions in the name of religion. After all the Catholic church support Hitler in Germany. Does that make Christianity a racists religion?
OK Mr. Einstein, if a Palestinian kid stole the apple, who the hell are you (a bystander) to worry about what he did or didn’t do? You mind your own stupid business and let people have their apple. Because you shout out so much out of ignorance that people think it was your apple that was stolen. Get a job first before telling others to take ESL. You don’t have to sound so dumb all the time.
So tell everyone, what the hell do you have to do with Palestinian or Chechnian apple?
Firstly i am better looking than Einstien, but i dig the hair. Anyway thanks for proving my point. If the kid takes the apple we are now related to the fact. So we dont have to introspect at all. It is redundant and foolhardy. However we have the right to place a moral judgement on the action based on our own morality.
Thirdly NYA, i do have a job. I am currently a diplomat. Second generation diplomat at that.
Great to hear. If some quarters are percieving Muslims incorrectly, the onus lies on those quarters to fix their perception of us. "Introspection" isnt the answer.
Stop fixating on negative Muslim figureheads. No wait. Stop making them Muslim figureheads in the first place.
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Dear Ravage,
Good point. Very good point.
You are morally right to feel that the perception problem should be corrected by the "percepters." and that those who incorrectly percieve are the ones who deserve blame. After all...they are wrong and therefore are the ones who need to change.
In a perfect world yes.
But the world is not perfect.
Many people in the world Ravage, are apt to form perceptions without ever asking questions.
There are people who form negative perception because :
The word Islamic Extremist was mentioned...and Mr. Blankety-Blank reported on newscast that not a single Muslim leader spoke out against the terrible catastrophe in that school...........
or taking of hostages....
or of innocents dead in suicide blasts...
Vunerable, nieve people that never question or even understand the difference between an opinion or a fact.
Mr. Blankety-Blank expressed this so it must be fact, all muslims ..... must be extremists...... rather than understand that it was only Mr. Blankety-Blanks opinion.
I can understand the outrage Muslims must feel to be percieved this way, and I can understand the feeling that it isn't responsibility of people wronged to change an incorrect perception.
But world isn't perfect. Is why IMHO Loud Muslim voices needed.
“You can’t convince the masses before you convince the elite,”
May be that is what i am trying to do at WA forum by addressing guppies…
Arabs Look Inward Over Islam, Terrorism
By DONNA ABU-NASR
Associated Press Writer
September 20, 2004, 2:37 PM EDT
BEIRUT, Lebanon – The rash of kidnappings, beheadings and explosions in Iraq, the killing of innocent children in Russia, and car bombings in Turkey and Indonesia have sparked debate among Arab intellectuals on why the majority of terror acts have been committed by Muslims acting in the name of Islam.
Some blame the violence on an atmosphere of intolerance and extremism that has bred hatred of non-Muslims and urge honest soul-searching as a remedy; others insist the problem is with the West, particularly the United States and its unconditional support of Israel and its war on Iraq.
The debate in newspaper columns, letters from readers and TV talk shows may be low-key, intermittent and limited to the intellectual elite, but some Arabs believe it’s a step toward breaking the taboo of speaking out against problems within the Muslim religious establishment and its clergy and reversing support for extremism.
“The debate is a very positive indicator,” said Sateh Noureddine, managing editor of the Lebanese newspaper As-Safir. “If it continues, it could pose the larger and more important question of how qualified are the Muslim religious establishment and clergy to lead a political platform?”
“Right now, Muslim youths can choose only between Osama bin Laden and semiliterate clerics,” Noureddine added. “What is required is an Arab religious establishment that’s civilized, educated and vigilant.”
Speaking out against extremism is not new. A few months of the Sept. 11 attacks, carried out by 19 Arabs, dozens of columns and opinion pieces appeared in the region’s newspapers, especially those in Saudi Arabia, home to 15 of the hijackers, urging moderation.
But in the past few weeks, with the school siege in Russia that left more than 330 people dead and the resurgence of terror attacks in Iraq, where the victims of car bombs and beheadings are overwhelmingly Iraqis or Muslims, the debate has gained momentum. The effort is not an organized movement nor is it widespread, but it’s a reflection of what’s being discussed among some Arabs.
Condemnation has not only come from intellectuals, but also from some of the Muslim world’s most prominent scholars. Egypt’s foremost religious leader, Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, says “beheadings and (the) mutilation of bodies stand against Islam.” And Lebanon’s top Shiite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Sheik Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, maintains Islam doesn’t sanction the killing and abduction of foreigners who are working and feel secure in Muslim countries.
However, when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, many religious scholars say suicide bombings carried out by the militant Hamas and Islamic Jihad are acceptable.
“The Palestinian resistance against Zionist terrorism is one that we demand, bless and sanction,” said Abdul-Aziz al-Khayat, a Jordanian scholar and former minister of religious affairs.
But he said blowing up buildings in Iraq, Turkey or Afghanistan, the abductions in Iraq, and attacks on Western residential compounds in Saudi Arabia “cannot be sanctioned because they don’t target an oppressive power.”
It’s a view held by many Arabs, but it’s being increasingly challenged.
Sulaiman al-Hattlan, a Saudi columnist, said Arabs “lack the human face” when it comes to condemning terror attacks, including those against Israelis. He said those who denounce such bombings usually do so for political reasons – because they do not advance the attackers’ cause – and not for humanitarian reasons.
“You have to have a moral standard. You have to look at others as human,” he said.
Abdulrahman al-Rashed, a Saudi who’s general manager of Al-Arabiya television, said the problem of extremism is an internal one and the solution must come from within Muslim societies.
Al-Rashed wrote one of the most provocative pieces on the issue, saying in a column that followed the Russia school siege that Muslims must acknowledge the painful fact that they are the main perpetrators of terrorism.
In his column, published in Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper, al-Rashed listed recent attacks by Islamic extremists – in Russia, Iraq, Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen – many of which are influenced by the ideology of bin Laden, the Saudi-born al-Qaida leader.
“What a terrible record,” he wrote. “Doesn’t it say something about us, our societies, our cultures?”
Not everyone agrees. One letter, from a reader identified only as Muhammad, said:
“I don’t know whether al-Rashed lives on planet Earth or on Mars and can only see Fox News and Sky News. Do you know about the crimes of terrorist (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon? Do you know about the crimes of terrorist (President) Bush in Iraq and Afghanistan?”
“We all know,” Al-Rashed wrote back. “But that’s not an excuse to kill innocent, unarmed civilians.”
Salama Ahmed Salama, an Egyptian columnist, said such self-blame “has been exaggerated.”
He said while it’s true most terror attacks have been perpetrated by Muslims, Europe and Asia were no strangers to terrorism.
“The logic of terrorism is not new in international politics,” he said. “It’s not Arabs who invented it.”
“We shouldn’t be unfair to ourselves,” he added. “But at the same time we should tell groups that have chosen jihad as a course that it’s not the right one. The world has turned against Islam and Muslims because of the barbaric acts.”
Al-Rashed said the change of heart has also occurred among many Muslims who now believe terrorists are not only acting against their stated enemies – the West and Israel – but also against fellow Arabs and Muslims, such as in Saudi Arabia and Iraq.
“People can now see that those groups do not have a political stand against America, but an extremist stand that believes everybody is wrong,” said al-Rashed.
Al-Rashed said although the discussions are limited to the intellectual elite, word will filter down to impressionable youths.
“You can’t convince the masses before you convince the elite,” he said. “They are the ones who will take the word to the masses.”
93% of Al-Jazeera viewers approve of Kidnapping? Disgusting.
Muslim outrage over killings found lacking
By Paul Martin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
LONDON — The beheadings of two Americans in Iraq this week have been treated as unwelcome developments in the Arab press, but the concern has been more for the image of Muslims than for the victims.
Most organizations continued to cast the outrage as a small part of a wider conflict in which the United States is seen as the prime culprit.
“There has been little sign of the outrage that greeted the kidnapping of two French hostages last month and none of the soul-searching prompted by the … siege” at a school in Beslan, Russia, said Sebastian Usher, who monitors the Arab media for the British Broadcasting Corp.
A survey of the Arabic press in the past few days found that almost all reported the kidnappings of two Americans and a Briton and the Internet posting of statements and videotapes depicting the grisly killings of the two Americans. Appeals for mercy from the family of British hostage Kenneth Bigley also were widely reported.
But in most cases, the stories were quickly overtaken by extensive and colorful reports of bloodshed elsewhere in Iraq or in the Palestinian territories.
Al Jazeera, the most widely watched Arabic television channel, conducted a telephone poll during its top debating program, the Other DirectionIn it, 93 percent of viewers said they approved of kidnapping foreigners in Iraq — even though by then, one of the two American hostages had been decapitated. In Baghdad, law professor Adnan al-Jabbari described the beheadings in a telephone interview as “a distortion of Islam.”
“There should be organized demonstrations against these acts,” she said. “But there has also been violence against those who speak out, and that’s why many people are afraid.”
Laborer Mohammad Jassem, however, defended the right of Iraqis to kill and terrify Americans and those who work with them.
“Who told them to come here and sell our fortunes?” he asked. "I would not only kill an American, I would slaughter him and drink his blood. We’ll never forget what the Americans have done to us. …
“Every honorable Iraqi approves of killing Americans and beheading them. They should get out of our country.”
The debate on Al Jazeera, which did not poll viewers on beheading as a tactic, featured a fiercely anti-American political analyst, Talat Rumayh, alongside a moderate Iraqi politician, Karim Badr.
Mr. Rumayh described the kidnappers as Iraqi resistance fighters and complained that too much emphasis was put on the relatively small number of hostage killings.
“Two thousand people have been killed since the beginning of the attack on Fallujah, which is dismissed in one report, one line or just a couple of words … while we keep hearing about the hostages. It’s the hostages and the terrorists, always the terrorists,” he said.
Mr. Badr retorted that all of Iraq was disgraced by the beheadings.
“We have to prove our humanity. I am addressing my brethren in Iraq: These are masked creatures that resemble humans, who I am certain are uglier than their deeds,” he said.
“Is the kidnapping and murder of people in this manner an act of resistance? I am certain they do not represent the Iraqi conscience in any way at all.”
Al Watan, the official newspaper of the Qatar government, which hosts the U.S. Central Command, condemned the kidnappings.
“The Muslim world should adopt a moderate attitude towards Islam and curb militants who are distorting Islam’s image,” it said.
But Egypt’s semi-official Al Ahram newspaper turned the blame onto the Bush administration.
“The main reason behind this phenomenon is the foreign occupation of the country,” it said. “It has brought to the country a circle of chaos and instability.”
The Egyptian daily Al-Akhbar noted the same “underlying” cause but suggested that hostage-taking was counterproductive.
“The occupation forces have not managed to bring peace and security to the country,” it wrote. “As for the groups in Iraq which claim Islam and raise Islamic banners, they should stop their abductions. They should show charity in not tarnishing Muslims’ reputation.”
The Algerian newspaper Echourouk el-Youm took a tough line, saying, “For Arabs to focus their debate on crying over foreigners’ abductions rather than rallying around the Iraqi resistance is a strong indication that the American policy to uproot the resistance is working.”
But other Arab newspapers reported that an imam in Liverpool, England, home city of Mr. Bigley, had joined with a Christian leader there in appealing to the kidnappers to imitate Allah’s “all merciful” quality and spare the remaining hostage’s life. http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20040924-120647-9243r.htm