Why Islam is disrespected

[Ishmael]

Why Islam is disrespected
Jeff Jacoby
May 20, 2005

It was front-page news this week when Newsweek retracted a report claiming that a US interrogator in Guantanamo had flushed a copy of the Koran down a toilet. Everywhere it was noted that Newsweek's story had sparked widespread Muslim rioting, in which at least 17 people were killed. But there was no mention of deadly protests triggered in recent years by comparable acts of desecration against other religions.

No one recalled, for example, that American Catholics lashed out in violent rampages in 1989, after photographer Andres Serrano's ''Piss Christ" -- a photograph of a crucifix submerged in urine -- was included in an exhibition subsidized by the National Endowment for the Arts. Or that they rioted in 1992 when singer Sinead O'Connor, appearing on ''Saturday Night Live," ripped up a photograph of Pope John Paul II.

There was no reminder that Jewish communities erupted in lethal violence in 2000, after Arabs demolished Joseph's Tomb, torching the ancient shrine and murdering a young rabbi who tried to save a Torah from the flames. And nobody noted that Buddhists went on a killing spree in 2001 in response to the destruction of two priceless, 1,500-year-old statues of Buddha by the Taliban government in Afghanistan.

Of course, there was a good reason all these bloody protests went unremembered in the coverage of the Newsweek affair: They never occurred.

Christians, Jews, and Buddhists don't lash out in homicidal rage when their religion is insulted. They don't call for holy war and riot in the streets. It would be unthinkable today for a mainstream priest, rabbi, or lama to demand that a blasphemer be slain. But when Reuters reported what Mohammad Hanif, the imam of a Muslim seminary in Pakistan, said about the alleged Koran-flushers -- ''They should be hung. They should be killed in public so that no one can dare to insult Islam and its sacred symbols" -- was any reader surprised?

The Muslim riots should have been met by an international upwelling of outrage and condemnation. From every part of the civilized world should have come denunciations of those who would react to the supposed destruction of a book with brutal threats and the slaughter of 17 innocent people. But the chorus of condemnation was directed not at the killers and the fanatics who incited them, but at Newsweek.

From the White House down, the magazine was slammed -- for running an item it should have known might prove incendiary, for relying on a shaky source, for its animus toward the military and the war. Over and over, Newsweek was blamed for the riots' death toll. Conservative pundits in particular piled on. ''Newsweek lied, people died" was the headline on Michelle Malkin's popular website. At NationalReview.com, Paul Marshall of Freedom House fumed: ''What planet do these [Newsweek] people live on? . . . Anybody with a little knowledge could have told them it was likely that people would die as a result of the article." All of Marshall's choler was reserved for Newsweek; he had no criticism at all -- not a word -- for the marauders in the Muslim street.

Then there was Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who announced at a Senate hearing that she had a message for ''Muslims in America and throughout the world." And what was that message? That decent people do not resort to murder just because someone has offended their religious sensibilities? That the primitive bloodlust raging in Afghanistan and Pakistan was evidence of the Muslim world's dysfunctional political culture? That the Bush administration would redouble its efforts to defeat the Islamofascist radicals who use religion as an excuse to foment violence and terror?

No: Her message was that ''disrespect for the Holy Koran is not now, nor has it ever been, nor will it ever be, tolerated by the United States. We honor the sacred books of all the world's great religions."

Granted, Rice spoke while the rioting was still taking place and her goal was to reduce the anti-American fever. But what ''Muslims in America and throughout the world" most need to hear is not pandering sweet-talk. What they need is a blunt reminder that the real desecration of Islam is not what some interrogator in Guantanamo might have done to the Koran. It is what totalitarian Muslim zealots have been doing to innocent human beings in the name of Islam. It is 9/11 and Beslan and Bali and Daniel Pearl and the USS Cole. It is trains in Madrid and schoolbuses in Israel and an ''insurgency" in Iraq that slaughters Muslims as they pray and vote and line up for work. It is Hamas and Al Qaeda and sermons filled with infidel-hatred and exhortations to ''martyrdom."

But what disgraces Islam above all is the vast majority of the planet's Muslims saying nothing and doing nothing about the jihadist cancer eating away at their religion. It is Free Muslims Against Terrorism, a pro-democracy organization, calling on Muslims and Middle Easterners to ''converge on our nation's capital for a rally against terrorism" this month -- and having only 50 people show up.

Yes, Islam is disrespected. That will only change when throngs of passionate Muslims show up for rallies against terrorism, and when rabble-rousers trying to gin up a riot over a defiled Koran can't get the time of day.

Sometimes you're reminded of what's real and what isn't. As irresponsible as Newsweeks article was, Newsweek didn't send out it's staff to gin up riots and violence.

Thank you Mr. Jacoby for reminding us of the real problem.

Ishmael

 

[eagleyez]

blah blah blah...

Ignorance is disrespected.

Chalk this one up on the "weakest Ish thread of the year list" coming in at possibly # 39.

 

[Little Bird]

Look back some houndreds of years. Christians sloughtered more people than anyone else. Crusades, Witch-burning, Inquisition...

 

[NonSexWithHer]

blah blah blah...

Ignorance is disrespected.

Chalk this one up on the "weakest Ish thread of the year list" coming in at possibly # 39.

He's becoming busybody-like in his cut and paste mania.

Someone unplug the gin bottle IV and move his wheelchair to the trailer porch.

 

[Ishmael]

Look back some houndreds of years. Christians sloughtered more people than anyone else. Crusades, Witch-burning, Inquisition...

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And if we look back far enough we'll find some meat eating dinosaurs commited some real atrocities. :avery:

Ishmael

 

[*******]

Whenever the system of checks and balances, The People, Religion, and the State lists to heavily towards one of those institutions, lots of people die.

LOTS.

Trust me on this one too!



[That's the whole problem with Islam in a nutshell. The state, the ideal state, is subservient to religion. The Western Christian world is about trinity...]

 

[eagleyez]

Post script-

you have a laundry list of "why Islam is disrespected."

Then you list 9/11, Bali, The Cole etc.

With that logic, perhaps you should then also include historical items such as El Salvadoran death squads, America's puppeteerring of the Shah of Iran, the Narco deals with made by Bush Sr with Noriega,(who had the goods on the old man and now is in a spider hole full of chanpagne and cigars to shut him up) our propping up of the Somoza regime, Lt. Cali and his Ilk in the Narco war called Viet Nam.

The religion called American zealotry has its reasons to be disrespected in that big world out there beyond Orlando and Mickey Mouse Land. Perhaps you should get the Goofy suit on and report to the park for work. I hear the union scale is pretty good.

lol

 

[*******]

I do note that hear no evil, speak no evil, and see no evil couldn't pass by without popping off...

 

[*******]

We are more balanced than they are E...

 

[eagleyez]

Whenever the system of checks and balances, The People, Religion, and the State lists to heavily towards one of those institutions, lots of people die.

LOTS.

Trust me on this one too!



[That's the whole problem with Islam in a nutshell. The state, the ideal state, is subservient to religion. The Western Christian world is about trinity...]

mornin Chief-

Tell me this? Are the royals in Saudi Arabia "religious?" Do they lean heavily in any direcction other than the bank? Are we not the Faustian brothers to these Islamic "leaders." Might explain some of the fundamentalist discontent. Oh, and dont forget supersize McDonalds.

 

[eagleyez]

We are more balanced than they are E...

Agreed.

But THEY are not us.

Why should we expect US culture to be revered?

I dont follow, but Im just a dumb knothole crackah.

Hey, the sun is out and the cement pond aint overflowin this moanin. Its going to be a good day.

 

[*******]

Those Princes know the history of their region and have read Machiavelli and know that Religious tendancies, practices, and appearances must be maintained if they are to maintain their place.

Religions and getting rich are not strangers in the world of bedfellows...

But why is it, when talking about the outside world, ya'll leftward drifting fellers need to describe this great country as if it were an "ugly" toad with warts, super-sized warts even?

 

[*******]

I don't think the US culture should be revered. Respected at home, at least I would expect. Now it is interesting that in the places where you do see it revered outside of our borders it is by people whom have recently escaped tyranny or are attempting their escape...

There's a reason the Statue of Liberty made an appearance at Tienanmen Square and a real reason the Chinese leadership hates us other than Taiwan.

 

[Ishmael]

Whenever the system of checks and balances, The People, Religion, and the State lists to heavily towards one of those institutions, lots of people die.

LOTS.

Trust me on this one too!



[That's the whole problem with Islam in a nutshell. The state, the ideal state, is subservient to religion. The Western Christian world is about trinity...]

Christianity has gone through that cycle complete. It started out as a religion outside of the secular world, "render unto Ceaser that which is Ceasers" and evolved into a theocratic dictatorship under the pope, to a fracturing under individual monarchs and others of the 'nobility' who set up their own churches to have once more returned to secular sepratism.

A great deal of the core of Islam is still stuck in the 12th century. A fractured tribal theocarcy under the thumb of various immams.

What I find peculiar is the knee jerk reaction of some posters to point to Christianities past and the atrocities that were commited in the name of the church. Is this some justification for those that commit those atrocities in the name of another church today? Are we supposed to understand and allow this sort of behavior?

If your tribe practiced cannibalism some 30 generations ago, does that some how excuse another tribe of commiting cannibalism today? This is the drawing of a straight line of moral equivalency between two temporally unrelated events.

And if we are to be expected to understand and allow the tribe that practices cannibalism to continue that practice, even excusing the practice when it is visited on members of our own tribe, after having culturally evolved beyond that practice ourselves, which tribe can be said to be degenerating?

Ishmael

 

[*******]

MY TRIBE?

My tribe?



Piss-poor hunters.

Turned to Veganism. Cat toys for the Souix. Fawkin' white man and the horse he rode in on...



Spot on. Once a band of Missourah Bushwackers tried to massacre a group of Heroic KANSAS Jayhawkers at the Mare dyCyne. Is that the standard the citizens of Missourah are to be forever associated with?

[They are in KANSAS *spit*]

 

[JammieDodger]

Christianity has gone through that cycle complete. It started out as a religion outside of the secular world, "render unto Ceaser that which is Ceasers" and evolved into a theocratic dictatorship under the pope, to a fracturing under individual monarchs and others of the 'nobility' who set up their own churches to have once more returned to secular sepratism.

A great deal of the core of Islam is still stuck in the 12th century. A fractured tribal theocarcy under the thumb of various immams.

What I find peculiar is the knee jerk reaction of some posters to point to Christianities past and the atrocities that were commited in the name of the church. Is this some justification for those that commit those atrocities in the name of another church today? Are we supposed to understand and allow this sort of behavior?

If your tribe practiced cannibalism some 30 generations ago, does that some how excuse another tribe of commiting cannibalism today? This is the drawing of a straight line of moral equivalency between two temporally unrelated events.

And if we are to be expected to understand and allow the tribe that practices cannibalism to continue that practice, even excusing the practice when it is visited on members of our own tribe, after having culturally evolved beyond that practice ourselves, which tribe can be said to be degenerating?

Ishmael

I do see where you're coming from and I have no doubt people do not respect Islam or see it as a peacefull religion because of that incident thingy you mentioned there. But unlike with christianity during medievil times which I don't believe deserved any respect I do believe that disrespect for Islam today is mostly uncalled for because its so much more widespread than christianity back then and has so many more sects...

...so, it is most certainly why people are not too pleased with the muslims of this world but I can't see it as being fair when you have a few bearded loons in pakistan going about typical mob behaviour but absolutely none of the Kache giving a shit and simply getting on with their rather simple lives. Which I think is quite a contrast to the crusades where I would have expected alot more to be in favour of them.

YEAH!

 

[eagleyez]

I don't think the US culture should be revered. Respected at home, at least I would expect. Now it is interesting that in the places where you do see it revered outside of our borders it is by people whom have recently escaped tyranny or are attempting their escape...

There's a reason the Statue of Liberty made an appearance at Tienanmen Square and a real reason the Chinese leadership hates us other than Taiwan.

Valid points and agreed.

But I'm not eagleyez, though he asked me to tell you that. He had to leap into real life--took a little boy to school.

Good day and over and out.


~Angeline

 

[Ishmael]

I do see where you're coming from and I have no doubt people do not respect Islam or see it as a peacefull religion because of that incident thingy you mentioned there. But unlike with christianity during medievil times which I don't believe deserved any respect I do believe that disrespect for Islam today is mostly uncalled for because its so much more widespread than christianity back then and has so many more sects...

...so, it is most certainly why people are not too pleased with the muslims of this world but I can't see it as being fair when you have a few bearded loons in pakistan going about typical mob behaviour but absolutely none of the Kache giving a shit and simply getting on with their rather simple lives. Which I think is quite a contrast to the crusades where I would have expected alot more to be in favour of them.

YEAH!

I understand where you're coming from. Islam is not homogenous and just because the center of mass of the Islamic world behaves in that manner is NOT a reason to paint all of Islam with the same brush.

However it is that face of Islam that the world sees and is forced to consider when passing judgement. It is that face of Islam that we see because the rational side of Islam will not step forth in strength and with strong language to condem the face of Islam that we see.

It's damn difficult to paint your religion as a religion of peace when it's pretty obvious from the press that the Muslims of the 'Gap' are anything but peaceful.

Ishmael

 

[kbate]

One might wonder why the riots occur primarily in the poorest and most backward of Islamic nations. I see few Kuwaitis rioting over the supposedly flushed Koran pages.

Perhaps it is because the poor and uneducated of Afghanistan are more easily manipulated by those seeking to destabilize the country and preventing the elected governments success?

Truth and evidence has never mattered to those who require hatred and anger to further their agenda.

 

[*******]

Thanks. The real world sucks...

Uh, Jammie (may I call you PJ?), at the outset of WWII, the Japanese controlled the greatest, area-wide, empire in the history of the world.

Should we have been a tad more defferential?

Islam is no more united than Christianity so you cannot think of them as one huge block. We got one major faction trying to push the buttons of the other major faction in Iraq even as we converse...

 

[*******]

One might wonder why the riots occur primarily in the poorest and most backward of Islamic nations. I see few Kuwaitis rioting over the supposedly flushed Koran pages.

Perhaps it is because the poor and uneducated of Afghanistan are more easily manipulated by those seeking to destabilize the country and preventing the elected governments success?

Truth and evidence has never mattered to those who require hatred and anger to further their agenda.

Hell, we get riots in LA and Chicago, not to mention winning college towns over WAY dumber shit then Religion...



Government Education

 

[DevilishTexan]

When theres murder and mayhem, the media have something to write about and give their pathetic lives purpose.







DT

 

[JammieDodger]

Thanks. The real world sucks...

Uh, Jammie (may I call you PJ?), at the outset of WWII, the Japanese controlled the greatest, area-wide, empire in the history of the world.

Should we have been a tad more defferential?

Islam is no more united than Christianity so you cannot think of them as one huge block. We got one major faction trying to push the buttons of the other major faction in Iraq even as we converse...

JammieDodger denies all allegations linking him to pyjamas.

Japan is very different, it had a much closer culture led strongly, Islam is not a culture, or at least not one culture. My point was that christianity back in medievil times was alot more united than it and Islam are now, tarring christians from times gone by whilst not right is alot more justified than doing the same with Islam today.

As for kbate I think that is an interesting point, but I would say islamic communities in Tibet are just as poor if not poorer, maybe its more the combination of extreme poverty with exposure to western cultures creating maybe envy, or simply disrespect? There has to be a reason why not all muslim communities living in poverty act the same.

 

[Ishmael]

One might wonder why the riots occur primarily in the poorest and most backward of Islamic nations. I see few Kuwaitis rioting over the supposedly flushed Koran pages.

Perhaps it is because the poor and uneducated of Afghanistan are more easily manipulated by those seeking to destabilize the country and preventing the elected governments success?

Truth and evidence has never mattered to those who require hatred and anger to further their agenda.

It's a formula of governence and manipulation as old as man himself.

As the leader speaks. "You are a victim of their (pointing his finger anywhere but at himself) actions. It says in the __________ (fill in any book, religious ones work better) that you should _____________ (fill in any action inflame passions and lead to bloodshed (bloodshed is really necessary so the leader can use those deaths in a future provocation)) and you will be rewarded by ___________ (make any promise here. If food and clothes are out of the question go for 'heaven' or 'paradise' or some other mystical reward that allows the inflamed imaginations to wander)."

Ishmael

 

[RobDownSouth]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And if we look back far enough we'll find some meat eating dinosaurs commited some real atrocities. :avery:

Ishmael

Yes but just the brown dinosaurs committed those atrocities...the albino ones would never do something like that. And you have "valid scientific research" to back it up, no doubt.