Clever mind old dirty heart
WHAT IS TERRORISM?
The word "terrorism" traces its roots in the English language to the French revolution (1789 -1794). The German philosopher, Immanuel Kant used the word in 1798 to describe a pessimistic view of the destiny of mankind. Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921) called it "propaganda by deed". Carlos Marighella (circa 1930) wrote the Latin American handbook on terrorism, claiming it required adherence to a "higher morality", and that one man's terrorist is another man's liberator. Countries like Ireland, Algeria, Tunisia, and Israel might not have become independent republics if it was not for terrorism.
According to the official FBI definition, terrorism is: "the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives." The objective of terrorism may be to gain publicity for some cause, or the desire to obtain concessions or bring about social change. As Long (1990) has pointed out, however, there is no universally accepted definition of terrorism.
David P. Barash and Charles P. Webel
"Terrorism" is a vexing term. According to Title 22 of the US Code Section 2656 (D): "The term 'terrorism" means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated by subnational or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience." It is also as old as human history. "State-sponsorship" of "terrorism" is even more imprecise and debatable. For example, to most Palestinians and many Arabs, Israel is, almost by definition, a "state sponsor" of "terrorist" actions by its armed forces against Palestinian civilians, while to the current Israeli government and many Israelis, most if not all actions of Palestinian resistance to Israel-- from rock throwing to car bombing-- are "terrorist" acts, condoned if not "sponsored" by Yasir Arafat and the Palestinian authorities.
WHY ONLY MUSLIMS ARE ?TERRORISTS??
Every time we see in the media ?Islamic Terrorists? or ?Muslims Terrorists?, when ask them why? They say the perpetrators are all ?MUSLIMS? or ?ARAB MUSLIMS? ? If we agree with this formula than violence reported anywhere in the world should be related with their ethnic or religious identities, is this happening in the media? Take for example the bloody conflict of Ireland and England! It?s a clear fight between ?Catholics? and ?Protestant? fractions of the same religion, Christianity! Do we ever read any news in International media of Christian Terrorism?
The Independent news paper columnist Johann hari rightly states:
?A fortnight ago, Chechen jihadists murdered more than 300 children in Beslan. They are "terrorists". Since 1991, Russian troops have murdered more than 40,000 Chechen. They are not "terrorists"; they are "our allies". The term "terrorism" simply means "violence we don't support". In the adult world, each individual act of violence needs to be discussed on its own merits and in its own context. Some of the people who howl "terrorist" most loudly admit that they use the term as an attempt to shut down debate.?
[The Independent, 22 September 2004 http://argument.independent.co.uk/re...hari/story.jsp ]
MISUSE OF THE TERM ?TERRORISM?
Today many governments (mis)using this term ?Terrorism? for their vested political motives, same Johann Hari further rises a very important question in his article regarding the chechenyan conflict
?In 1996, the Russian government finally grew tired of bombing rubble and being bombed in return. They granted Chechnya de facto sovereignty. The violence stopped. For three years, peace prevailed. But when two bombs exploded in a pair of Moscow apartment blocks in 1999 - killing 200 innocent people - Vladimir Putin was quick to claim this as proof that no compromise will appease the Chechens. There's a snag: several respected journalists, including my colleague Patrick Cockburn, discovered that an identical third bomb was planted in a nearby apartment block. The perpetrators were captured - and then released by police when they discovered that they were Russian secret service agents. There is considerable evidence that Putin relaunched the Chechen war - and destroyed the region's fragile peace - for his own political and strategic ends. Who are the "terrorists" in this scenario? How does that label help us to understand this conflict?
There is a consensus among historians that the injustices contained in the Versailles Treaty contributed to the rise of Nazism. Are all these historians pro-Nazi? The term "terrorism" - as used by the press and politicians today - invites us all to participate in a strange, wilful ignorance of cause and effect. How can this ever be a serious response to our problems? When there are violent attacks, we need to understand why they are happening. If we do not, we are left flailing about in a historical void - and powerless to prevent further attacks.?
[The Independent, 22 September 2004 http://argument.independent.co.uk/re...hari/story.jsp ]
WHO BROUGHT THE CONCEPT ?SUICIDE BOMBINGS??
The common denominator among perpetrators of acts deemed "terrorist" may be that in today's world, "terrorists" are groups of individuals, or even state actors, who may feel militarily unable or unwilling to confront their perceived enemies directly and who accordingly use violence or the threat of violence against non-combatants to achieve their political aims. Such tactics date back at least two thousand years, to the knife wielding "zealots," Jewish "terrorists" opposed to the Roman occupation of Palestine. "Terrorism" is also a contemporary variant of what has been described as guerrilla warfare, notably anti-colonialist and anti-imperialist struggles for national liberation conducted during the late 18th and early 20th centuries, especially against the British and French empires.
? Suicide attack is an ancient practice with modern history, its use of Jewish sects of zealots (sicari)?[B.Lewis, The Assassins(Basic, New York 2002)]
? The concept of ?terror? as systematic use of violence to attain political ends was first codified by Maximilien Robespierre during the French Revolution- [M.Robespierre Principes de morale politique, speech delivered to French National Convention, 5th February, 1794]
? Similar justification for state sponsor terror was common to 20th century revolutions, as in Russia(Lenin), Cambodia (Pol Pot) etc.,
? Whether subnational (e.g. Russian anarchists) or state supported (e.g. Japanese Kamikaze) suicide attack as a weapon terror usually chosen by weaker parties against materially stronger foes when fighting methods of lesser cost seem unlikely to succeed. [Genesis of Suicide Terrorism by Scot Atran]
? In Israel-Palestine the suicide terrorism began in 1993 [Genesis of Suicide Terrorism by Scot Atran]
? According to Jane?s Intelligence Review ?All the suicide terrorist groups have support infrastructures in Europe and North America?[Suicide Terrorism: A global threat, Jane?s Bio-Security 2002]
Does Islam or Muslims the pioneer of Suicide Terrorism?
Prior to the U. S. Civil War, militant abolitionists such as John Brown were considered "terrorists" by many Americans, especially in the South. During the 1940s, Menachim Begin - who subsequently became Prime Minister of Israel and a close ally of the United States - headed a militant, "Terrorist" Zionist group known as the Irgun; this organization conducted numerous acts of violence, primarily against British-occupied Palestine, which included the notorious bombing of Jerusalem's King David Hotel, a civilian target.
CAN A TERRORIST BECOME A NOBLE PEACE PRIZE WINNER?: WESTERN DOUBLE STANDARDS
In the 1930s and 1940s, the Jewish underground in Palestine was described as ?TERRORIST,? then new things happened:
By 1942, the Holocaust was occurring, and a certain liberal sympathy with the Jewish people had built up in the Western world. At that point, the terrorists of Palestine, who were Zionists, suddenly started to be described, by 1944-45, as ?freedom fighters.? At least two Israeli Prime Ministers, including Menachem Begin, have actually, you can find in the books and posters with their pictures, saying ?Terrorists, Reward This Much.? The highest reward I have noted so far was 100,000 British pounds on the head of Menachem Begin, the terrorist.
Menachim Begin a Zionist who was member of Jewish Terrorist organization, Irgun Zavai leumi, a very relentless group of its time, involved in terrorist attacks on British government ruling Palestine and massacred thousands of innocent Palestinian men, women and children by cleansing Palestinian villages with cold blood, who is also infamous of ?Hotel David? bombing in Jerusalem. The person subsequently became the prime minister of Israel in 1977 and on December 10,1978 he shared Noble Peace Prize with Sadat of Egypt for bringing peace between two countries, even after getting the Noble peace prize he bombarded Lebanon!!! In the following year, who is going to account for this?
BLOODY HISTORY OF EUROPE
History unfortunately recognizes and accords visibility to power and not to weakness. Therefore, visibility has been accorded historically to dominant groups. In our time, the time that began with this day, Columbus Day.
The time that begins with Columbus Day is a time of extraordinary unrecorded holocausts. Great civilizations have been wiped out. The Mayas, the Incas, the Aztecs, the American Indians, the Canadian Indians were all wiped out. Their voices have not been heard, even to this day fully. Now they are beginning to be heard, but not fully. They are heard, yes, but only when the dominant power suffers, only when resistance has a semblance of costing, of exacting a price. When a Custer is killed or when a Gordon is besieged. That?s when you know that they were Indians fighting, Arabs fighting and dying.
Muslims ruled Spain for 800 years, a period recognised for tolerance, learning and laying of foundations for scientific and cultural advance in Europe. The Christian Europeans launched their genocide against Muslims and Jews, and eliminated Islam and Muslims from Spain. This they did this through forced conversion to Christianity, expulsion or liquidation. After 800 years the Christian Europeans left not one Muslim to tell the tale. This genocide in history, they refer politely to as the Spanish "Inquisition" or the "Reconquista". So intolerant are the Europeans that these 800 years of their history, even today is missing from most history books nor taught in schools and universities.
The history of Christian European Colonialism, and occupation of the lands of others (which they call "settlement" and "settlers") is also littered with the corpses of other peoples. There are no reliable figures for the violence unleashed upon the world by European colonialists. Violence has been associated with all Empires, but what is unique about the Europeans were the genocides they inflicted on civilian populations they conquered; and the how they systematically destroyed the culture, religion, identity and way of life of peoples.
Two examples illustrate the violent and brutal mentality these Europeans possessed. The Red Indian population who were the original inhabitants of America numbered some 40 million. By the time the Europeans finished with them there were less than one million, and their lands had been stolen. The Indians being peace-loving people made many agreements with the Europeans, none of which were kept by the invaders. Interestingly, when it was too late the Indians also launched "suicide missions" against the enemy.
Aborigines had inhabited Australia for around 40,000 years. There were one million of them when the British arrived (likely to be a gross underestimate). By the time the British finished massacring them, there were 60,000 left. When they stopped killing them physically, they adopted a new policy at the beginning of last century, of stealing Aborigine children from their parents and giving them to white families or Christian missions to bring up, so that they could eradicate their Aboriginal culture and language.
The legal principle adopted by the British and Australians until 1992, to steal land from these innocent peace loving people was "Terra Nullius"; that the land was empty before the British arrived, and belonged to no one, so it could be legitimately taken over. Since 1992 the Australian government has fought off legal claims for return of land to Aborigines. So why are we surprised that the European Jews, that other half of western civilization, stole Palestinian land using the same tried and tested method of "settlement" and principle of "a land without a people for a people without a land". Whilst the Australians have yet to treat their own inhabitants equally, they now think they are qualified to teach Muslims how to deal justly with others.
Bloodshed was not confined to occupation of lands. True to form, when the colonizers were forced to leave occupied lands, they killed mercilessly too. Those that resisted their theft and occupation were always known as "terrorists", regardless of whether they were Africans, Red Indians, Indians, Arabs or Muslims. The French butchered one million innocent Algerian Muslims before they were forced out.
Violence and killing extended to within their own boundaries too. The European Christians invented World Wars. They were not content with World War One, in which there were 10 million dead or missing military casualties, and 22 million wounded (no figures are available for civilians casualties). In the Second World War, they went further and there were 61 million military and civilian deaths alone, with no figures available for wounded. They even massacred those they now love most, the European Jews, six million of them. Not surprising then, that it is the European Christians and Jews that developed weapons of mass (nuclear) destruction, and are the only ones to use them on civilians. With such a history of mass murder they needed such weapons to liquidate people efficiently and quickly. And it is they, and their European offspring in Israel, who are likely to use them again, not Muslims.
The Judeo-Christian European Western civilization also seems particular adept at manufacturing ideologies that are anti-human and lead to mass slaughter. The worlds most evil and exploitative ideologies have all emanated from Europe. The crusades, slavery, colonialism, nationalism, fascism, communism, capitalism, globalisation, organised racism, Apartheid and Zionism. Estimates for the number of people killed just under Soviet Communist rule is put at 75 million.
Europe?s history is littered with violence, bloodshed and warmongering. In particular Christian Europeans have never tolerated anyone who was a different culture, race or religion to them. Nowhere in western European societies do we find communities of other cultures surviving, unlike the Islamic world where other religious and cultural communities flourish and have existed for centuries. With this record of peace from 1945 ?1992 (War in Europe started again in former Yugoslavia in 1992), just 47 years, the Europeans seek to convince the world they are peaceful peoples, and qualified to bring peace to the world. With this record, we should not be surprised that they can kill 500,000 Iraqi children without an ounce of remorse.
The Real Ideological Root of Terrorism is DARWINISM AND MATERIALISM
Darwin's Source of Inspiration: Malthus's Theory of Ruthlessness
Darwin's source of inspiration on this subject was the British economist Thomas Malthus's book An Essay on the Principle of Population. Left to their own devices, Malthus calculated that the human population increased rapidly. In his view, the main influences that kept populations under control were disasters such as war, famine and disease. In short, according to this brutal claim, some people had to die for others to live. Existence came to mean 'permanent war.'
In the 19th century, Malthus's ideas were widely accepted. European upper class intellectuals in particular supported his cruel ideas. In an article titled 'The Nazis' Secret Scientific Agenda,' the importance 19th century attached Europe attached to Malthus's views on population is described in this way:
In the opening half of the nineteenth century, throughout Europe, members of the ruling classes gathered to discuss the newly discovered "Population problem" and to devise ways of implementing the Malthusian mandate, to increase the mortality rate of the poor:
As a result of this cruel policy, the weak, and those who lost the struggle for survival would be eliminated, and as a result the rapid rise in population would be balanced out. This so-called 'oppression of the poor' policy was actually carried out in 19th century Britain. An industrial order was set up in which children of eight and nine were made to work sixteen hours a day in the coalmines and thousands died from the terrible conditions. The 'struggle for survival' demanded by Malthus's theory led to millions of Britons leading lives full of suffering.
Influenced by these ideas, Darwin applied this concept of conflict to all of nature, and proposed that the strong and the fittest emerged victorious from this war of existence. Moreover, he claimed that the so-called struggle for survival was a justified an unchangeable law of nature. On the other hand, he invited people to abandon their religious beliefs by denying creation, and thus aimed at all ethical values that could prove an obstacle to the ruthlessness of the 'struggle for survival.'
The dissemination of these untrue ideas that led individuals to ruthlessness and cruelty, cost humanity a heavy price in the 20thcentury.
The Role of Darwinism in Preparing the Ground for World War I
As Darwinism dominated European culture, the effects of the 'struggle for survival' began to emerge. Colonialist European nations in particular began to portray the nations they colonized as 'evolutionary backward nations' and looked to Darwinism for justification.
The bloodiest political effect of Darwinism was the outbreak of World War I in 1914.
In his book Europe Since 1870, the well-known British professor of history James Joll explains that one of the factors that prepared the ground for World War I was the belief in Darwinism of European rulers at the time. For instance, the Austro-Hungarian chief of staff, Franz Baron Conrad von Hoetzendorff, wrote in his post-war memoirs: Philanthropic religions, moral teachings and philosophical doctrines may certainly sometimes serve to weaken mankind's struggle for existence in its crudest form, but they will never succeed in removing it as a driving motive of the world? It is in accordance with this great principle that the catastrophe of the world war came about as the result of the motive forces in the lives of states and peoples, like a thunderstorm, which must by its nature discharge itself.
As we have seen, World War I broke out because of European thinkers, generals and administrators who saw warfare, bloodshed and suffering as a kind of 'development,' and thought they were an unchanging 'law of nature,' The ideological root that dragged all of that generation to destruction was nothing else than Darwin's concepts of the 'struggle for survival' and 'favoured races.'
World War I left behind it 8 million dead, hundreds of ruined cities, and millions of wounded, crippled, homeless and unemployed.
The basic cause of World War II, which broke out 21 years later and left 55 million dead behind it, was also based on Darwinism.
Both the race theory and the war hysteria of the Nazis were inspired from Darwinism.
The Fruit of 'The Law of the Jungle': Fascism
As Darwinism fed racism in the 19th century, it formed the basis of an ideology that would develop and drown the world in blood in the 20thcentury: Nazism.
A strong Darwinist influence can be seen in Nazi ideologues. When one examines this theory, which was given shape by Adolf Hitler and Alfred Rosenberg, one comes across such concepts as 'natural selection,' 'selected mating,' and 'the struggle for survival between the races,' which are repeated dozens of time in The Origin of Species. When calling his book Mein Kampf (My Struggle), Hitler was inspired by the Darwinist struggle for survival and the principle that victory went to the fittest. He particularly talks about the struggle between the races: 'History would culminate in a new millennial empire of unparalleled splendour, based on a new racial hierarchy ordained by nature herself.'
Hitler, who emerged with these views, dragged the world to violence that had never before been seen. Many ethnic and political groups, and especially the Jews, were exposed to terrible cruelty and slaughter in the Nazi concentration camps. World War II, which began with the Nazi invasion, cost 55 million lives. What lay behind the greatest tragedy in world history was Darwinism's concept of the 'struggle for survival.'
The Bloody Alliance: Darwinism and Communism:
While fascists are found on the right wing of Social Darwinism, the left wing is occupied by communists. Communists have always been among the fiercest defenders of Darwin's theory.
This relationship between Darwinism and communism goes right back to the founders of both these 'isms.' Marx and Engels, the founders of communism, read Darwin's The Origin of Species as soon as it came out, and were amazed at is 'dialectical materialist' attitude. The correspondence between Marx and Engels showed that they saw Darwin's theory as 'containing the basis in natural history for communism.' In his book The Dialectics of Nature, which he wrote under the influence of Darwin, Engels was full of praise for Darwin, and tried to make his own contribution to the theory in the chapter 'The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man.' Russian communists who followed in the footsteps of Marx and Engels, such as Plekhanov, Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin, all agreed with Darwin's theory of evolution. Plekhanov, who is considered as the founder of Russian communism, regarded Marxism as 'Darwinism in its application to social science'.
Mao, who established communist rule in China and killed millions of people, openly stated that 'Chinese socialism is founded upon Darwin and the theory of evolution.'
The Harvard University historian James Reeve Pusey goes into great detail regarding Darwinism's effect on Mao and Chinese communism in his research book China and Charles Darwin.
If we think of the communist concept of 'dialectical conflict,' which killed some 120 million people throughout the 20thcentury, as a 'killing machine' then we can better understand the dimension of the disaster that Darwinism visited on our planet.
Darwinism and Terrorism
As we have so far seen, Darwinism is at the root of various ideologies of violence that spelled disaster to mankind in the 20thcentury. However, as well as these ideologies, Darwinism also defines an 'ethical understanding' and 'method' that could influence various worldviews. The fundamental concept behind this understanding and method is 'fighting those who are not one of us.'
Inspite of All bloodshed in their history and still the superpowers are oppressing the poor nations in various other means. The following list will give the readers an idea of who are to be blamed for violence and had the oppressed ever got justice? Think again!
Deaths by Mass Unpleasantness: Estimated Totals for the Entire 20th Century
How many people died in all the wars, massacres, slaughters and oppressions of the Twentieth Century? Here are a few atrocitologists who have made estimates:
M. Cherif Bassouni, from an unspecified "1996" source which I have been unable to track down (Cited in an article in the Chicago Tribune, 25 Oct. 1998)
o 33 million "military casualties" (That's how the article phrased it, but I presume they mean military deaths.)
o 170 million killed in "conflicts of a non-international character, internal conflicts and tyrannical regime victimization")
? 86M since the Second World War
o TOTAL: 203,000,000
Zbigniew Brzezinski, Out of Control: Global Turmoil on the Eve of the Twenty-first Century (1993)
"Lives deliberately extinguished by politically motivated carnage":
? 167,000,000 to 175,000,000
? Including:
War Dead: 87,500,000
Military war dead: 33,500,000
Civilian war dead: 54,000,000
Not-war Dead: 80,000,000
Communist oppression: 60,000,000
David Barrett, World Christian Encyclopedia (2001)
o Christian martyrs only: 45.5M
Stephane Courtois, The Black Book of Communism
o Victims of Communism only: 85-100M
Milton Leitenberg [http://www.pcr.uu.se/Leitenberg_paper.pdf]
o Politically caused deaths in the 20th C: 214M to 226M, incl.
? Deaths in wars and conflicts, incl. civilian: 130M-142M
? Political deaths, 1945-2000: 50M-51M
Rudolph J. Rummel, Death By Government
o "Democides" - Government inflicted deaths (1900-87)
? 169,198,000
? Including:
Communist Oppression: 110,286,000
Democratic democides: 2,028,000
o Not included among democides:
? Wars: 34,021,000
? Non-Democidal Famine (often including famines associated with war and communist mismanagement):
? China (1900-87): 49,275,000
? Russia: (1921-47): 5,833,000
o Total: 258,327,000 for all the categories listed here.
Me (Matthew White, Historical Atlas of the Twentieth Century, 2001):
o "Deaths by mass unpleasantness":
? Genocide and Tyranny: 83,000,000
? Military Deaths in War: 42,000,000
? Civilian Deaths in War: 19,000,000
? Man-made Famine: 44,000,000
? TOTAL: 188,000,000
My estimate for the Communist share of the century's unpleasantness:
? Genocide & Tyranny: 44M (incl. intentional famine)
? Man-made Famine: 37M (excl. intentional famine)
? Communist-inspired War
? Military: 5M
? Civilian: 6M
? TOTAL: 92M deaths by Communism.
? RESIDUE: 96M deaths by non-Communism.
With such rapport do these western countries have right to point finger at Muslims or to blame Islam? Are they have any right to talk about PEACE!This explicates the DOUBLE STANDARD attitude of the West and it is really hard to expect justice from those who have such bloody track record.
WHO IS THE BIGGEST THREAT TO U.S.A.? MUSLIM ?TERRORISTS?!? THINK AGAIN!
American Militant Extremists
United States, radicals
Do homegrown terrorists pose a threat to the United States?
Yes. The September 11 attacks?the biggest and deadliest terrorist plot ever executed in the United States?were carried out by foreigners but Americans are responsible for three quarters of the 335 incidents between 1980 and 2000 that the FBI has classified as suspected or confirmed terrorism. The most notorious example of domestic terrorism is the April 1995 truck bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, which killed 168 people and injured more than 500.
Terrorist activity by anticapitalist revolutionary groups. In the late nineteenth century, immigrants from Eastern Europe sympathetic to the international anarchist movement launched what historians consider the first wave of domestic terrorism in the United States. Anarchists tried to kill the steel tycoon Henry Clay Frick in 1892 and bombed Chicago?s Haymarket in 1898. In 1901, an anarchist sympathizer named Leon Czolgosz assassinated President William McKinley in Buffalo, New York.
In America, there are gangs that operate like terrorists, like those who murder the doctors who do the abortions, they murderers are nothing but fanatic Christian, these "murderers of doctors" justify the killing of their enemies based upon the sacred sanction that comes to them from their Bible.
Another wave of left-wing terrorist activity began in the 1960s. Far-left groups such as the Weather Underground, the Symbionese Liberation Army, and the Armed Forces for Puerto Rican National Liberation (FALN) used bombings and kidnappings to draw attention to their radical causes. By the mid-1980s, however, left-wing terrorism had begun to wane.
THE WORD ?FUNDAMENTALISM?
Well, this is something we come across daily in our media ?Islamic Fundamentalists? or ?Islamic Fundamentalism? etc., today, most of the people have the misconception that the ?Fundamentalism? was coined specially for the followers of Islam, i.e. Muslims.
If a Muslim man sports a beard, he is termed as fundamentalist, if he is regular in his prayers than he is termed as fundamentalist, if he speaks about immodesty than he is termed as fundamentalist! If a Muslim sister wears hijab, she is termed as fundamentalist, if a Muslim student covers their head in school they are expunged from school!!! This is the free world!!! Sorry free western world.
WHO ARE FUNDAMENTALISTS ?
Fundamentalism in Christianity
The term ?fundamentalism? was coined as a proud self-definition by a movement within American Protestantism in the period 1865?1910. It became publicly well known from 1919 onwards, with the foundation of the World Christian Fundamentalist Association. The movement stood for a re-affirmation of historic Christian theology, morality and interpretation of scripture ? the so-called ?fundamentals? ? and was in opposition to modernizing and liberalizing tendencies in American church life. Its essential distinguishing feature was an insistence on a literal interpretation of the Bible, as distinct from treating stories such as the creation in the light of modern scientific knowledge, and therefore as symbolic. For decades after 1919 the only people who used the term ?fundamentalist? were Christians. Some used the term in proud self-definition, others as a term of disapproval.
Fundamentalists tended to be in sympathy with, and frequently indeed associated with, the political right. Christian fundamentalism, in both its theological aspects and in its interaction with right-wing politics, continues to be considerably stronger in the United States than in Europe.
CHRISTIAN SUPPORT TO ?FUNDAMENTALISM?
Things That Are Right about Fundamentalism
Arno Q. Weniger, Jr.
Although much is being written about the problems in fundamentalism, it's about time something be said about the profit in fundamentalism. Instead of dwelling on what is wrong in fundamentalism, think about what is right in fundamentalism.
In an article in USA Today, August 2, 1993, we read headlined, "Strict Religious Faith Lifts Mind as Well as Spirit. Followers of that Old Time Religion, a favorite target of comics, have the last laugh. Their faith gives them a strong mental health edge.
Fundamentalists, those who interpret religious texts literally and impose many daily regulations on members, are far more optimistic than followers of moderate or liberal religions."
If indeed the study alluded to in the USA Today article recognizes that fundamentalism produces an optimism about life, then let's prove our fundamentalism and consider "Things That Are Right about Fundamentalism."
APPLICATION TO ISLAM
The term was first used about Islam in the Middle East Journal in 1957. But it was not until 1981 that its application to Islam gained currency. On 27 September 1981 there was an article by Anthony Burgess in the Observer. This referred to ?the phenomenon of the new, or rather very old, Islam, the dangerous fundamentalism revived by the ayatollahs and their admirers as a device, indistinguishable from a weapon, for running a modern state?. Burgess said also that Muslim states such as Iran were ?little more than intolerant, bloody, and finally incompetent animations of the Holy Book [the Qur?an]?. He compared the Qur?an to Mein Kampf and concluded that there is ?more blood and stupidity than glamour in the theocracy of the Sons of the Prophet?.
Burgess?s article was widely influential and quite soon the terms ?Islamic? and ?fundamentalist? became almost inseparable in the Western media. For example, in the Daily Telegraph?s on-line archives from November 1994 to May 1997, there were 194 items containing the word ?fundamentalist? and 142 of these (almost three quarters) also contained the word ?Islamic?. Only 29 (15 per cent) contained the word ?Christian?.
When applied to Islam the term refers virtually always to political matters not to theology, and more especially to the use of terror or repression. But because of its origins in Christian theology and disputation, particularly with regard to doctrines about the inerrancy of scripture, there is a tacit assumption in the Western media that the use of terror by dissidents or repressive states is sanctioned or even encouraged by the Qur?an. Actually, this assumption is no more true of the Qur?an than of the Bible.
STOP STEREOTYPING THE MUSLIMS AS ?TERRORISTS?& ?EXTREMISTS?!
When we analyze the history its West and Europe who brought bloodshed into the World, they were the pioneers of all possible means of terror, they are the ?gods? of all killing maneuvers witnessed by the world today, then how come only Muslims are blamed?
Islam doesn?t approve any kind of terror but why when a Muslims does something its Islam which goes for trial? Why its always Muslims and Islam are vilified in the Media? Why so much hatred against Islam and Muslims?
Instead of creating chaos and killing innocent Muslims further in the name of ?War against terror? Please, analyze and find out the root cause for the present day tensions and unrest prevailing today. Let there be real freedom, not the freedom according to the powerful and Mighty, finally let us be Muslims, we have chosen Islam has our way of life because we are convinced the truth about it and no matter what inshaAllah we will not deter from the teachings of Islam, nor will we Muslims stop enjoining good and forbidding evil, because Muslims wants peace for everyone.
We Muslims, Worship none but Almighty Allah the true Creator, We shun all superstitious and man made gods? We preach not to oppress the weak, Share your wealth by giving compulsory charity, Rejuvenate your soul by fasting for a whole month, Shun all immoralities, like drinking, smoking, dancing, dating, fornication, extra marital affairs, Treat you parents kindly, don?t send them to old age homes? Treat your womenfolk as your second half not as a sexual object, is advocating such practices is terrorism than We Muslims are indeed Biggest Terrorists!!
Say: "O people of the Book! come to common terms as between us and you: that we worship none but Allah; that we associate no partners with Him; that we erect not from among ourselves Lords and patrons other than Allah." If then they turn back say: "Bear witness that we (at least) are Muslims (bowing to Allah's will)."
3:64
Notes
[1] Cited in, for example, ?Christianity and Islam? by Jeremy Johns, in John McManners, ed (1990), page 194.
[2] Both Bessarion and Renan are quoted by John Esposito in The Islamic Threat: myth or reality, 1992.
1- Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, 2nd edition, New York, A L. Burt Co., 1874, p. 178
2- Lalita Prasad Vidyarthi, Racism, Science and Pseudo-Science, Unesco, France, Vendôme, 1983. s. 54
3- Theodore D. Hall, The Scientific Background of the Nazi Race Purification Program, http://www.trufax.org/avoid/nazi.html
4- James Joll, Europe Since 1870: An International History, Penguin Books, Middlesex, 1990, s. 164
5- James Joll, Europe Since 1870: An International History, Penguin Books, Middlesex, 1990, s. 164
6- M.F. Ashley-Montagu, Man in Process (New York: World. Pub. Co. 1961) pp. 76, 77 cited in Bolton Davidheiser, W E Lammers (ed) Scientific Studies in Special Creationism, 1971, p. 338-339
7- L.H. Gann, "Adolf Hitler, The Complete Totalitarian", The Intercollegiate Review, Fall 1985, p. 24; cited in Henry M. Morris, The Long war Against God, Baker Book House, 1989, p. 78
8- Hickman, R., Biocreation, Science Press, Worthington, OH, pp. 51-52, 1983; Jerry Bergman, "Darwinism and the Nazi Race Holocaust", Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal 13 (2): 101-111, 1999
9- Robert M. Young DARWINIAN EVOLUTION AND HUMAN HISTORY, Historical Studies on Science and Belief, 1980
10- Alan Woods and Ted Grant. "Marxism and Darwinism", Reason in Revolt: Marxism and Modern Science, London, 1993
11- Alex de Jonge, Stalin and The Shaping of the Soviet Union, William Collins Sons & Limited Co., Glasgow, 1987, s. 22
12- Mehnert, Kampf um Mao's Erbe, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1977
13- James Reeve Pusey, China and Charles Darwin, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1983
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