Arab Spring nations don't yet grasp freedom of dissent (CNN)
- Thread starter tokugawa
- Start date
So , Bijou...to clarify your point, without all the cut and paste, and links...you're advocating what exactly? Are you arguing against the freedoms we have here, particularly here in Canada, in favour of what they are currently enjoying in the Mid-east? Are you in favour of what the leaders in Syria are doing to their own people, or how Ghadaffi ruled Libya? Do you truly don't believe that as a people, we aren't better off with the freedoms that our grandparents fought and died for against tyranny, the freedoms that you enjoy and protect you as a woman to make your own choices about your body, mind and soul, to do with as you see fit with your life without prosecution by the 'moral police', the local clergy...to be able to walk the streets without fear of being stoned to death for not having your closest male relative with you, while dressed head to foot in a burka? Or selling sex for a living, without being arrested and beheaded in a public square...? Is this your position? is this what you want in Canada, for you or your children? Or would you prefer the Western model, where you have the freedom to express your views, and are able to post all the links you want about controversial subjects, have sex for a living, walk the streets without fear of rape gangs in the name of Allah...no car bombings.Herrrrrrrrrrrrrre comes the usual complaining LOL
As usual: No one's twisting your arm to read it so don't if you aren't interested in adding to your knowledge.
Colonial guilt mongering? What does that mean? As the superior culture, you think it's our right, I suppose?
And I think that you should be responsible for proving to me that these are "superior". Maybe they are to you and maybe they are to me. But not every person on the planet will agree with all or some of it. So what makes it superior?
And I'm not sure what planet you live on but while women's rights have of course greatly improved, we have not achieved "gender equality". And what we have achieved, we have evolved to it in our own time, of our own will, and not because
And apparently, you didn't bother to check this particular link so I would encourage you to do so as clearly you are working from the faulty premise that muslims apparently don't value or desire these things and you are also assuming quite incorrectly that there is one universal set of beliefs about these issues that all muslims agree on. So here's the link again:
Few Believe U.S. Backs Democracy
Most Muslims Want Democracy, Personal Freedoms, and Islam in Political Life
Pew Report Released: July 10, 2012
http://www.pewglobal.org/2012/07/10...ersonal-freedoms-and-islam-in-political-life/
You also ignore the fact that we have in many cases interfered to make sure the exact opposite of what we supposedly value happened in countries where we've been more concerned about our own interest - not the population, not the women, not freedom or democracy. So it's unbelievably hypocritical to point fingers and brag about our "superiority".
Sure, our gov'ts have dabbled where they shouldn't have...but we had to have the oil, there was money to be made, etc...shitty, for sure. Really bad things have happened over there over the last 100 years or so...but it ain't all the West's fault, babe. Shiite killing Sunni killing shiites killing sunnis...my way of worshipping allah is purer than your blasphemous way...democracy will never work in the Middle East as they've lived with Shahs, Sheiks, Royal Families, Khalifs, Dictatorships, Huntas(sp)...for 1,00's of years. Their ways will negver be like our ways... our ways are alien to them, and probaby we will never see democracy there, not the way you think there may be. Religion, tribalism, etc will never lead them to freedom...yeah, we have problems with our system, but seperation of state and church, Charter of Freedoms and Rights, free from religious prosecution...a lot fuckin better than the shit show happening over there. No one is coming to blow up a few cars dwontown tomorrow, in the name of their god....to kill the unbelievers. No one is going to head down to the nearest girls school and throw acid on little girls as they play in the playground, or lock them in the school as it burns...
Islam is the religion gone Spanish Inquisition on it's own society...they have tyhe same shit in the US, but they have the right to laugh at the bat shit crazy down there, like we have up here, like they have in Europe, and parts of Asia, South America....and no one is going to kill you for living your life as you see fit...
So which one do you prefer? Western Civilization...with it's ugly bits, warts and all...or as they live in the Middle East? Or how about Africa? India? Pakistan? North Korea? China? Yeah, it's not perfect here, but it is progressive, free and safer.
actually, while we're on the topic of gender equality and the muslim world, benazir bhutto was the female prime mininster of pakistan for (i believe) three terms before she was assassinated in 2007
***edit*** nope, two terms
for an example from antiquity, the scythians were a nomadic people originating from what today is part of iran, and they had both male and female rulers, so that is nothing new to the muslim world. many scholars believe that the scythians were the origin of the greek references to the 'amazons'
it was classical greek culture that regarded women as chattels, and all upper class englishman were thoroughly indoctrinated in greek and roman history and political systems - hence the relatively recent struggle for universal suffrage in our english-based society
the religious fanatics that have control of many of the muslim states today are another matter, that's what comes of mixing religion with politics
***edit*** nope, two terms
for an example from antiquity, the scythians were a nomadic people originating from what today is part of iran, and they had both male and female rulers, so that is nothing new to the muslim world. many scholars believe that the scythians were the origin of the greek references to the 'amazons'
it was classical greek culture that regarded women as chattels, and all upper class englishman were thoroughly indoctrinated in greek and roman history and political systems - hence the relatively recent struggle for universal suffrage in our english-based society
the religious fanatics that have control of many of the muslim states today are another matter, that's what comes of mixing religion with politics
Your call. It's also your own loss, not mine or anyone else's. But thanks for sharing that with us!
Really? This is what you're getting out of it? What are you saying exactly? If I'm not with you, I'm with the Taliban? LOL You're wasting my time, babe. If that's all you can come up with or get out of my posts and the links I posted, none of which you could be bothered to read - and you're bent on dragging me and the discussion back down to that level, then I'm not interested in giving you any more of my time.
Don't bother to read anything that might expose you to a different way of understanding the complexity or the context. We wouldn't want to elevate the discussion beyond that kind of garbage. Enjoy the sewer with winners like Ezra Levant, Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer and the company they keep - I'm not interested in joining you there, thanks.
Ridiculous. I can't even believe you would seriously write this nonsense.
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rintin6 said:
Exactly. Just like Israel (and the US) helped create what is now Hamas. They preferred it to the secularists so they encouraged and even funded it in its beginnings, as an offshoot of the MB. Then when Hamas became a threat, they refused to accept them despite Hamas having been democratically elected by the people. They didn't leave it at that either and along with the US, plotted to a coup to take them down, which failed. Canada followed that same line and chose not to recognize a democratically elected government either.
We don't want democracy in that part of the world (and others as well) because it would mean we would no longer be able to control, for example, access to the resources, namely the oil.
Our governments have done and supported the most barbaric of things to make sure there was no democracy or freedom as we know it. To have us look down on them and arrogantly declare we're superior, they'll never be as great as us and just want to be backwards is so hypocritical and totally clueless of our own governments (and our own) responsibility in making sure it doesn't happen. But its a lot easier to think its just because we're just naturally superior. (Barf)
I won't post any links to more information about this even though I have an informative one that could be useful, since Im not allowed to. So you'll just have to believe whatever I say and take my word for it, I guess. Isn't that nice?! Lol (Because apparently we don't believe in supporting our claims with sources but we're just supposed to accept each others claims without questions. How convenient for those who only repeat bigoted beliefs and opinions that could never actually be backed up by hard evidence or facts. But anyway.)
The ironic part is that if we were fair and unbiased, Israel and the US would be considered far greater terrorists than Hamas ever can. But we're not talking about that. Just like all the fear mongering about Iran would bring up questions about how dangerous they are without WMD and not having instigated any attacks or wars in how many years, while Israel has a whole arsenal of nuclear power and has instigated numerous attacks in its short 64 years of existence and they are huge war mongers. Iran isn't who we should be concerned about ffs.
Still didn't answer my question, instead you decided to run from answering it with flinging a bunch of bullshit. What are you advocating, Bijou? Do you want us to be like them? You never even read my post, obviously...or if you did, you're being just as closed minded and ridiculous as those you're ranting at. Grow up, really see the world for what it isn't....no rose coloured glasses. I've read some of what you posted, as I actually have to go to work and make a living and a few pooning $$ and really don't have the time to read dogmatic bullshit....
Bijou wants to live in a world ruled by dictators and controlled by those who would love to see us here in the West destroyed, subjegated and suppressed by Sharia Law, in order to be kind and soft towards those who would dance on our graves, while blowing each other up in religious wars, terrorist attacks, and with the Koran in her pocket and a song in her heart...yeah? Is this what you want? It's too late to put the Genie back in the bottle over there...they wanted the West and all us infidels dead since the great prophet was shagging sheep and children 1500 years ago, and yes the oil, Britain and the US shit the bed over there numerous times....granted. But do you really think that it's going to be all sunshine and roses over there if we leave them alone? Fuck no. Duh....
I'm very surprised and disappointed in you, as I have agreed with your posts before in the past, but Babe....you're really quite wrong. So just what are you advocating for? In your own words, 10,000 or less.
Couldn't have said it better...Oh, please. Save me these phony platitudes.
Wanna bet you would throw up a lot easier when witnessing a stoning, honour killing or beheading.
But thank God you are here to save me from doing a disservice to myself LOL
Simplify it for my simple mind, right? Thank you.
Hate to disappoint you, but I am NOT GOING TO READ it. I insist on my fundamental right to be uninformedObviously, you enjoy reading muslim propaganda, and the superior feeling of being politically correct, at the expense of your fellow women in this world. Pretty selfish attitude, but if this is what makes you happy. You are not hurting anybody, just annoy the shit out of people with common sense LOL
If you're still insisting either of these things are Muslim, sorry but you clearly have NO clue.
Nonsense. YOU'RE the one repeating unsupported, uninformed propaganda. And enthusiastically using manipulation and guilt tripping tactics to try to taint my position, not any of my arguments.Anita said:Hate to disappoint you, but I am NOT GOING TO READ it. I insist on my fundamental right to be uninformed
There are 49 Muslim majority countries in the world. Are they all guilty of beheading and all that stuff?
Certainly not.
So why is it that 2 countries suddenly become the norm or are claimed to be representative of an entire religion and over a billion adherents worldwide, even though they don't actually do these.things or condone them...or believe them to be part of their religious beliefs or duties?
Can you please describe what the definition of bigotry and racism is? Does it, by chance, include the act of applying certain characteristics of a few to an entire group (race or religion)? In fact, that's one of the main points that define prejudice and discrimination. Congratulations! You prefer the intellectually lazy way to view the world and choose emotional response over informed and rational analysis! At least you own up to it so I can respect your honesty about that fact. However unfortunately that's not much of an argument. Yes, you absolutely have the right to uninformed judgment but that kind of describes the process behind bigotry so I'm not sure why there's a debate about that to be honest.
That has nothing to do with it, Anita. Bigotry is bigotry, and I can condemn the treatment of women, prostitutes or not, while at same time condemn the promotion of uninformed reactionary beliefs that insist the horrible acts of a group which happens to use their religion in perverted ways, is proof and reason that the religion itself is to blame or inherently savage, and more so than the other two religions is was born from. Those two are not mutually exclusive because it is easy to recognize that the religion itself is no better or worse than judaism or christianity, despite some people's conviction that it is uniquely evil. It's not and its absurd to continue to make that claim, as well as it ignores how recent advances in women's rights here actually are, not to mention that in no way can anyone deny that there is still much to be done and in no way can we claim to be perfect or close to it.
So, do the rampant sexual abuses within the Catholic Church make it a religion that glorifies and encourages pedophiles? Hitler was a Christian, does that make all Christians evil, murdeous antisemites and the New Testament the origins of this belief held by every Christian anywhere in the world? If you think that sounds ridiculous, realize that this is the argument you're expecting us to buy, which you obviously believe.
The. Same. Thing.
Much like memyselftheother is apparently completely unable to grasp that all my posts have nothing but nothing to do with 'advocating for beheadings' and other obscenities....
It is absolutely incomprehensible to me that someone could be so stuck on such a stupid conclusion, let me repeat what this thread is about:
The thread was started about incidents of riots, one of which tragically led to the deaths of a US ambassador and embassy employees in Libya.
These different protests and riots that have erupted worldwide were provoked by a low cost production by known Islamophobes of a short movie making fun of the Prophet Mohammed.
The 'West' is scratching their head,.wondering why they hate 'us' for no reason, why something that is so trivial to us, would lead these angry Muslim Arabs to erupt in such rage and violence.
A portion of the 'West', building from the steady promotion of ignorance and reactionary xenophobic discourse that is quite unfortunately judged to be acceptable, reasonable and credible these days, are latching on to this as just further evidence that these Muslims are just naturally barbaric, and, we're told, that's only because their religion, Islam, is to blame. These people will tell you, that's just the sad truth about that violent religion, which unlike the other two that preceded it, preaches only violence, misogyny and hate. Disturbingly these people don't even stop there either, they promote more fear mongering, paranoia by manipulating the fear they'be created to get people into a frenzy over some ridiculous imagined plot of Islam taking over the world.
What I and others are saying is chill out, back right up and ask yourself some questions:
1- How can the crimes and actions of what is relatively speaking a small, fringe minority of a group that identifies itself as Muslims fairly be attributed to a much larger portion of that whole group? Is that how we judge other religious or racial groups? And if it was, what would that make YOU? Would you agree to be described and judged not only based on your religious beliefs or your ethnicity but based on a hateful, violent small group that happens to claim to follow the same religion or shares the same ethnicity as you do? HONESTLY, are you cool with the same rationale if we apply it to you? If so, we can go through what that would make you. If not, then what makes you feel it is acceptable, fair, useful or accurate to apply it to 'others'? And also importantly, how do you justify or defend it?
Ok so far?
Moving on....
What I and others are saying is that NO, it is not intellectually, ethically, reasonably or morally defensible to come to conclusions this way, nor can such conclusions be expected to be in any way accurate. It doesn't take rocket scientist to know that such broadly made judgments or claims made about a huge number of individuals that are based on a tiny amount, really have no validity and no place in logic and reason based arguments.
Some acknowledge this fact and choose to stick with beliefs they know do not recognize the complete set of information available to us and prefer to hold on to emotionally based arguments, and of course that is their right. But that does not make their position a valid or credible argument. It doesn't hold up to scrutiny so let's not pretend it is anything other than what it is.
What I and other are saying, which seems to be very hard for you to process and put into context, is this:
If you take a few steps back from the urge to accept the emotional, reactionary and really irrational, though undoubtedly simplest and easiest conclusions to include all Muslims as one homogeneous group who are accurately defined by the actions ofa few who claim to be acting based on their religious beliefs but you instead try to see the situation in a different angle, the different framing of the whole issue might change the way you choose to interpret a few things. Things don't happen in a small bubble or in a vacuum and that is why it is extremely disingenuous, lazy and unfair to latch on to the easiest explanation offered to us. It's also convenient to be able to cast ourselves as guilt free and superior, as we cast the other as uncivilized, stupid and below us. It's much easier to detach ourselves and keep ourselves or our involvement out of the equation altogether. It's perhaps tempting, easier and convenient but its not honest, realistic or useful.
So, if one does wish to come to an informed, fair and realistic conclusion, one needs to come up with an honest, informed picture of various factors that are directly relevant to the seemingly isolated and incomprehensible situation. That means taking a real look at a group of over one billion people worldwide, spread out through 49 Muslim majority countries and countless non Muslim majority countries and ask oneself whether all those people can really be bunched into one category. One cannot reasonably justify or support this conclusion. And if one cannot support this conclusion, then neither can one claim that this fringe minority represents Islam or that it defines it. Reason and logic cannot lead to any other conclusion other than religion is not the cause or inherently violent and barbaric (at least not any more or less than other similar religions all sharing the same roots).
That's basic.
But that's where you and others refuse to either admit there is no basis or evidence to back up your emotional and simplistic claim that purports to know everything can be traced back and blamed on Islam or to admit you're comfortable with uninformed, emotional judgements instead of trying to go deeper and find a more informed explanation. It is your right to do whatever but in that case, don't come to me trying to debate your deliberate bigotry because you have nothing convincing or especially impressive. Bigotry is bigotry and it will always remain just that no matter how you try to muddy it up or confuse the issue by moving the goal posts, you see.
Because that is why your questions to me were met with annoyance and left unanswered; because they are completely irrelevant, pointless and do not represent my point in any sort of way. This leads me to believe that you're either intentionally trying to distract from the actual conversation or you're genuinely clueless of the difference between what I'm saying and what you're claiming I'm saying, which is that I'm supposedly 'advocating' for all of these violent crimes, human rights and women's rights abuses, for things such as beheadings etc.
Really? This is the only conclusion you can come to from my comments. I really have to spell that shit out for you? Really? If that is the extent of you logical and critical thinking skills, then I am without a doubt wasting my time arguing with you, which is why I responded with exactly that comment. But you're asking AGAIN, after repeating your nonsense AGAIN, clearly not having bothered to reflect for one minute?
So here's me wasting my time to spell it out for you. And I will do it in however many words it suits me to do it because chances are, you'll still not get it and managed to reply with some more irrelevant and off topic crap. But regardless, here's how it works:
1- Stating what I have explained at length above, that actions if a few do not in any way fairly represent the beliefs of a billion others DOESN'T translate into 'advocating' for beheadings or whatever else you claim I'm advocating.
2- Stating that since it these beliefs are not in any way shared by other (the vast and overwhelming majority of them) Muslims across the world, who are not an homogeneous group by any means, claiming that the.actions of a fringe minority can be blamed or explained as the.result of the nature of their religion,.especially when one realizes that all major religions have their extremist factions, is absurd to the extreme DOESN'T translate to 'advocating' for....
3- Attempting to understand how some of the historical events, complicated factors, countless instances of interference, violence, crimes and colonial influences by 'us' may have shaped the way some Muslim individuals or societies function or how religion has been used and manipulated to become what it is today.... DOESN'T in any shape or form translate to what you're claiming it does, which is that I am apparently 'advocating' for ....
4- Believing that the last thing anyone needs is yet more 'interference' from 'us' in the form of bombs, drones, military occupation, guns and night raids DOESN'T translate to that either.
5- Challenging the often used excuse of our alleged intentions and desire to help women, kill entire families (aka collateral casualties or damage) or bomb the shit out of whole villages and terrorize a population under 'humanitarian' concerns and questioning that any of this is accomplished or that any of it is even improved from our 'interventions' (because those are not our government's intentions, nor are those the results - we often make things far worse in every aspect) - so, NO, calling bullshit DOESN'T translate to that nonsense either.
Same for Anita's assumptions that my bringing up all that I have brought up has nothing, but absolutely NOTHING, to do with supporting, advocating, condoning, accepting or anything close to that, the actions or abuses being perpetrated.
HOW COMPLICATED IS THAT TO UNDERSTAND? One has nothing to do with the other. I can easily refuse to accept your claims that Islam is responsible for these actions and beliefs, that Muslims in general hold these beliefs and support these actions, etc AND AT THE VERY SAME time unequivocally condemn and denounce the brutal and barbaric actions OF A FEW that do not represent all or even most Muslims or Islam's core teaching or message. So,.no,.it.doesn't make me selfish to realize that women probably prefer NOT being bombed so they can be around to work towards improving their lives. It doesn't fucking take a. genius to figure.it out.
IS THAT CLEAR ENOUGH for you now? Geez.
Miss Bijou actually none of those things are Muslim, they pre-date Islam by centuries, however the only people who STILL PRACTICE any of those are indeed Muslims!
I am sure your pukable political correctness would quickly get wiped off your face if you had to survive any of the shit holes that call themselves Muslim. For the record I've lived in muslim and arab countries for almost 20 years, speak Arabic fluently and hold an advanced degree in Islamic studies. I suggest that you go read the Quran, Hadith and Sunna before you shoot off your mouth any further. Or maybe go watch a government sponsored beheading, stoning or flogging in Saudi Arabia or Sudan (I have) it might change your opinion!
I am sure your pukable political correctness would quickly get wiped off your face if you had to survive any of the shit holes that call themselves Muslim. For the record I've lived in muslim and arab countries for almost 20 years, speak Arabic fluently and hold an advanced degree in Islamic studies. I suggest that you go read the Quran, Hadith and Sunna before you shoot off your mouth any further. Or maybe go watch a government sponsored beheading, stoning or flogging in Saudi Arabia or Sudan (I have) it might change your opinion!
"We" are so civilized to these barbarians! Don't they know we're trying to save their women!? Geez, what a bunch of ungrateful, barbaric, angry savages.
The Massacre at Sabra and Shatila, Thirty Years Later
By Sonja Karkar
It happened thirty years ago – 16 September 1982. A massacre so awful that people who know about it cannot forget it. The photos are gruesome reminders – charred, decapitated, indecently violated corpses, the smell of rotting flesh, still as foul to those who remember it as when they were recoiling from it all those years ago. For the victims and the handful of survivors, it was a 36-hour holocaust without mercy. It was deliberate, it was planned and it was overseen. But to this day, the killers have gone unpunished.
Sabra and Shatila – two Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon – were the theatres for this staged slaughter. The former is no longer there and the other is a ghostly and ghastly reminder of man’s inhumanity to men, women and children – more specifically, Israel’s inhumanity, the inhumanity of the people who did Israel’s bidding and the world’s inhumanity for pretending it was of no consequence. There were international witnesses –doctors, nurses, journalists – who saw the macabre scenes and have tried to tell the world in vain ever since.
Each act was barbarous enough on its own to warrant fear and loathing. It was human savagery at its worst and Dr Ang Swee Chai was an eye witness as she worked with the Palestinian Red Crescent Society on the dying and the wounded amongst the dead. What she saw was so unimaginable that the atrocities committed need to be separated from each other to even begin comprehending the viciousness of the crimes.
People Tortured. Blackened bodies smelling of roasted flesh from the power shocks that had convulsed their bodies before their hearts gave out – the electric wires still tied around their lifeless limbs.
People with gouged out eye sockets. Faces unrecognisable with the gaping holes that had plunged them into darkness before their lives were thankfully ended.
Women raped. Not once – but two, three, four times –horribly violated, their legs shamelessly ripped apart with not even the cover of clothing to preserve their dignity at the moment of death.
Children dynamited alive. So many body parts ripped from their titorsos, so hard to know to whom they belonged – just mounds of bloodied limbs amongst the tousled heads of children in pools of blood.
Families executed. Blood, blood and more blood sprayed on the walls of homes where whole families had been axed to death in a frenzy or lined up for a more orderly execution.
There were also journalists who were there in the aftermath and who had equally gruesome stories to tell, none of which made the sort of screaming front page headlines that should have caused lawmakers to demand immediate answers. What they saw led them to write shell-shocked accounts that have vanished now into the archives, but are no less disturbing now. These accounts too need to be individually absorbed, lest they be lumped together as just the collective dead rather than the systematic torture and killing of individual, innocent human beings.
Women gunned down while cooking in their kitchens. The headless body of a baby in diapers lying next to two dead women. An infant, its tiny legs streaked with blood, shot in the back by a single bullet.
babies, their bodies blackened as they decomposed, tossed into rubbish heaps together with Israeli army equipment and empty bottles of whiskey. An old man castrated, with flies thick upon his torn intestines. Children with their throats slashed. Mounds of rotting corpses bloated in the heat – young boys all shot at point-blank range.
And most numbing of all are the recollections of the survivors whose experiences were so shockingly traumatic that to recall them must have been painful beyond all imaginings.
said:
“I was carrying my one year-old baby sister and she was yelling “Mama! Mama!” then suddenly nothing. I looked at her and her brain had fallen out of her head and down my arm. I looked at the man who shot us. I’ll never forget his face. Then I felt two bullets pierce my shoulder and finger. I fell. I didn’t lose consciousness, but I pretended to be dead.”
The statistics of those killed vary, but even according to the Israeli military, the official count was 700 people killed while Israeli journalist, Amnon Kapeliouk put the figure at 3,500. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society put the number killed at over 2,000. Regardless of the numbers, they would not and could not mitigate what are clear crimes against humanity.
Fifteen years later, Robert Fisk, the journalist who had been one of the first on the scene, said:
“Had Palestinians massacred 2,000 Israelis 15 years ago, would anyone doubt that the world’s press and television would be remembering so terrible a deed this morning? Yet this week, not a single newspaper in the United States – or Britain for that matter – has even mentioned the anniversary of Sabra and Shatila.”
Thirty years later it is no different.
Political Developments
What happened must be set against the background of a Lebanon that had been invaded by the Israeli army only months earlier, supposedly in ‘retaliation’ for the attempted assassination of the Israeli Ambassador in London on 4 June 1982. Israel attributed the attempt to Arafat’s Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) then resident in Beirut. In reality, it was a rival militant group headed by Abu Nidal.
Lebanon altogether and on 6 June 1982, Israel began its devastating assault on the Lebanese and Palestinian civilian population in the southern part of Lebanon. Lebanese government casualty figures numbered the dead at around 19,000 with some 30,000 wounded, but these numbers are hardly accurate because of the mass graves and other bodies lost in the rubble.
By 1 September, a cease-fire had been mediated by United States envoy Philip Habib, and Arafat and his men surrendered their weapons and were evacuated from Beirut with guarantees by the US that the civilians left behind in the camps would be protected by a multinational peacekeeping force. That guarantee was not kept and the vacuum then created, paved the way for the atrocities that followed.
As soon as the peacekeeping force was withdrawn, the then Israeli Defence Minister Ariel Sharon moved to root out some “2,000 terrorists” he claimed were still hiding in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila. After totally surrounding the refugee camps with tanks and soldiers, Sharon ordered the shelling of the camps and the bombardment continued throughout the afternoon and into the evening of 15 September leaving the “mopping-up” of the camps to the Lebanese right-wing Christian militia, known as the Phalangists. The next day, the Phalangists – armed and trained by the Israeli army –entered the camps and proceeded to massacre the unarmed civilians while Israel’s General Yaron and his men watched the entire operations. More grotesquely, the Israeli army ensured there was no lull in the 36 hours of killings and illuminated the area with flares at night and tightened their cordon around the camps to make sure that no civilian could escape the terror that had been unleashed.
Inquiries, Charges and off Scot-free
Although Israel’s Kahan Commission of Inquiry did not find any Israeli directly responsible, it did find that Sharon bore “personal responsibility” for “not ordering appropriate measures for preventing or reducing the danger of massacre” before sending the Phalangists into the camps. It, therefore, lamely recommended that the Israeli prime minister consider removing him from office. Sharon resigned but remained as Minister without portfolio and joined two parliamentary commissions on defence and Lebanese affairs. There is no doubt, as Chomsky points out “that the inquiry was not intended for people who have a prejudice in favour of truth and honesty”, but it certainly gained support for Israel in the US Congress and among the public. It took an International Commission of Inquiry headed by Sean MacBride to find that Israel was “directly responsible” because the camps were under its jurisdiction as an occupying power. Yet, despite the UN describing the heinous operation as a “criminal massacre” and declaring it an act of genocide, no one was prosecuted.
It was not until 2001 that a law suit was filed in Belgium by the survivors of the massacre and relatives of the victims against Sharon alleging his personal responsibility. However, the court did not allow for “universal jurisdiction” – a principle which was intended to remove safe havens for war criminals and allow their prosecution across states. The case was won on appeal and the trial allowed to proceed, but without Sharon who by then was prime minister of Israel and had immunity. US interference led to the Belgian Parliament gutting the universal jurisdiction law and by the time the International Criminal Court was established in The Hague the following year, the perpetrators of the Sabra and Shatila massacre could no longer be tried because its terms of reference did not allow it to hear cases of war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide pre-dating 1 July 2002. Neither Sharon nor those who carried out the massacres have ever been punished for their horrendous crimes.
.... can never be justified even on the strength of one state’s rationale that another people ought to be punished, or worse still, are simply inferior or worthless beings. It should lead all of us to question on whose judgment are such decisions made and how can we possibly justify such crimes at all?
The atrocities committed in the camps of Sabra and Shatila should be put in the context of an ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people. The MacBride report found that these atrocities “were not inconsistent with wider Israeli intentions to destroy Palestinian political will and cultural identity.” Since Deir Yassin and the other massacres of 1948, those who survived have joined hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fleeing a litany of massacres committed in 1953, 1967, and the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, and the killing continues today. The most recent being the 2008-2009 Gaza massacre – that 3 week merciless onslaught, a festering sore without relief as the people are further punished by an impossible siege that denies them their most basic rights.
http://palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=19574
The Massacre at Sabra and Shatila, Thirty Years Later
By Sonja Karkar
It happened thirty years ago – 16 September 1982. A massacre so awful that people who know about it cannot forget it. The photos are gruesome reminders – charred, decapitated, indecently violated corpses, the smell of rotting flesh, still as foul to those who remember it as when they were recoiling from it all those years ago. For the victims and the handful of survivors, it was a 36-hour holocaust without mercy. It was deliberate, it was planned and it was overseen. But to this day, the killers have gone unpunished.
Sabra and Shatila – two Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon – were the theatres for this staged slaughter. The former is no longer there and the other is a ghostly and ghastly reminder of man’s inhumanity to men, women and children – more specifically, Israel’s inhumanity, the inhumanity of the people who did Israel’s bidding and the world’s inhumanity for pretending it was of no consequence. There were international witnesses –doctors, nurses, journalists – who saw the macabre scenes and have tried to tell the world in vain ever since.
Each act was barbarous enough on its own to warrant fear and loathing. It was human savagery at its worst and Dr Ang Swee Chai was an eye witness as she worked with the Palestinian Red Crescent Society on the dying and the wounded amongst the dead. What she saw was so unimaginable that the atrocities committed need to be separated from each other to even begin comprehending the viciousness of the crimes.
People Tortured. Blackened bodies smelling of roasted flesh from the power shocks that had convulsed their bodies before their hearts gave out – the electric wires still tied around their lifeless limbs.
People with gouged out eye sockets. Faces unrecognisable with the gaping holes that had plunged them into darkness before their lives were thankfully ended.
Women raped. Not once – but two, three, four times –horribly violated, their legs shamelessly ripped apart with not even the cover of clothing to preserve their dignity at the moment of death.
Children dynamited alive. So many body parts ripped from their titorsos, so hard to know to whom they belonged – just mounds of bloodied limbs amongst the tousled heads of children in pools of blood.
Families executed. Blood, blood and more blood sprayed on the walls of homes where whole families had been axed to death in a frenzy or lined up for a more orderly execution.
There were also journalists who were there in the aftermath and who had equally gruesome stories to tell, none of which made the sort of screaming front page headlines that should have caused lawmakers to demand immediate answers. What they saw led them to write shell-shocked accounts that have vanished now into the archives, but are no less disturbing now. These accounts too need to be individually absorbed, lest they be lumped together as just the collective dead rather than the systematic torture and killing of individual, innocent human beings.
Women gunned down while cooking in their kitchens. The headless body of a baby in diapers lying next to two dead women. An infant, its tiny legs streaked with blood, shot in the back by a single bullet.
babies, their bodies blackened as they decomposed, tossed into rubbish heaps together with Israeli army equipment and empty bottles of whiskey. An old man castrated, with flies thick upon his torn intestines. Children with their throats slashed. Mounds of rotting corpses bloated in the heat – young boys all shot at point-blank range.
And most numbing of all are the recollections of the survivors whose experiences were so shockingly traumatic that to recall them must have been painful beyond all imaginings.
said:
“I was carrying my one year-old baby sister and she was yelling “Mama! Mama!” then suddenly nothing. I looked at her and her brain had fallen out of her head and down my arm. I looked at the man who shot us. I’ll never forget his face. Then I felt two bullets pierce my shoulder and finger. I fell. I didn’t lose consciousness, but I pretended to be dead.”
The statistics of those killed vary, but even according to the Israeli military, the official count was 700 people killed while Israeli journalist, Amnon Kapeliouk put the figure at 3,500. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society put the number killed at over 2,000. Regardless of the numbers, they would not and could not mitigate what are clear crimes against humanity.
Fifteen years later, Robert Fisk, the journalist who had been one of the first on the scene, said:
“Had Palestinians massacred 2,000 Israelis 15 years ago, would anyone doubt that the world’s press and television would be remembering so terrible a deed this morning? Yet this week, not a single newspaper in the United States – or Britain for that matter – has even mentioned the anniversary of Sabra and Shatila.”
Thirty years later it is no different.
Political Developments
What happened must be set against the background of a Lebanon that had been invaded by the Israeli army only months earlier, supposedly in ‘retaliation’ for the attempted assassination of the Israeli Ambassador in London on 4 June 1982. Israel attributed the attempt to Arafat’s Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) then resident in Beirut. In reality, it was a rival militant group headed by Abu Nidal.
Lebanon altogether and on 6 June 1982, Israel began its devastating assault on the Lebanese and Palestinian civilian population in the southern part of Lebanon. Lebanese government casualty figures numbered the dead at around 19,000 with some 30,000 wounded, but these numbers are hardly accurate because of the mass graves and other bodies lost in the rubble.
By 1 September, a cease-fire had been mediated by United States envoy Philip Habib, and Arafat and his men surrendered their weapons and were evacuated from Beirut with guarantees by the US that the civilians left behind in the camps would be protected by a multinational peacekeeping force. That guarantee was not kept and the vacuum then created, paved the way for the atrocities that followed.
As soon as the peacekeeping force was withdrawn, the then Israeli Defence Minister Ariel Sharon moved to root out some “2,000 terrorists” he claimed were still hiding in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila. After totally surrounding the refugee camps with tanks and soldiers, Sharon ordered the shelling of the camps and the bombardment continued throughout the afternoon and into the evening of 15 September leaving the “mopping-up” of the camps to the Lebanese right-wing Christian militia, known as the Phalangists. The next day, the Phalangists – armed and trained by the Israeli army –entered the camps and proceeded to massacre the unarmed civilians while Israel’s General Yaron and his men watched the entire operations. More grotesquely, the Israeli army ensured there was no lull in the 36 hours of killings and illuminated the area with flares at night and tightened their cordon around the camps to make sure that no civilian could escape the terror that had been unleashed.
Inquiries, Charges and off Scot-free
Although Israel’s Kahan Commission of Inquiry did not find any Israeli directly responsible, it did find that Sharon bore “personal responsibility” for “not ordering appropriate measures for preventing or reducing the danger of massacre” before sending the Phalangists into the camps. It, therefore, lamely recommended that the Israeli prime minister consider removing him from office. Sharon resigned but remained as Minister without portfolio and joined two parliamentary commissions on defence and Lebanese affairs. There is no doubt, as Chomsky points out “that the inquiry was not intended for people who have a prejudice in favour of truth and honesty”, but it certainly gained support for Israel in the US Congress and among the public. It took an International Commission of Inquiry headed by Sean MacBride to find that Israel was “directly responsible” because the camps were under its jurisdiction as an occupying power. Yet, despite the UN describing the heinous operation as a “criminal massacre” and declaring it an act of genocide, no one was prosecuted.
It was not until 2001 that a law suit was filed in Belgium by the survivors of the massacre and relatives of the victims against Sharon alleging his personal responsibility. However, the court did not allow for “universal jurisdiction” – a principle which was intended to remove safe havens for war criminals and allow their prosecution across states. The case was won on appeal and the trial allowed to proceed, but without Sharon who by then was prime minister of Israel and had immunity. US interference led to the Belgian Parliament gutting the universal jurisdiction law and by the time the International Criminal Court was established in The Hague the following year, the perpetrators of the Sabra and Shatila massacre could no longer be tried because its terms of reference did not allow it to hear cases of war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide pre-dating 1 July 2002. Neither Sharon nor those who carried out the massacres have ever been punished for their horrendous crimes.
.... can never be justified even on the strength of one state’s rationale that another people ought to be punished, or worse still, are simply inferior or worthless beings. It should lead all of us to question on whose judgment are such decisions made and how can we possibly justify such crimes at all?
The atrocities committed in the camps of Sabra and Shatila should be put in the context of an ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people. The MacBride report found that these atrocities “were not inconsistent with wider Israeli intentions to destroy Palestinian political will and cultural identity.” Since Deir Yassin and the other massacres of 1948, those who survived have joined hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fleeing a litany of massacres committed in 1953, 1967, and the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, and the killing continues today. The most recent being the 2008-2009 Gaza massacre – that 3 week merciless onslaught, a festering sore without relief as the people are further punished by an impossible siege that denies them their most basic rights.
http://palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=19574
Thanks for making the same exact point as the others have. Good for you you've lived in 2 of 49 countries where Muslim are majority. It might be interesting if you actually read before you comment because you're not making any new argument because you've lived in two countries, Saudi Arabia, which is arguably at the extreme and ONCE again, as has been repeated more than once and not.just by me... NOT a country ours or the.US government has any problem doing business with - and lots of it. No, pointing that out again doesn't translate to me defending or condoning it FFS.
Have you ever read the Old Testament? Some of the Judaic texts? Not so Peace and Love. Not even close. Lots of pretty perverted shit too.
Just imagine if Islam was in itself this uniquely evil, barbarian religion to follow, at 1.2 billion followers, that would be a hell of a lot of beheading, honor killings,.stonings and what not. Yet, only a portion of the population in a small handful of countries support that. Huh. How about that.
This has nothing to do with being pc. I have equal disdain and distrust for all major religions and for people who do awful things in the name of religious beliefs. Islam may be at.a different point in its long evolution but it is not.any different than the other two have been. It's, of course, younger than the other 2 and there have also been many outside influences. Christianity and Judaism most certainly have their own dark moments, in both present and in history. To make Islam a special, different case is absurd and nothing supports those claims.
I used those two as examples but have lived in 7 and visited most of the majority Muslim countries.
If you want to learn about Judaism you go to Israel and see how people live and interact and if you want to know anything about Islam you really need to get yourself over to Saudi Arabia where Islamic Sharia is practiced exactly as dictated by their Prophet, his teaching and his Sunna. How devout Muslim Arabs behave is what most closely resembles the actual and true teachings of Islam. They have grown in the culture and have learned the religion in its native language as it is intended. This is why according to true Islamic teachings the Quran should never be translated.
All I know is that if a stupid movie or cartoon is enough to drive Muslims to justify murder and riots they seriously need to grow up as human beings. The other day when in Pakistan they went to attack the embassy one businessman choose to not participate and now he and his family are being hunted down to be executed for blasphemy because of his choice. I am not anti Muslim but I think their religion like all religions need to evolve to accept the views of the times like how women should be treated as equals not a farm animal.
Anita, I would just like to show you a parallel to your approach, in an issue other than religion or Islam but with the same 'liberation' and 'rescue' theme concerning women.
I don't know whether you are familiar with 'abolitionists' who want to abolish prostitution, rescue prostitutes and criminalize their clients (they would also like to tar and shame them publicly). There is no reasoning with these abolitionists, who comprise some religious groups but also, most importantly I believe, a faction of feminists whose ideology is referred to as radical feminism), they believe prostitution is violence against women, akin to rape, that women are victims, that it is just as impossible to consent to one's own rape as it is to prostitution. They believe all clients are abusers who hate women and who take pleasure in degrading women and abusing them. They refuse to refer to sp's as anything other than prostituted women and they laugh at the suggestion that sp's do not wish to be rescued, do not see themselves as abused victims and say they are consenting adults and have chosen to do this work. Not only is it unimaginable and incomprehensible to radical feminists but they absolutely refuse to believe what the sex workers themselves say and categorically reject even the possibility that they could be wrong about their assumptions and that women may truly not want to be rescued or saved. To dismiss the claims that contradict their entire ideology by the very people concerned, they will goes as far as to say that such sex workers are merely suffering from Stockholm syndrome!
These are the feminists from the Vancouver Rape Center, for example. These are the feminists siding with the Conservatives in opposing the case to determine whether prostitution laws endanger and criminalize women unjustly. These are the feminists pushing for the 'Nordic model', based on Sweden's laws that criminalize clients and infantilize women by wanting to rescue them whether they want it or not because afterall feminists know what's best for them - and its obviously not prostitution, because of course, no woman wants to be a prostitute, of.course! Being told by sex workers that such laws in fact endanger them and marginalize them even more, doesn't change their conviction that their way.is best.
Unsurprisingly, if another feminist who does not share the same view or advocate the same approach as the abolitionists and radical feminists ever attempts to debate and bring up these and other arguments against their position, guess what response they very often receive? Yes, prostitutes who oppose their tactics and challenge their assumptions are told it is simply selfish of them to support a system that perpetuates patriarchy...blah..blah...
To them, it is by eliminating prostitution that we will achieve the end of patriarchy, sexism, inequality and so on. Not what seems far more logical, that is, if prostitution is truly a symptom of patriarchy, then elimimating patriarchy and the resulting inequality would necessarily eliminate prostitution automatically. Approaching it the other way around really doesn't achieve more than superficial suppression of what is,.according to them, a symptom. It doesnt actually change anything about the root cause, which is their main target, patriarchy. But that's not how they see things and if you disagree, to them, you are selfishly throwing all of womankind under the bus. Sounds awfully familiar.
To me, your 'we know best, Muslim women need and want us to rescue them - how could they not? Of course they want what 'we' have - how could they not?' sounds exactly the same to me. It says 'I don't need to ask Muslim women (or sex workers) what THEY think, what THEY want/need or whether our assumptions are correct because we cannot imagine it would differ from what WE believe. If that were the case, how can we believe they know what's truly best for them and most because its unthinkable that it might be anything other than exactly what I have!!!!'
It is presumptuous, patronizing and it is in fact this approach that is actually most selfish.
And that is what I've had in mind when I've read each of your comments about that. You are using 'Muslim women' to justify your prejudice and but your refusal to listen to and lack of concern for what these women might actually want for themselves - or your belief that they can't think or speak for themselves betrays the true intentions whenever anyone pull the 'we need to save these poor Muslim women' while clearly seeing them as dumb children in need of superior 'Western' women (or men) to come in and liberate them into being just like us. I don't think its done deliberately or that anyone necessarily does this consciously but that doesn't change the bottom line, which is that this is more about 'us' than about 'the Muslim women'.
I just wanted to.bring up a different perspective I don't think you were aware of. Take it or leave it - your choice, obviously.
I don't know whether you are familiar with 'abolitionists' who want to abolish prostitution, rescue prostitutes and criminalize their clients (they would also like to tar and shame them publicly). There is no reasoning with these abolitionists, who comprise some religious groups but also, most importantly I believe, a faction of feminists whose ideology is referred to as radical feminism), they believe prostitution is violence against women, akin to rape, that women are victims, that it is just as impossible to consent to one's own rape as it is to prostitution. They believe all clients are abusers who hate women and who take pleasure in degrading women and abusing them. They refuse to refer to sp's as anything other than prostituted women and they laugh at the suggestion that sp's do not wish to be rescued, do not see themselves as abused victims and say they are consenting adults and have chosen to do this work. Not only is it unimaginable and incomprehensible to radical feminists but they absolutely refuse to believe what the sex workers themselves say and categorically reject even the possibility that they could be wrong about their assumptions and that women may truly not want to be rescued or saved. To dismiss the claims that contradict their entire ideology by the very people concerned, they will goes as far as to say that such sex workers are merely suffering from Stockholm syndrome!
These are the feminists from the Vancouver Rape Center, for example. These are the feminists siding with the Conservatives in opposing the case to determine whether prostitution laws endanger and criminalize women unjustly. These are the feminists pushing for the 'Nordic model', based on Sweden's laws that criminalize clients and infantilize women by wanting to rescue them whether they want it or not because afterall feminists know what's best for them - and its obviously not prostitution, because of course, no woman wants to be a prostitute, of.course! Being told by sex workers that such laws in fact endanger them and marginalize them even more, doesn't change their conviction that their way.is best.
Unsurprisingly, if another feminist who does not share the same view or advocate the same approach as the abolitionists and radical feminists ever attempts to debate and bring up these and other arguments against their position, guess what response they very often receive? Yes, prostitutes who oppose their tactics and challenge their assumptions are told it is simply selfish of them to support a system that perpetuates patriarchy...blah..blah...
To them, it is by eliminating prostitution that we will achieve the end of patriarchy, sexism, inequality and so on. Not what seems far more logical, that is, if prostitution is truly a symptom of patriarchy, then elimimating patriarchy and the resulting inequality would necessarily eliminate prostitution automatically. Approaching it the other way around really doesn't achieve more than superficial suppression of what is,.according to them, a symptom. It doesnt actually change anything about the root cause, which is their main target, patriarchy. But that's not how they see things and if you disagree, to them, you are selfishly throwing all of womankind under the bus. Sounds awfully familiar.
To me, your 'we know best, Muslim women need and want us to rescue them - how could they not? Of course they want what 'we' have - how could they not?' sounds exactly the same to me. It says 'I don't need to ask Muslim women (or sex workers) what THEY think, what THEY want/need or whether our assumptions are correct because we cannot imagine it would differ from what WE believe. If that were the case, how can we believe they know what's truly best for them and most because its unthinkable that it might be anything other than exactly what I have!!!!'
It is presumptuous, patronizing and it is in fact this approach that is actually most selfish.
And that is what I've had in mind when I've read each of your comments about that. You are using 'Muslim women' to justify your prejudice and but your refusal to listen to and lack of concern for what these women might actually want for themselves - or your belief that they can't think or speak for themselves betrays the true intentions whenever anyone pull the 'we need to save these poor Muslim women' while clearly seeing them as dumb children in need of superior 'Western' women (or men) to come in and liberate them into being just like us. I don't think its done deliberately or that anyone necessarily does this consciously but that doesn't change the bottom line, which is that this is more about 'us' than about 'the Muslim women'.
I just wanted to.bring up a different perspective I don't think you were aware of. Take it or leave it - your choice, obviously.
Ok this is getting really ridiculous now...
Sigh.
Really?
Do you just jump on the bandwagon anytime an easy explanation is presented to you? Everything just happens in a vacuum?
Do I need to find all the misogynist passages in the Bible and Torah? Guess what? They're all misogynist. All of them. And also, they were all 'written' over 1000 years ago. Wanna guess just how.different life was back then or just how.many beliefs that were perfectly normal then but are now appalling? Quite a few.
Have you ever heard of the Christians who believe in 'training' their children by ways of corporal punishment, food or water deprivation. Does that mean all Christians are sick fucks who believe in torturing their children to train them out of being children? Hm no.
Are Mormons all pedophiles and polygamist abusers? Hm no.
How many times do you want me to repeat it? Your focusing on a SMALL portion of 1.6 billion individuals and this is supposed to be proof? Of what? That some people pervert religion for evil, that some people believe appalling things because they insist on taking 1000+ year old fairy tales word for word, literally even when someone with the tiniest amount of common sense would at least take that craziness with a grain of salt and adjust to the times while keeping the main lessons....kind of like the vast majority of Muslims, Christians and Jews have no problem doing?
Countries that have known decades of war, oppressive regimes, poverty resulting in widespread illiteracy have different obstacles than others who'be been living it up, getting fat and rich and arrogant from others' resources don't have. That means a lot of pretty obvious things, such as feelings of powerlessness. Powerless people tend to react by exerting power over whomever they can. That means domestic violence is KNOWN to be far.more prevalent in war torn countries, poor countries, people ruled by oppressive regimes. It doesn't matter what religion they happen to follows, that's a human reaction.
Poor and powerless people spend their energy trying to survive and keep their children and family alive. Eating today trumps getting educated. And if you have no money to eat, its doubtful you have any to study. Uneducated and illiterate people can be convinced of a lot of things and arent very likely to question what they're told. How would they anyway, if they can't read or don't have access to any information that might contradict what they're taught?
It really wasn't that long ago that the Catholic church had power over peoples lives. Obviously there are still a lot of people who are still very controlled by their religious leaders. Who seem to have regressed and advocate backwards things. And they can easily access all kinds of sources to dispute the nonsense they're taught.
I really doubt we can ever come to any agreement because you're intent on turning examples into some kind of general rule when the same could be done for any religion. And you're intent on ignoring the majority that doesn't fit into your example. Plus you're intent on pretending everything just happens in a vacuum so it must mean its the religion that is to blame, so no need to dig deeper or consider anything else. Like I said, you have every right to do whatever you want, but quit pretending it somehow qualifies as a credible,.valid.argument - it doesnt, sorry.
And while you're wasting time obsessing over how evil Islam is and getting all paranoid about being invaded by some beheading Muslim brutes, I'm much more interested in learning about things that are actually going to explain the why, who, when and how come of things happening in the world. I don't have any interest in boogeyman stories or conspiracies so I guess we'll have to accept that we definitely will not agree on this. You enjoy your boogeyman stories and ill enjoy learning more about actual people, cultures, war, violence, imperialism and all the fascinating real life things that replace the boogeyman stories around the campfire. That's probably the best thing we can do at this point because you're just recycling the same point over and over again and I'm not interested in more repeating myself again.
Cheers.
Sigh.
Really?
Do you just jump on the bandwagon anytime an easy explanation is presented to you? Everything just happens in a vacuum?
Do I need to find all the misogynist passages in the Bible and Torah? Guess what? They're all misogynist. All of them. And also, they were all 'written' over 1000 years ago. Wanna guess just how.different life was back then or just how.many beliefs that were perfectly normal then but are now appalling? Quite a few.
Have you ever heard of the Christians who believe in 'training' their children by ways of corporal punishment, food or water deprivation. Does that mean all Christians are sick fucks who believe in torturing their children to train them out of being children? Hm no.
Are Mormons all pedophiles and polygamist abusers? Hm no.
How many times do you want me to repeat it? Your focusing on a SMALL portion of 1.6 billion individuals and this is supposed to be proof? Of what? That some people pervert religion for evil, that some people believe appalling things because they insist on taking 1000+ year old fairy tales word for word, literally even when someone with the tiniest amount of common sense would at least take that craziness with a grain of salt and adjust to the times while keeping the main lessons....kind of like the vast majority of Muslims, Christians and Jews have no problem doing?
Countries that have known decades of war, oppressive regimes, poverty resulting in widespread illiteracy have different obstacles than others who'be been living it up, getting fat and rich and arrogant from others' resources don't have. That means a lot of pretty obvious things, such as feelings of powerlessness. Powerless people tend to react by exerting power over whomever they can. That means domestic violence is KNOWN to be far.more prevalent in war torn countries, poor countries, people ruled by oppressive regimes. It doesn't matter what religion they happen to follows, that's a human reaction.
Poor and powerless people spend their energy trying to survive and keep their children and family alive. Eating today trumps getting educated. And if you have no money to eat, its doubtful you have any to study. Uneducated and illiterate people can be convinced of a lot of things and arent very likely to question what they're told. How would they anyway, if they can't read or don't have access to any information that might contradict what they're taught?
It really wasn't that long ago that the Catholic church had power over peoples lives. Obviously there are still a lot of people who are still very controlled by their religious leaders. Who seem to have regressed and advocate backwards things. And they can easily access all kinds of sources to dispute the nonsense they're taught.
I really doubt we can ever come to any agreement because you're intent on turning examples into some kind of general rule when the same could be done for any religion. And you're intent on ignoring the majority that doesn't fit into your example. Plus you're intent on pretending everything just happens in a vacuum so it must mean its the religion that is to blame, so no need to dig deeper or consider anything else. Like I said, you have every right to do whatever you want, but quit pretending it somehow qualifies as a credible,.valid.argument - it doesnt, sorry.
And while you're wasting time obsessing over how evil Islam is and getting all paranoid about being invaded by some beheading Muslim brutes, I'm much more interested in learning about things that are actually going to explain the why, who, when and how come of things happening in the world. I don't have any interest in boogeyman stories or conspiracies so I guess we'll have to accept that we definitely will not agree on this. You enjoy your boogeyman stories and ill enjoy learning more about actual people, cultures, war, violence, imperialism and all the fascinating real life things that replace the boogeyman stories around the campfire. That's probably the best thing we can do at this point because you're just recycling the same point over and over again and I'm not interested in more repeating myself again.
Cheers.
Bijou, you're completely bonkers....I may be bigotted for not wanting this religious behavior in my country? Whether Christian, Jew or Islamic, Wiccan, Jedi or Rastafarian, it's all religious nonsense...I don't hate Persians, Arabs, Palestinians, etc. What I hate are the religious dogmatic practices that go along with doing it for 'god', or committing heinious acts in the name of culture, faith or what the voices in you're head are telling you to do. Religion is a poison, killing the infidel, cleric santioned insanity.....it's a sickness, a perversion and inhumane....whether it's ritual circumsizing your male children, your females too...
It's not a progressive, civilized way of living...where's the love? ARe you saying that I'm being bigotted because I don't accept their ways as being just as good as ours? That's fucking insane as well...it's barbarism. And if you can't see that, then you are truly a very naive young idealistic girl who doesn't get how the world works beyond her computer screen. You really believe the crap you're being spoonfed, that we ought to accept their way of living? Of how they do things? Fuck no.
W
westcoast555
Since you like links so much...
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/17/w...-are-the-criminals.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/20/world/meast/iran-hijab-fisticuffs/index.html?hpt=hp_t3
http://theahafoundation.org/
http://www.barenakedislam.com/2012/...ill-have-to-be-killed-for-shaming-the-family/
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Quran/002-rape_adultery.htm
Bijou, try this on for size......you keep going on about how the billions do not reflect the millions. All of Islam should not be painted with the same brush because of the actions of a few etc........................So explain, why is it that all Germans, including those not even born at the time are being held responsible for the Holocaust ? Most of the German population at the time didn't even know it was going on, and those that did had their own ass to cover. Today, with communications being what they are not many Muslims can say they don't know about stoning, beheading and the like, but do they do anything about it ? No, they have their own ass to cover. Let's take a good look at what's coming out of the woodwork as the dictator 's fall. Let's face it, if you were living next to an HA clubhouse, would you go out and kick over their bikes because you don't like the noise they make ?
W
westcoast555
I enjoyed this because Ayan Hirsi Ali is a highly intelligent woman with great moral courage and she also KNOWS OF WHAT SHE SPEAKS.. which is not something you can say of pampered liberal elites who don't have a clue about what the rest of the world is really like and have been marinading in a bizarre left-wing narrative that takes freedom for granted and elevates any culture other than those of the Western world due to self-loathing.
