Fight against Hatred, terrorism will go away!

I am horrified with this recent event of bombing in London. My short memory of this extraordinary city makes this even more painful. However the sorrow is not only for the death tool but also for the unfortunate situation of increase in religious and ethnic based hatred in Europe. Masoud Behnoud who is by far one of the best ever known Iranian intellectuals who lives in London, sent in this report describing what he has seen in London in his Persian blog and among his words he is mentioning harsh confrontation of public opinion against middle-eastern individuals around. I think the analogy is wrong in the first place. They are not extremist just because they are Islamic but because they are misusing religious orders and brainwash people to obey their cruel ideologies as if they are orders from God!

I live in a country where religion is truly imposed by the government and I can feel to some extend how this ideology works and how in a radical way, it can persuade some people to blow themselves to kill others. Let me express my opinion on this:

I think human ability for survival in the world has come firstly with the ability to adapt with changes. Our system of life crushes when we fail coping with our surroundings. What I can see around, tells me that there are some people of faith who truly believe that the exact orders given by the time of the prophet Mohammad can be applied exactly to the year 2005. This is very unfortunate but when you get to believe that you are following the way of the last prophet, then you come to conclusion that any one who is in war with you, shall be like those who fought him. By that time, early Muslims used to do lots of sacrifices to make Islam grow and to remove the cruel discrimination imposed by rich Arabs of Mecca. They called this effort “Jihad” and those who got killed in it, would have gone straight to the heavens as they believed. Those days, Jihad was a manifestation of struggle for freedom against the dark ages of ignorance on human soul.

Islam is transformed now and sometimes I see that this faith is translated as absolute truth that is to be obeyed with no or little compromise. These people are not many but unfortunate thing is that the wrong impression they make is a big stride in a wrong way that deteriorated the status of misunderstanding and divergence within human society.

One should not also forget the fact that this idea cannot be fought in a war and I think the fact that we see these bombings now in London, some years after 9/11 since the war against terror began, can provide an alert for the world leaders that “Culture of hatred” should be tuned with “Culture of tolerance”. The basis for this idea comes from the humble opinion of mine presented above. The extremists when they talk to followers tell them about the cruel west, the bombings in Baghdad and demolition of houses in Palestine. The ban of Islamic covering in France and killing of what they call it “Muslim brothers” in Afghanistan and then it comes to ideology that west is to wipe out Islam and it is duty from God for them to make westerners what their “Muslim brothers” feel at home. From my experience in Iran I can feel that when you make something “holy religious” it becomes hard to criticize it and so it is for the intellectuals of Islamic world to do this.

This hatred when it gets mixed with the same kind of approach from Christian extremists makes the situation even more complicated.

Every human life is precious and for protecting some, there is no need to jeopardize the lives of others. This is condemned, unacceptable and away from any logic no matter what tool they use to implement it, a Little Boy over Hiroshima or a horrific bomb near Big Ben. Peace.   

Comments

[kl]

Very nicely written, Mr. Behi. But, I should say that the media (especially the visual media - TV) should also work along with the government. All these visual news media, both in the West and other countries - they present certain news clips in such a way as if only that news/ideas are uphold by each and every citizen of that country. This is always always..wrong. I don't know why those media do such things. Ok, it's understood that sometimes those media are under government control and they've to do whatever the government proposes; but then why those media that are not under government behaves in similar way? So, I think all these news media/government should come together and take a pledge of not showing any false reports/false propagandas on media; of not teaching anything false to school children that might create hatred anf false beliefs among them.

[Hawkpilot]

Well said, Mr. Behi. I heard an interesting thought today, an Islamic expert on the radio said that the primary war going on here is one between these fundamentalist Islamists, and the more moderate Islamic people of the world. His theory is that Al Quaeda is attacking western interests mostly to divide Islam and force people into their own camp. This has the ring of truth to it, at least in part. Christianity and Judaism both underwent a Reformation to bring their philosophy in line with the modern world. Islam, or at least this version of it, never did. Now these people are trying to drag the average Muslim back to the 7th Century by causing people like me to hate people like you.
Let's not cooperate.
Hawkpilot
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Mr. Behi says: Perfect thought Sir, I Salute you!

[Alborz]

a warning by america was that muslim societies in europe are used to recruit terrorists. well this might be true, but its clearly an attack on muslims, the us administration has mastered spreading hatred against islam by using alqada as reference.

[gmspencer]

Dear Sir,
If the terrorists are not the incarnation of "true Islam" what is? Why is it that "true Muslims" have not been willing to give their lives for the honor of "true Islam?" Why haven't we heard of one, single, "true Muslim" who has infiltrated a terrorist cell, OBL or Zarquwia's hole and blown himself up along with the terrorists for the honor of "true Islam?" And, by the way, the "Christian extremists" you refer to don't kill babies. If you can't see the difference and stop trying to spread the blame around - our hope sags!
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Mr.Behi says: That is because those radicals are in minority but what they do makes news! This is not the matter of True or Wrong Muslim or Christian. A killer can be anything but they are playing this game to increase the instability among people of the world. They try to recruite people who have suffered from poverty, injustice and war. I meant that if west want to remove that basis for terrorist activity, it should try to spread human rights in the Islamic world in true shape and I think war and bloodshed just gives more clue for more bloodshed. It is easy to brainwash a 19 year old who lost his family in Iraq by a US bomb to blow himslef up somewhere because he has nothing to loose and terrorist organizations give him the revenge! Healing the pain will make terrorists alone. We are all concerned. I am not defending Islam as I am not really obaying it. It is about human lives and you just need to be human to care for it regardless of the way you look at it I meant that referring to Muslims can just make more opportunity for terrorists because they can claim that west hates Islam so let's hate west! That is so wrong!

[La Bona]

Rumor has it Osama bin Laden is a Jew! and whole holy war thing is nothing but a plot to render Muslims chattel slavery ...

[gmspencer]

Dear Sir,
The evidence does not support your assertion that the basis for terriorism is "poverty, injustice, and war." The facts do not bear this out. No, it seems that the real basis of terrorism is in fact Islamic teaching itself. Most of the new recuites of terrorism are well educated and often middle class boys. I don't understand why we don't take them at their word when they say they are motivated purely by their religion. Please take a look at this well documented paper on the recuitement of college kids for terror. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1688261,00.html
Thank you.
gmspencer

[Daisy]

What is it about Muslims that makes it impossible for you to take ANY responsibility for yourselves? Could it be that Islam's demand for complete submission cancels out any ability for reflective thinking? Could it be that Mr. Mohammed was a fraud (to say the very least)?

Name ONE other founder of a religion who was a murderer and a thief (not to mention pedophile?) Islam is worse than bogus and now more and more civilized people know it.

Stop demanding equal attention. You actually do not deserve it.

Topple your own damned dictators and leave the rest of us alone.

[La Bona]

In the name of justice, I am obliged to help to disseminate story of a religious persecution ... My apologies for irrelevance.

Breaking News!
Barbaric persecution of an apostate …

The Malaysian authorities are persecuting an ex-Muslim fondly known as Ayah Pin and flattened">http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2005/8/1/nation/11646196&sec=nation%E2%80%9D">flattened his religious commune dubbed as Sky Kingdom, which is a quasi-religious commune located in north east Malaysian.

Once Muslim, Forever Slave!
Ayah Pin has publicly renounced his Islamic faith in 1998 but was REJECTED by the state (NB: Apostasy is a capital crime is Malaysia punishable by DEATH!)

The Persecution
In 2001, the Malaysian authorities jailed Ayah Pin for 11 months for attempting to renounce Islam. He is viewed as a security threat and they continue to harass him with all sorts of uncivilized threats befitting the low-life including smashing up the lovely giant teapot and flattening the commune, which they just did yesterday!

Prior to the destruction yesterday, the authorities raided the commune in July, 2005 and detained 45 faithful including a Kiwi, senior citizens and among others, 3 children of Ayah Pin and his 3 wives. I read somewhere; there are kids left behind unattended in commune and while some faithful have to pawn all they have to bail themselves out, the rest are still in custody.

Their crime: Being unIslamic!

As if the arrest was not good enough, mobs made up of some 35 unidentified assailants armed with Molotov cocktails attacked the commune and set the place ablaze …. Assailants attack Ayah Pin's commune with Molotov cocktails! ... I supposed mobs and Molotov cocktails are Islamic.

If you have a comment, please do not hesitate to email me at divinetalk@gamil.com. Alternately, you are welcome to do so at the forum (http://divinetalk.blogspot.com/2005/07/islam-persecution-i.html)

[melissa]

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[tyler]

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