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E-PrinceLast week’s terrorist attacks in Mumbai have hit close to home for several Indian students at the University and have generated discussion throughought the community.
“I have friends that had both of their parents killed in the attacks,” Mumbai ...
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"University Coordinator for Muslim life Sohaib Sultan noted in an e-mail that the terrorists, if they were Muslim, have acted against Islamic teaching.
“The terrorists may have acted in the name of Islam, but Islam is completely opposed to murder, spreading of fear, and vigilantism,” Sultan explained."
-- Right.
woa... generalized anti-Islamic statements so soon!? Many of the victims of this attack WERE Muslim and one must differentiate between radical Islam (that is anti-West and uses terror tactics) and a very peaceful modern Islam (that is just as level-headed and respectful of any Christian faith, if not more than many...) Look at many modern Turkish muslims for example... Please don't degenerate this dialogue down to the extreme practices of some sects of Islam.
"Please don't degenerate this dialogue down to the extreme practices of some sects of Islam."
Even if they do, what of it? If someone agrees with "extreme" muslim practices, yet doesn't partake in them (which is probably common), what course of action is to be taken by these critics and rooters-out of extremism?
“The terrorists may have acted in the name of Islam, but Islam is completely opposed to murder, spreading of fear, and vigilantism,” Sultan explained."
1. A Muslim may well believe this, but unless you actually think a Bible or a Koran etc actually represents insights from the architect of the cosmos, the idea that a culture from the seventh century somehow, uniquely among all human civilizations, managed to come up with a Star Trek style utterly peaceful religious document, is silly on the face of it. All religions have their peaceful and warlike elements, and acting like your religion has only the one is a bit off. Which brings me to
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
India is a nation of about a billion people. The "demands" of the group claiming responsibility, the Deccan Muhajideen, were for the entire Indian subcontinent to be put under Islamic rule and Sharia Law. It was not of course, a serious demand. The purpose of the attack was not hostage-trading, or publicity for demands. Or even killing to achieve a political objective from the target, i.e. "negotiations" or giving in to demands that did not require great sacrifices from the target. No, the killing was all about raising an exile army. Liberals consistently ask "Why do they hate us?" and Conservatives answers are often "They hate us for our freedoms." Neither provide a good answer for why Bombay's atrocities took place. It is not about us, it is about them.
As amply documented in Lawrence Wright's "The Looming Tower," the goal of both Al-Zawhari and Bin Laden was to create an exile Army. An exile Army capable of overthrowing the regimes of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, where each could then rule his native land. This is the big flaw of Islam, in that there is no other path to power in Islamic societies except sitting out in exile somewhere, and organizing a coup, or assassinations of the leaders. There are no peaceful paths to power, by political organizing, as there is in the West. There is no accommodations, for powerful forces, as there is in say, China or Japan, in a more consensus-driven environment (and ruthless suppression of those who do not cooperate). Thus, Islamic society, heavily influenced by it's polygamy and "Big Man" society, with a chief who runs everything and owns everything, and everyone else below, predictably creates these exile forces. Algeria is plagued by the GIA and GSPC, Egypt by Islamic Jihad, Saudi Arabia by Al Qaeda, Morocco by Al Qaeda, Indonesia by the Jemaah Islamiyah, and so on. Pakistan is the worst, with an alphabet soup of terrorist groups, all fighting for influence and power. Each group is hoping to overthrow the current regimes, using Islam as a lever (and the convenient tactic of labeling the current regime as "infidel") and assembling it's own exile Army and group of supporters inside the nation.
Simply put, these men want power. The power of the ruler. They aim to get it. And the way they get it is by demonstrating they are winners.