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The Forum > Article Comments > It’s time to come clean on Muslims and the west > Comments

It’s time to come clean on Muslims and the west : Comments

By Mohamad Tabbaa, published 26/9/2012

So many people, on all sides, have unanswered questions and are experiencing feelings of anger, confusion, anxiety and frustration.

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"What are Moslems so angry about?" Let's see a list of Moslems' grievances.

"....and what exactly is making the public so anxious?"...That's easy, Islam.
Posted by mac, Wednesday, 26 September 2012 10:30:15 AM
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<<Leaders on all sides have been articulately playing down the genuine tensions and anxieties which exist between different communities in an attempt to maintain an image of social cohesion and harmony. This has not worked>>

What an indictment of our multicultural and immigration programs,ay.

<<The questions which have emerged from recent events are serious and require genuine consideration. Rather than denying the obvious, we need to ask: what are Muslims so angry about?; why have Muslims chosen to express themselves in this manner?; and what exactly is making the public so anxious?>>

And I notice that Mohamad does not use the qualifies the PC crowd always insist on “some” or "a few"--It's "Muslims [are] angry"
Posted by SPQR, Wednesday, 26 September 2012 10:46:00 AM
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A respected psychiatrist put it well ‘our family owned a number of large industries and estates. When asked how many German people were true Nazis, he responded 'Very few people were true Nazis, but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. I just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, My family lost everything.'

We are told again and again by 'experts' and 'talking heads' that Islam is the religion of peace, the vast majority of Muslims want to live in peace. Although this assertion may be true, it is irrelevant. It is meaningless, meant to diminish the spectre of fanatics rampaging in the name of Islam.

The fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history. It is the fanatics who march, who slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent. It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honour-kill, taking over mosque after mosque and who zealously stone and hang rape victims and homosexuals.

The hard, quantifiable fact is that the peaceful majority, the 'silent majority,' is cowed and extraneous. Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in peace, the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant. China's huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill 70 million people.

History lessons are incredibly simple and blunt, yet we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points: peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence.

Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy because they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them.

Millions of the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late.

As for us who watch it all unfold, we must pay attention to the only group that counts ‘the fanatics who threaten our way of life’.
Posted by Geoff of Perth, Wednesday, 26 September 2012 11:47:25 AM
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Well said Geoff.
Posted by cohenite, Wednesday, 26 September 2012 11:57:18 AM
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Quoting Mohamed: "If, however, it had simply been explained to the public that here were a bunch of youth who are angry at certain governments – and not the public – for carrying out oppressive policies, the anxiety would have likely subsided."

If that were the case, why would the howling wannabe putschists not have identified the oppressive policies they were supposedly angry at, rather than demanding sanctions for insulting their "prophet"? Mohamed's call for discussion omits discussion of the right to unbelief, apostasy, blasphemy, impiety - the rights Islam doesn't recognise and which it withdraws wherever it has the power to do so?

Geoff of Perth has it right -- it is the street bullies (temporarily shushed in Australia by the imams), and the rulers of Islamic countries, that speak for Islam.

If Mohamed seeks a reasoned discussion, how about a reasoned discussion of Islam and the freedom to dissent? It could include a discussion of whether a condition for admittance of foreigners to Australia should be firm commitment to freedom for dissent, since this is the freedom which the street demonstrators speaking for Islam reject.

(Of course freedom for dissent can't be confused with immunity for dissenting voices from challenge to the content of what they say).
Posted by EmperorJulian, Wednesday, 26 September 2012 12:22:05 PM
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I follow with interest the current debate re Islam and 'the West' My current reading may be a bit insufficient, but as I understand it, the Q'ran is a collection of sayings/teachings which grew over the time of Muhammed's life. Therefore some of his teachings vary according to circumstances. Likewise, there are the Hadiths which are non- Q'ranic teachings of the Prophet. Within all of these there are different 'strands' one can follow, and some can be/have been used to justify particular Islamic treatments of non-believers (i.e. those who have not made submission to the teachings of the Prophet) From what I understand, the non-Muslim is always in an inferior position, even when they have sought protection from the Muslim conqueror and can maintain their religious practises(dhimmitude?)'under protection.'
If this understanding is correct, there does seem to lie within Islam the seeds of a particular 'them/us' dichotomy. Sometimes this is much harsher than others, depending upon the country, rulers, etc. While a lot of talk occurs about the various meanings of 'jihad' perhaps a more open discussion would be helpful concerning the internal dichotomy which exists in Islamic teaching regarding 'the other' the non-Muslim, etc?
We Westerners who function in a privatised and individualistic world where beliefs are concerned often cannot make sense of a system of understanding in which the personal and the communal are so interconnected via a religious system. For the West, the last vestiges of this existed in the Mediaeval through to the Pre-Modern world following the Reformation and development of nation states.
Anyway, some helpful comment, rather than diatribe, would be good.

DBGP
Posted by DBGP, Wednesday, 26 September 2012 12:41:50 PM
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