Calling for Muslim outrage

EXPERIMENTS IN POLITICAL SCIENCE ARE DIFFICULT, BUT PAKISTAN & INDIA ARE A RARE EXAMPLE. People of the same DNA and genes that share common languages, rituals, and cultures (e.g. Punjabi, Sindhi, etc..) are separated by religion. In just 60 years, there have been clear results. India (based on Hinduism and Vedanta) is a tolerant, pluralistic, vibrant, nonaggressive democracy. Progress is seen in politics, economics, education, etc… India has had Presidents who are Muslim, Hindu, Dalit, female; Prime ministers who are Sikh, Hindu, female; Defense ministers who are Christian, Hindu, Sikh; powerful politicians are even Italian Catholics like Sonia Gandhi. More progress needs to made in many places in Indian society, but even in America Blacks had very limited rights till the 1960’s and now Obama is president. Tolerant peaceful societies make progress.
In contrast, Pakistan has become an increasingly intolerant and violent society. Pakistan used to have 40% Hindus, and now it is only 1%. The culture of Hindus of tolerance and peacefulness has made even Muslims in India relatively peaceful when compared with dominantly Islamic nations.

Pakistanis have no common identity – except hatred of India. The members of this society do not feel a common bond, which is necessary to make progress. All that is left is a false sense of unity and statehood, which has promoted Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism. And this is a recipe for disaster

The shamelessness has reached it's nadir! Actually this is well-known in the Indian community but good that every one else is recognising their shamelessness!

Pakistanis pose as Indians after NY bomb scare
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64655Y20100507

Hello David.

It is interesting to read your views about all the happenings concerning Muslims, but I beg to differ on some of the things you're saying. I happen to know that the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in Islam has continuously been condemning the incidents that have been occurring resulting in everyone questioning the image of Islam. Some of them are posted here if you would care to look:

http://www.lajnausa.net/web/node/188
http://www.mkausa.org/Table/Media/

We do believe in freedom but we won't take to the streets and riot just to get it, we will fight through the pen as the founder of our community, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad has taught us. We as Ahmadi Muslims believe that he is the Promised Reformer of the age, and if you read some of his books, you will see that he teaches us to live through peace, and condemned these kinds of terrorist acts even then when he was alive in the early 1900s.

So there is quite a lot being done on our part, but in a peaceful manner. You can find out more about our community at www.alislam.org

Rabbi,

Again, I want to thank you for your excellent essay. I emailed it to my closest friend, a Pakistani national, who is a political economist, acclaimed internationally, archived at the seven sister colleges, etc.

She assigned it to her students along with some other articles dealing with related themes and development.

I'm anxious to learn how this assignment goes.

Would you please explain how you happen to know what the vast silent majority of Muslims are thinking? Do you speak Arabic? Maybe you are reading Arabic language sources or blogging in Arabic-Who knows! If you can't read Arabic or Urdo or Bahasa Indonesia than you should re-evaluate your claim. I can't speak for any Muslim except myself and you should confine yourself to speaking for you.

Some questions omitted by Muslim1908, an oversight, no doubt:

Why doesn't the burden fall on the Americans who are tolerating the well-documented deportations and murders of Middle Eastern Jews and Christians?

Why are Americans tolerating the exile of three million Middle Eastern Jews, the theft of our property?

Why are Americans tolerating pogroms against Christians in Egypt, attacks against the Christians and B'hai in Iran and Iraq?

Why are Americans tolerating the slavery of the untouchables, mainly Christians and Hindus in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and elsewhere?

Why are Americans tolerating the spread of anti-Jewish and anti-Christian racism throughout the Middle East? By government owned newspapers and television, in films, etc.?

Why are Americans tolerating Nazi style curriculum in the textbooks of children attending schools in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, etc.?

Why are Americans tolerating gun-running by the Pakistani army in Kashmir?

Why are Americans tolerating the murder of the young Yemeni rabbi, the Islamist lunatics who ravaged Yemeni Jewish communities shrieking "Convert or die," the subsequent loss of the ancient Yemeni Jewish community, etc.?

All of the foregoing is well documented.

This is a short list. I could go on, at length.

"The burden falls on governments that succumb, and especially upon the millions and millions of moderate Muslims who do not take to the streets."

Why should we have to condemn every lunatic touted by the media in a controversy you yourself know is manufactured for ratings?

Why doesn't the "burden" likewise fall upon the "millions of moderate" Americans who are not "marching in the streets" because of the well-documented slaughter and state terrorism perpetrated by the US and Israeli governments?

Rabbi Wolpe,

I congratulate you on an excellent, careful, reflective analysis.

The simple facts are as you say. This entire South Park nonesense is a media creation, exploited here by Quinn and Meacham. No MUslims, and they include many family and friends, gave a second thought to this.

Further, there are many observant Muslims who deplore the reactions that representations to Mohammad engender within some fanatics. It should be added that the DAnish cartoon crisis was engineered by two foreign Islamic political rivals to advance their own interests. It was not until their vicious incitement that violence ensued.

That said, we, here in the United States, live in a society where satire, some of it tasteless and offensive is tolerated. Those who live here must abide by the rules.

Judaism condemns images, idols--idolatry. Yet, throughout the Justice Department there are statues of MOses. OF MOSES, the great prohibitor of idols.

Shall Jews gather to smash the idols in the Justice Department as Abraham did those of his father?

I don't like the statues. There are other things I really dislike about the freedoms that many, including some Muslims, take with Judaism and with re-presenting Jews. For that matter, I didn't approve of the controversial painting of Mary in the Brooklyn Museum any more than did an enormous number of Catholics.

We disapproved. And that was that. We disapproved, and we moved (quickly) on.

Islamist imperialists such as Muslim 1908 who repeats much the same blather on thread after thread would be wise to take note of the forgoing.
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As for the burqa, I have nothing to add to what you have posted. Exposure of the face is as much the norm in the United States as covering one's naked body when in public.

Burkas have nothing to do with the Quoran. They represent oppression. On the day that Muslim men wear burqas, I will be happy to hear their opinions.

Until that time, the matter is best left to women to address.

David Wolpe

You wrote, "We are engaged, all of us, in a serious civilizational struggle. It is sometimes thoughtlessly, foolishly, called Islam against the west. It is not."

Ever heard of "sharia law"?

As someone has said before, "Those that exchange their freedom for security will one day wake up with neither".

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

By the way, it is very dishonest to complain that Muslims aren't condemning terrorism when you have not done even basic research.

A simple google search proves you wrong:

http://articles.latimes.com/2008/mar/15/world/fg-islamic15

www.muhajabah.com/otherscondemn.php

www.ammanmessage.com

www.acommonword.com

Perhaps a a simple google search was too much work before passing sweeping false judgments on Muslim communities!

"Rather, significant elements of religious fundamentalism, overwhelmingly in the Islamic world, are pitted against cherished western institutions and values."

This is dishonest. Jewish and Christian Zionist fundamentalism is just as threatening to pluralism, tolerance, and freedom.

"Where are the mass protests against the barbarization of their own creed?"

Muslims have overwhelmingly condemned terrorism and extremism. You and the media just choose to ignore them.

This article repeats, without evidence or poll numbers, a number of tired and already debunked talking points. I can only assume the purpose is to shift blame away from imperial Western policies and instead to blame the colonized Muslim victims.

For a better analysis of this issue, I recommend the Huffington Post:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-fredericks/failed-time-square-bombin_b_562041.html