"The Imaginary Terror"

[I think not]

A poem appearing on the opinion page of today's Al-Hayat Al-Jadida gives insight into the Palestinian Authority worldview. The blaming of Arab Muslims for Islamic terrorism, from Bin Laden to Al-Zarqawi in Iraq, is described as a fantasy invented by "occupation forces" to "justify war and disasters."

The poet's questioning the existence of Bin Laden is consistent with a Palestinian denial of Arab Muslim responsibility for the World Trade Center Attacks. A 2003 public opinion poll revealed that only 46% of Palestinians believed that Bin Laden was responsible for the attacks against the US on September 11, 2001. Twenty-six per cent felt that Israel was behind the attacks.

This refusal to acknowledge Muslim responsibility for Islamic terror is not unique to Palestinian society. A popular music video from Egypt, which you can view by clicking here, shows an animated cartoon image of Ariel Sharon pushing the button that sent the terrorists' planes crashing into the World Trade Center. This music video is exceedingly popular throughout the Arab world, and appears regularly on Arab satellite TV.

Today's poem denies the existence of Arab-Muslim terror, and claims it is the West's justification for its wars against Arabs.

The following is the translation:

"The Imaginary Terror"

"Who can testify that Bin Laden still exists?
Who saw Al-Zarqawi and can swear that he exists?
The fairytales remind us of the tales of the hyena and the demon -
Legends fabricated by elderly men on dark nights.

He who resists throughout Iraq is Al-Zarqawi
He who fights on the lands of Palestine is a weak terrorist
This is a fantasy that was made by the forces of occupation
To justify war and disasters."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, January 16, 2006]

Poll conducted among Palestinians by Palestinian Center for Public Opinion, September 2003. Full results of the poll, which compares views of Israeli Jews, Israeli Arabs and Palestinians, can be seen here.

Who do you believe planned the 9/11 attacks against the United States?

Osama Bin Laden 46%
Saddam Hussein 4%
United States 6%
Israel 26%
Someone else 1%
Don't know 18%

http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=20930

 

[cyberclark]

I think it a a poem to drive the western politic nuts!

Islam is a sweet idea! Think of it!

No political leaders to vote in. Not harboured by borders or even continents. What happens to one islamic person on one corner of this planet effects the thinking of other islamics on the opposite side of the world!

They do not have to dress the same, speak the same languages or be of the same race. Yet, they are a very major polical force world wide.

Wow!

 

[Citizen]

Islam is a sweet idea! Think of it!

No political leaders to vote in. Not harboured by borders or even continents. What happens to one islamic person on one corner of this planet effects the thinking of other islamics on the opposite side of the world!

That's absolute rubbish.


In any event, I think bin Laden is dead and that the CIA are manufacturing these tapes.

 

[Jersay]

Out of all the cultures and religions besides my own religion, Islam is an extremely interesting religion and culture that is extremely complex and interesting to learn about.

Besides my own of course.

 

[Graciously Yours]

RE: "The Imaginary Terror

Islam is a great religon, and shouldn't be tarnished by those that weld propaganda, regardless which side it comes from. Islam, from what I have read on it is very rich and deep with historical significance.

I find it tragic that something that could be so benifical to humanity can be downtrodden on so heavily from those same fanatical religous people that claim that Islam is full of fanatics. To be sure they have their fair share, but short of Buddhism, no "major" religon(including consumerism) can claim a moral superiority. IMO.

 

[Dexter Sinister]

Re: RE: "The Imaginary Terror

... short of Buddhism, no "major" religon(including consumerism) can claim a moral superiority. IMO.

Wouldn't happen to be a Buddhist yourself, would you? What is it about Buddhism that, as you clearly imply, allows it to claim a moral superiority no other belief system can?

 

[Graciously Yours]

RE: "The Imaginary Terror

Nope, not buddhist at all allthough I admire them deeply - I guess I admire all faiths to varying levels. I say that about the buddhists, simply because IMO they have never really went on a crusade, they never try to force people to their way of thinking, and it has a scientific, relatively, aspect to it. It is very much like medicine in the approach to the problems of the world.

Can't say that about the Hindi's, Christians, Jews, Islam, or just about any religon I can think of. Am I missing one?

For myself, I can't really say I belong to any. I see aspects of "my truth" in all of them, so I am respectful towards all(or rather I try to be LOL)and try to learn the lessons from each.

If, you don't mind me asking, your religon is?

 

[Dexter Sinister]

Re: RE: "The Imaginary Terror

If, you don't mind me asking, your religon is?

No, I don't mind you asking. I have no religion; I'm an atheist. All the religious belief systems I've investigated in any detail--that includes Roman Catholicism, Anglicanism and assorted other Protestant sects, Islam, Judaism, and Ba'haism--strike me as, to put it gently, absolute nonsense with no basis in reality.

I understand there's some debate about whether Buddhism should properly be called a religion or a philosophy. There doesn't seem to be anything in Buddhism a theist could identify as a god or gods, which to most people would be a defining characteristic of a religion. Buddhism I agree has much to recommend it to a thoughtful person. The Four Noble Truths and The Eightfold Way look like a pretty reasonable approach to being a decent person, though it's often far from clear what Right Thought, Right Speech, Right Understanding (interestingly, 20th century Marxists used some very similar phrases in their rhetoric), and the other tenets of the Way actually mean. Nor is it clear how to get there. But I suppose if it were easy any bozo could do it without even breathing hard :wink: and that's not what it's about.

I have some trouble reconciling Buddhism's claims about itself with some historical facts. Cambodia, home for a long time to one of the bloodiest and nastiest regimes of the 20th century, is 93% Buddhist, according to Wikipedia. Japan, possibly the most aggressive and warlike nation of the first half of the 20th century, is 71% Buddhist. If those numbers are right, there should have been a huge and powerful objection to what those governments were doing, that would have stopped it. I suppose the obvious response is that most of those people are only nominally Buddhist, much as most people in this country are nominally Christian, i.e. they haven't really thought deeply about what it really means and how it should affect their behaviour.

I do ramble on sometimes, and this is very interesting to me but it's all a little off the topic of imaginary terror and the misperceptions of people in Islamic states the OP talked about.

Sorry about the hijack here ITN, this wasn't where you were going and your OP posed some issues I need to think about a bit before commenting in detail. I've spent some time in Egypt on professional assignments, and read the English-language press available there. I was appalled by the views expressed editorially and by various columnists I was told (by the Egyptians I was working with) were reputable and respected. It was approximately as disgusting as if Margaret Wente in the Globe&Mail wrote about how Jews use the blood of murdered gentile children to make the special foods for their Seder meals. And actually, that was one of the claims seriously advanced by more than one of them, more than once.

It's absolutely repulsive what can happen in a place where there's not even a semblance of free news media. I freely agree that all news media are biased, but dammit, at least here we have a chance of finding out what the truth really is. I have high hopes for Al Jazeera.

 

[jimmoyer]

Sinister means Left and Dexter means Right ?
I forget.

Great handle.
And you have some good stories to tell.
Been fun reading some of your stuff.

Now about that atheism you caught.

It's never been too important or meaningful to me
to affirm no belief in God or to affirm a belief in God.

Both ways of thought share a similarity in a false logic,
with a further similarity of being an uprovable matter
either way

And both atheism and deistic religion really make
the believer announce his belief, unprovable as it is
either way.

I can't even say I'm an agnostic, because such a
label doesn't describe my preference for not resolving
this mystery.

It just keeps me open to the beauty of thinking
in all of those belief systems, atheism being one of
them.

And I guess I went along with hijacking the original
premise of this thread.

So herewith seconding the motion Dexter Sinister
said of al Jazeera. It means "The Island" and truly it is.

There's another island too, www.radiodilja.com.

It's Bagdad Radio. Google dilja (means the Tigris River)
and you'll find something else 'THEY are listening to.

 

[Dexter Sinister]

Re: RE: "The Imaginary Terror"

Sinister means Left and Dexter means Right ?

Exactly.

Been fun reading some of your stuff.

Thanks jim, been fun writing it and thinking about it all too. That's what keeps me coming back here. Some of the smartest people around come here to post their thoughts, and I consistently find the place provocative and interesting. If you talk only to people who agree with you, you'll never learn anything new, and in particular you'll never learn that you might not be right.

Now about that atheism you caught.

Dunno that it's accurate to say I caught it, I arrived at the atheist position over several decades of study, thought, analysis, and discussion. I was raised by serious Christians, though they weren't fundamentalists by any definition, and as I got old enough to think about things seriously it just made less and less sense and I ended up rejecting it all some time in my 30s. My parents found that deeply distressing, but to their great credit they were never judgemental about it. Just sad. And of course that saddened me too; it was one of the few things we couldn't agree on, but we never fought about it, we all just felt badly and didn't discuss it.

There's another island too, www.radiodilja.com. It's Bagdad Radio.

Good, thanks, I didn't know about that, and every extra source of information is a good thing. I'll check it out.

 

[Curiosity]

As a believer in the good which inclusion of matriarchal respect can accomplish....

...I cannot agree with the dogma of Islam. It reduces females to chattel on the same level as animals.

I am not a feminist but a humanist. Nor am I a believer in organized religion however believe in a higher power, personal responsibility and a self-imposed code of caring, morality and compassion for those who are in my life. I do not question whether religion is a need or necessary for the sustenance of life on this planet. It merely is part of the whole. Self-choice. If it brings serenity and peace to a heart and mind, it has a purpose.
When it becomes something under the list of "musts", it no longer remains religion because religious belief is so very unique - custom made for the individual.

Under Islam, there is no equality between the genders and punishment is meted out in medieval horror and condoned by the majority of the leaders and Islam fanaticism may not be questioned by its practitioners.

I believe those adults who practice Islam are lost to this world and I have no answers for successful co-existence among them. I doubt it is possible among western democratic societies. But human desire for experimentation and to try something different, it will have to be yet another test to see if we survive. For those who admire the concept of their teachings, I wish them a good life.

I would be interested in reading more female views on this topic.

 

[Graciously Yours]

RE: "The Imaginary Terror

Dexter,

Thanks for the response.

In relation to what you said about Buddhism and the local's, I am not positive. I do remember hearing though that the national religon/philosophy Japan was something called Sinto, or shinto? Depending on when Buddhism was brought to those countries could explain a great deal on even if what they call buddhist is actually true buddhism?

As an example, allow me to state that I enjoy early Christian philosophy. I find it exceptionally beautiful and vibrant. That said, I see very little semblence of that in today's "Christian" movements. Also, the christianity that was practised at the time of Yeshua, is vastly different to the christianity that was practised even 1000 years later, 2006 years later, for-getta-bout-it. At least, of course, IMO.

That is generally why I enjoy religon, because, well, IMO, all religons start out as just basic philosophies. Paths to finding peace within your life, and society. However, men are generally fairly weak and will use the philosophy to pigon hold and label, devide and conquer, for their own power. Selling redemtion that was never needed in the first place, but they created the fear of a "God" of punishment and people marched off like shepple willing to do what they say for fear of punishment. Those who questioned it, generally get labeled heritics, evil or terrorist sympathizors... opps, sorry that is the current one.

 

[Curiosity]

As an addendum to my earlier post - this was in my morning paper put out by the U.N. I guess 1-21-06. It was not dated, not cited, not authored. There are many articles on this woman in Google search - but this happened just last Thursday. It points to my thoughts on human rights under Islamic Law, in particular female rights.

U.N. cancels rape victim's talk after Pakistan objects.

UNITED NATIONS - Mukhtar Mai, the Pakistani woman whose defiant response to being gang-raped by order of a tribal court brought her worldwide attention, was denied a chance to speak at the United Nations on Friday after Pakistan protested that it was the same day the country's prime minister was visiting.

Mai had long ben scheduled to make an appearance called "An Interview With Mukhtar Mai: The ravest Woman on Earth" in the U.N. television studios, sponsored by the office for nongovernmental organizations, the Virtue Foundation and the Asian-American Network Against Abuse of Human Rights. But on Thursday night the organizers were informed that the program would have to be postponed because of Pakistan's objections.

Mai is leaving New York today so the effect was to cancel her appearance. Asked at a news conference why Pakistan had taken the action, the prime minister Shaukat Aziz, said: "I have no idea. You have informed me and so have some other people as I was walking in. I don't know how the place functions."

The Pakistani Mission did not return calls seeking comment.

In 2002 as village council sentenced Mai to be gang-raped for the supposed misconduct of her brother. Pakistani women in such circumstances often commit suicide, but Mai instead successfully challenged her rapists in court. She gave the compensation money she received to schools in her remote district.

On a previous visit to New York in November, Mai, also known as Mukhtaran Bibi, was hailed in a video tribute by Laura Bush at a Lincoln Center banquet as a person who "proves that one woman really can change the world."

This was not the first time the Pakistan's government had interfered in Mai's travels. President Perfez Musharraf blocked her from taking a trip to the United States in June and then relented last fall when Glamour magazine honored as its "Woman of the Year".

Asked why the UN bowed to the Pakistani protest, Shashi Tharoor, the undersecretary-general for communications, said he could not comment on this specific case. But he said: "As a general principle, indeed there are written instructions guiding the holding of any event on U.N. premises in which we are obliged to take into account views formally expressed by member states. This is a building and an organization that belongs to the member states."

 

[Graciously Yours]

RE: "The Imaginary Terror

Wed,

True there are many bad things that happen. And agreed that Islam in it's form it takes today is a little less than friendly towards women - that said, that is not true Islam, anymore than molesting young boys is not true Christianity.

If you stop the "us" and "them", and realize there is only life, and while it is truely hard to keep that in mind when you hear of outragous actions like these, but that is when it is most important to keep the fact of unity in mind.

Happy life.

 

[Curiosity]

Re: RE: "The Imaginary Terror

Wed,

True there are many bad things that happen. And agreed that Islam in it's form it takes today is a little less than friendly towards women - that said, that is not true Islam, anymore than molesting young boys is not true Christianity.

If you stop the "us" and "them", and realize there is only life, and while it is truely hard to keep that in mind when you hear of outragous actions like these, but that is when it is most important to keep the fact of unity in mind.

Happy life.

Gracious

Thank you for your insightful message and I agree fully with your words, however the topic message (and the one to which I addressed my post) was on Islam - or fundamentalist Islamic belief - and its maltreatment of females - not generalized religions.

Less than friendly is not a phrase I would feel comfortable with - given the knowledge we now have and have been researching for the past say ten years since the middle east has become a focus of our own ignorance here in the west concerning Islam.

Religions have their faults as you pointed out about Christianity - and that is why I choose to refrain from membership in any but count on my own searches and journey of questions, seeking
knowledge from those who have spent their lives in quest.

I meant no "us and them" in my commentary at all, for this is a decision we must make on our own - there is no team, no sport, no battleground - merely our own desire to live the wisest and happiest life we are able. We are all on solo flights here on earth.

 

[Graciously Yours]

RE: "The Imaginary Terror

Wed.

Forgive my assuption. Clearly it wasn't accurate.

However, I must say that idealogically I take exception that these horrible things can be traced to Islam - merely the people that say they are islamic. Merely reading or praying doesn't make them Islamic, but following the word of the Prophet Mohhamd, peace be upon him. Islam, AFAIK was never bad towards women, anymore than any other philosophy of the time.

Now, I mean absolutely no disrespect, but the simple truth, as the west's religon's Prophet, Yeshua stated is that one cannot help our brothers and sisters with their vision until our own is clear. We in the west have more than enough problems to work on. We, in the name of Love, have destroyed much of our world, slaughtered innocents for greed, opress others who don't look or act like us(including women), slavery, poluted the air and water and soil, and we still continue to do it to this day, in varying levels of openness.

I agree that what happened to that lady was an outrage, just as it was an outrage when an 80 year old was slammed and attacked in N.O after the flood by federal employee's, just as it is an outrage that the fundimentalists are making chioces for women in regards to their bodies. That due to chemicals given to our women, have left many sterile, others with babies with birth defects or worse, and those are just the things they have been caught doing.

I guess what I am saying, in a very long winded and around the bout way is; Worrying, or being outraged, at something across the world where you can effect little, if any, change is a waste of your obvious compassion. Now if that compassion could be thrown to the causes here, where you can effect change, then that change may shine like a light on a pole, a becon for those Women, who above all else are the reason for our species' survival.

Women, in the religous/philosophy sense, have always been the superior, and man the inferior. This is why they are/were treated so bad by organized religon, because they represent the truth that the leaders of the religon(Strangely always men) don't truly understand, and are mainly incapable of understanding. They may have eyes and ears, but they do not see or hear.

 

[jimmoyer]

Women, in the religous/philosophy sense, have always been the superior, and man the inferior. This is why they are/were treated so bad by organized religon, because they represent the truth that the leaders of the religon(Strangely always men) don't truly understand, and are mainly incapable of understanding. They may have eyes and ears, but they do not see or hear.
---------------------------Graciously Yours----------------

LOL !!!

No doubt this is true.

However, this one piece of the tile you observe
is but a part of a beguiling mosaic.


The illusion of separateness is a major teaching
of Buddhism and suffering comes from this disconnect.