The amazing anti-India syllabus of Pak madrassas
Vicky Nanjappa & Krishnakumar P
Feb. 24, 2009
India was part of Pakistan before 1947.
In the 1965 war, Pakistan conquered several areas of India and staring at a certain defeat, New Delhi requested the United Nations to arrange for a ceasefire.
During the 1971 war, the Pakistan Army demonstrated great courage and valour and inflicted humiliating blows on the Indian forces on both the Eastern and Western fronts."
This excerpts may puzzle you, but according to some madrasas in Pakistan, it is nothing, but history. Ten year olds in those madrassas are injected with such and more distorted 'facts', says a confidential Intelligence Bureau report.
Besides the impressionable minds are further indoctrinated with a textbook called 44 ways to support Jihad, written by Anwar-al-Awalaki.
The IB report, which is based on textbooks from madrasas and the interrogation of several arrested terror suspects including those involved in the Mumbai terror attacks says that the number of such "anti-India madrasas" is on the rise.
The report says that a typical text book for Class 111 starts with chapters on culture before moving on to subjects like the wars with India.
With the context set, and India painted as the enemy, the textbooks swiftly move on the importance of jihad and martyrdom.
The curriculum also lays a bit of emphasis on English. A chapter teaches the letters of the alphabet with examples like:
B for bandook, k for knife, R for rocket, T for tank, and S for sword.
Studies on these madrassas also show that these outfits glorify violence. Even the games the kids play involve shooting practice with air guns and war games.
On culture and history, the textbooks, which are not available in the market and are distributed directly in the madrassas mostly run by the Jammat-ud-Dawa, teach how Muslim saints reformed Hindus and helped abolish their superstition and wrong practices.
A chapter on Muhammad Ali Jinnah states that he saved Muslims from being enslaved by the Hindu Congress party, which encouraged slavery.
A select group of children from these madrassas are then inducted into terror outfits like the Lashkar-e-Tayiba, whose group of children is called the 'White Falcons', which begins grooming children for jihad right from when they are 10.
The report says that there are around 6,000 madrasas in Pakistan, most of which, an official said, are rooted in such a culture of hate.
"At least half of the madrassas in Pakistan adopt the Lashkar's curriculum and at present there are around 5,83,000 students studying in such madrassas."
"Though most students are from Pakistan, there are also around 16,000 Afghan children and some 18,000 foreign students," the official said.
The report says that outfits like the LeT are very choosy about the induction into such schools.
"They pick and chose children from very poor families. Till, the education is complete, they are taken care of and the families are given some money each month," the officer said.
The report says that some students realise that they are unfit to take up any vocation after a stint in these schools and by the time they reach Class X decide to join other legitimate madrassas which also teach mathematics, science, medicine and other subjects.
source: http://www.rediff.com/news/2009/feb/24amazing-anti-india-syllabus-of-pak-madrassas.htm
-------------------------------------------------------
Pak textbooks build hate culture against India
By Arif Mohammed Khan
Jan. 11, 2009
The empowerment of terror in Pakistan has not happened overnight. This is the logical culmination of the politics and policies pursued by Pakistan for years now.
Terrorism in Pakistan has its roots in the culture of hate and the ethos of inequality on the ground of religious faith, leading to their being deeply ingrained in the Pakistani psyche and mindset. One factor that has played a crucial role in creating this culture of hate is the educational policy of the government of Pakistan pursued since 1977.
The officially prescribed textbooks, especially for school students, are full of references that promote hate against India in general, and Hindus in particular.
A cursory glance at Pakistani school textbooks - especially the compulsory subjects like Pakistan studies and social studies - gives an idea of how history has been distorted and a garbled version prescribed to build this mindset and attitude.
The objective of Pakistan’s education policy has been defined thus in the preface to a Class VI book: “Social studies have been given special importance in educational policy so that Pakistan’s basic ideology assumes the shape of a way of life, its practical enforcement is assured, the concept of social uniformity adopts a practical form and the whole personality of the individual is developed.”
This statement leaves no doubt that “social uniformity”, not national unity, is a part of Pakistan’s basic ideology.
The Class V book has this original discovery about Hindu help to bring British rule to India: “The British had the objective to take over India and to achieve this, they made Hindus join them and Hindus were very glad to side with the British. After capturing the subcontinent, the British began on the one hand the loot of all things produced in this area, and on the other, in conjunction with Hindus, to greatly suppress the Muslims.”
The Std VIII book says, “Their (Muslim saints) teachings dispelled many superstitions of the Hindus and reformed their bad practices. Thereby Hindu religion of the olden times came to an end.”
On Indo-Pak wars, the books give detailed descriptions and openly eulogize ‘jihad’ and ‘shahadat’ and urge students to become ‘mujahids’ and martyrs and leave no room for future friendship and cordial relations with India.
According to a Class V book, “In 1965, the Pakistani army conquered several areas of India, and when India was on the point of being defeated, she requested the United Nations to arrange a ceasefire. After 1965, India, with the help of Hindus living in East Pakistan, instigated the people living there against the people of West Pakistan, and finally invaded East Pakistan in December 1971. The conspiracy resulted in the separation of East Pakistan from us. All of us should receive military training and be prepared to fight the enemy.”
The book prescribed for higher secondary students makes no mention of the uprising in East Pakistan in 1971 or the surrender by more than 90,000 Pakistani soldiers. Instead, it claims, “In the 1971 India-Pakistan war, the Pakistan armed forces created new records of bravery and the Indian forces were defeated everywhere.”
The students of Class III are taught that “Muhammad Ali (Jinnah) felt that Hindus wanted to make Muslims their slaves and since he hated slavery, he left the Congress”.
At another place it says, “The Congress was actually a party of Hindus. Muslims felt that after getting freedom, Hindus would make them their slaves.”
And this great historic discovery is taught to Std V students, ”Previously, India was part of Pakistan.”
Commenting on this literature that spreads hate, leading Pakistani educationist Tariq Rahman wrote, “It is a fact that the textbooks cannot mention Hindus without calling them cunning, scheming, deceptive or something equally insulting. Students are taught and made to believe that Pakistan needs strong and aggressive policies against India or else Pakistan will be annihilated by it.” (The author is a former Union minister.)
Nosheen Ali's Textbook Controversy @ http://samaj.revues.org/document1172.html
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
** Vivekananda:patriotic saint
The patriotic saint:Swami Vivekananda
By Rajesh Pathak
Organiser
The time when the nation had fallen into yet another shackle of slavery under the British yoke, there prevailed among the people the utter moral and intellectual confusions. Where, on one side, there were badly mushrooming mutually conflicting religious sects and sub-sects rabidly hell bent in deluding the people with their respective exclusivist theology and obscurantist rituals; on the other, utterly mesmerised with western mode of life, there grew a breed of so-called social-reformers and intelligentsia engaged in their ‘missions’ with their self-denigrating and fantastic notion of rejecting outrightly everything dharma and, ipso facto, recasting the society and everything indigenous in the western moulds.
In such a crucial hour Swami Vivekananda was the one to rise on the national horizon to not only guide the people out of this confusion, but also reveal to them what true dharma and its indispensability in the national life is.
After having attained super-conscious revelation, living in the virtues of divine proximity of his master—Ramakrishna Paramhansa, he chose the Vedantic ideals to dispel the myriads of false notions then held on the national and international level regarding India and dharma. Bringing the vivid illustration of dharma to light, he made the people aware of the fact that the dharma basically comprised of Karmakanda and Gyan-kanda.
Karmakanda, he told, consists in Smritis and Puranas, which deals mainly with the manners, customs, practices and all forms of worships. These are codified to fulfill the needs of the circumstances prevailing in the particular course of period, hence subjected to modification from time to time.
Whereas, Gyankanda is the spiritual portion of dharma comprising the Upanishads, which is also called Vedanta. This expounds all the subtle questions of cycle of life and death and everything universe comprised of. Immutable, this holds good even to this day, for it is based on the eternal truth.
Then, coming to the problems which India was facing those days, he told that what was being practised then in the name of dharma was nothing but an aberration made inroad to it (dharma), which could be well understood in the light of Vedanta. All the customs and practices i.e. Karmakanda is required to be the expression of Vedanta ideals, and, hence, any of them contradicting them (Vedanta ideals) must be rejected.
Highlighting in this context the instance of untouchability prevailed then, he exhorted that it was in sheer contravention to what is essentially preached in Gita—a commentary on Vedanta.
For, Shri Krishana says in it, “One who sees everyone in himself and himself in everyone, thus, seeing the same God living in all is the sage. And, therefore, the discrimination on the basis of caste is altogether unethical, against the very spirit of dharma.”
As for integrating the different sects, belonging to the cult of dualism, monism, qualified monism and such other, who were then badly indulged in bitter feud to gain supremacy over each other, Vivekananda drew their attention to the doctrines common to them.
And, those doctrines, as revealed to them by Vivekananda, are—Doctrine of reincarnation; perfection is in atma (soul); the body consists of, apart from the material body of panchtatva, the mind, the intellect and, atma; infallibility of Vedas; the God is all creating, preserving and destroying power; and also, that the religion means nothing short of divine realisation or anubhuti.
So also, it was his firm belief that India with its varied languages, customs and social identities could remain united but only in the virtues of dharma. For, underlying all such diversities, it is only dharma that is common to the various groups.
He, though, unequivocally emphasised for emulating spiritualism, yet he was strongly opposed to the escapist attitude viz. pseudo renunciation, more common a phenomena then. To him moksha (renunciation) means not to turn coward or stagnated to inaction. But, all the more, it is through the action only does one attain the moksha, as is pointed out by Shri Krishna in Gita.
In order to extend globally the pious mission of his elevating the nation and Hindu dharma, he toured a number of countries, representing India in various dharmasabhas (religious assemblies) held on international forums.
Availing these occasions, he, through his captivating oratory power and impregnable arguments, debunked all the fallacies and contemptuous views then held by the westerners regarding everything Indian.
It was the time when so as to serve their imperialistic motives the colonial-missionary nexus were abjectly indulged in coining and, thus, foisting upon the Indians the host of perverse theories and so-called findings concerning their origin, history and culture etc.
In the face of one such theory—the infamous ‘Aryan invasion theory’, Swamiji put forth so many excerpts from the Vedas and other scriptures and disproved its validity.
He argued that if there is any truth in it then why not even a single instance comes in its support in the Vedas which have been proved to be the most ancient and authentic source of knowledge.
RELATED ARTICLES:
Aryan Invasion? @ http://www.gosai.com/chaitanya/saranagati/html/vedic-upanisads/aryan-invasion.html
Invading the Sacred @ http://worldmonitor.wordpress.com/2007/08/13/invading-the-sacred/
By Rajesh Pathak
Organiser
The time when the nation had fallen into yet another shackle of slavery under the British yoke, there prevailed among the people the utter moral and intellectual confusions. Where, on one side, there were badly mushrooming mutually conflicting religious sects and sub-sects rabidly hell bent in deluding the people with their respective exclusivist theology and obscurantist rituals; on the other, utterly mesmerised with western mode of life, there grew a breed of so-called social-reformers and intelligentsia engaged in their ‘missions’ with their self-denigrating and fantastic notion of rejecting outrightly everything dharma and, ipso facto, recasting the society and everything indigenous in the western moulds.
In such a crucial hour Swami Vivekananda was the one to rise on the national horizon to not only guide the people out of this confusion, but also reveal to them what true dharma and its indispensability in the national life is.
After having attained super-conscious revelation, living in the virtues of divine proximity of his master—Ramakrishna Paramhansa, he chose the Vedantic ideals to dispel the myriads of false notions then held on the national and international level regarding India and dharma. Bringing the vivid illustration of dharma to light, he made the people aware of the fact that the dharma basically comprised of Karmakanda and Gyan-kanda.
Karmakanda, he told, consists in Smritis and Puranas, which deals mainly with the manners, customs, practices and all forms of worships. These are codified to fulfill the needs of the circumstances prevailing in the particular course of period, hence subjected to modification from time to time.
Whereas, Gyankanda is the spiritual portion of dharma comprising the Upanishads, which is also called Vedanta. This expounds all the subtle questions of cycle of life and death and everything universe comprised of. Immutable, this holds good even to this day, for it is based on the eternal truth.
Then, coming to the problems which India was facing those days, he told that what was being practised then in the name of dharma was nothing but an aberration made inroad to it (dharma), which could be well understood in the light of Vedanta. All the customs and practices i.e. Karmakanda is required to be the expression of Vedanta ideals, and, hence, any of them contradicting them (Vedanta ideals) must be rejected.
Highlighting in this context the instance of untouchability prevailed then, he exhorted that it was in sheer contravention to what is essentially preached in Gita—a commentary on Vedanta.
For, Shri Krishana says in it, “One who sees everyone in himself and himself in everyone, thus, seeing the same God living in all is the sage. And, therefore, the discrimination on the basis of caste is altogether unethical, against the very spirit of dharma.”
As for integrating the different sects, belonging to the cult of dualism, monism, qualified monism and such other, who were then badly indulged in bitter feud to gain supremacy over each other, Vivekananda drew their attention to the doctrines common to them.
And, those doctrines, as revealed to them by Vivekananda, are—Doctrine of reincarnation; perfection is in atma (soul); the body consists of, apart from the material body of panchtatva, the mind, the intellect and, atma; infallibility of Vedas; the God is all creating, preserving and destroying power; and also, that the religion means nothing short of divine realisation or anubhuti.
So also, it was his firm belief that India with its varied languages, customs and social identities could remain united but only in the virtues of dharma. For, underlying all such diversities, it is only dharma that is common to the various groups.
He, though, unequivocally emphasised for emulating spiritualism, yet he was strongly opposed to the escapist attitude viz. pseudo renunciation, more common a phenomena then. To him moksha (renunciation) means not to turn coward or stagnated to inaction. But, all the more, it is through the action only does one attain the moksha, as is pointed out by Shri Krishna in Gita.
In order to extend globally the pious mission of his elevating the nation and Hindu dharma, he toured a number of countries, representing India in various dharmasabhas (religious assemblies) held on international forums.
Availing these occasions, he, through his captivating oratory power and impregnable arguments, debunked all the fallacies and contemptuous views then held by the westerners regarding everything Indian.
It was the time when so as to serve their imperialistic motives the colonial-missionary nexus were abjectly indulged in coining and, thus, foisting upon the Indians the host of perverse theories and so-called findings concerning their origin, history and culture etc.
In the face of one such theory—the infamous ‘Aryan invasion theory’, Swamiji put forth so many excerpts from the Vedas and other scriptures and disproved its validity.
He argued that if there is any truth in it then why not even a single instance comes in its support in the Vedas which have been proved to be the most ancient and authentic source of knowledge.
RELATED ARTICLES:
Aryan Invasion? @ http://www.gosai.com/chaitanya/saranagati/html/vedic-upanisads/aryan-invasion.html
Invading the Sacred @ http://worldmonitor.wordpress.com/2007/08/13/invading-the-sacred/
Sunday, February 8, 2009
** 'Chasing a Mirage'
http://craigread.com/displayArticle.aspx?contentID=921&subgroupID=9 Book Review of 'Chasing a Mirage' by Tarek Fatah
Craig Read
The great myth is that all Muslims are moderates and only a few extremists tarnish the holy ideology called Islam. It is about as intelligent as saying that for 3 generations from Bismarck to Hitler, all Germans were moderates, more interested in brautwurst und bier, than in world supremacy and that the great unwashed German mass of course did not support Germany's run of dictators from 1865 to 1945. So it goes with Islam.
The benefit of Fatah's book is that is lays bare to ridicule the idea that there is nothing inherently fascistic in political Islam, or that all Muslims just want to be BMW owning tolerants. It is written by a leading Canadian Muslim leader, a co-founder of the Muslim Canadian Council of Toronto, and a person who struggles with fitting Islam into a secular-tolerant Canadian society. And it is quite a struggle.
Fatah is a reformed Pakistani Marxist who rejects Islamic claims to world domination, a one-world Umma, or the establishment of a new Caliphate to safeguard Islam's destiny.
Hence the title - Chasing an Illusion or the fantasy of a new Muslim caliphate and the recreation of Islam's so-called mythical golden age.
For his trouble and rather considerable courage, he is of course routinely vilified within the Muslim community with Muslim sock-puppets and little minds denigrating his pro Western and liberal attitude.
Fatah's book is a good read because he lays out in rather somber detail, the intolerant and fascist [in the true sense of the word], agenda of extremist political Islam. Islam is of course an ideology, not a faith. This is something that Fatah a practicing Muslim would reject. But at least he and others can recognise the inherent fascistic intolerance and will to rule embedded in the Koran and in political Islam.
Fatah is simply sick to death of the intolerant elements of his 'faith'. His book is an attempt to wake up Muslims to the extremist agendas being fostered not only on Muslims, but also on non-Muslims within the West. Fundamentalist Islam is alive and doing very well within Western states. Wahabbist, neo-Salafist, and Anti-Semitic doctrines are common place throughout Mosques in the West.
Few Muslims bother to criticise these practices and fewer still will do anything to try and reform their so-called 'faith'. What kind of ideology is without a reformation, self criticism or searching analysis ? Is it a faith or an intolerant cult ?
Fatah sums up the intolerant nature of Islam:
"You have been lied to for centuries. Muslims need to educate themselves about Islam, not proselytize their religion to non-Muslims. It is time for them to read the truth about Islamic history......They should stop glorifying the politicization of Islam, a phenomenon which has produced a panaroma of tragedies and bloodshed..."
The general ignorance of Muslims about Islam is always startling. The ritualised, non-thinking nature of Muslim acceptance of all things in the Koran, or all deeds by Muslims as being worthy, is best described as cultish. The lack of knowledge only abets and emboldens Islam's political criminals.
As Fatah says, "By looking the other way, the intelligentsia and the middle classes have become complicit in these crimes. They justify their inaction as patriotism, where they stand in solidarity with the Islamic state....This rejection of the universality of human rights is not limited to the elites of the world's 56 Islamic countries but is also widespread among the leaders of Muslim organisations."
Muslim supremacy is no surprise. Even inside Islam Arabs are primus inter pares, with a divine right to rule over other Muslims. In any event, Muslims in general [you can't be specific about an ideology], generally agree that they and Islam are superior.
The rejection of such Western niceties as human rights, female emancipation, tolerance for Judaism, acceptance of the 'other' be they black, gay, yellow, religious or secular - is endemic within Islam.
The ideology developed by an Arab political-military leader named Mohammed is quite obviously intolerant and uninterested in anything else but its own aggrandizement.
Fatah echoes this criticism, "The Islamic contempt for the West is not an expression of anti imperialism or a reflection of anger against colonialism and its devastating effect. Far from it.....In fact the Islamist disdain for the West is based almost entirely on their rejection of European enlightenment itself - the Renaissance....In short for the jihadi the problem is Western civilisation itself."
The West has always been Islam's problem. The two cultures are completely incompatible. Islam rejects the West's vision of the world one based on law, rationality, plurality, respect, economic integration, tolerance, and order.
Islam's development has never had anything in common with that of the West. Islam is top-down, ritualised, archaic, anti-modern and irrational. Why is anyone surprised by Huntington's bloody borders of Islam ?
When Islam comes up against any other culture there is always bloodshed - 300 million dead over 1400 years of Muslim jihad make that fact indisputable.
Fatah rightly claims that Mohammed was simply an Arab ruler and head of a burgeoning Arab state. Probably the unification of Arab tribes was inevitable. What was not inevitable was that mad Mohammed [or someone else] would replace the 300 odd moon cult deities with one supreme moon cult deity and infuse Judeo-Christianity into Arab pagan practices to create Islam.
Islam is thus the glue to Arab imperialism and later Muslim expansionism.
That Mohammed wanted Islam to dominate the globe is undeniable. But perhaps the modern Muslim can look to reform him or herself and the anti-modern practices of a 7th century cult instead of worrying about the global Umma.
What is refreshing about Fatah's book is that he tackles the untouchables within Islam. Not only does he name Mohammed an Arab head of state he also goes through and calls out the following as examples of Islam backwardness and anti-modern repression:
1. The failed states of the Islamic world - failed due to the implementation of Islamic orthodoxy. He does a great job of analysing Pakistan and the eradication of that country's potential by political Islam.
2. Muslim cultural genocide. A simple example - -ironically according to Fatah 95 % of Mecca's thousand year old development has been demolished by the Saudi authorities [p. 53], yet no Muslim protest, anywhere in the world, has ever been registered against this destruction of Islam's holiest of holy sites. Compare this muted reaction to any activity of a Kaffir or other, even designing or planning to desecrate a Muslim object, let alone engage in a massive cultural eradication in Islam's most important spiritual center. The Muslim hypocrisy reeks. "How can a country bulldoze the grave of the Prophet's daughter, destroy Muhammed's house, build a public toilet inside the house of the Prophet's wife.......Imagine the reaction across the Muslim world if the destruction of the Prophet's home had been blamed on a Jewish conspiracy..."
3. Iran. The prototypical Islamic state is a disaster. The sad state of affairs inside Iran are of course defended with great venom by Western hating apologists and relativists. Yet the real world facts are clear - millions of Iranians are living in a terror state, untold tend of thousands have died there since 1979, and millions have fled. Iran is a Muslim inspired disaster a state which was not Islamic until the mid 7th century, and since then has never achieved peace, stability, or the enrichment of its people. As Fatah asks, "How can any Muslim defend such oppression and mass murder in the name of Islamic solidarity? ....they should imagine walking the shoes of the 30.000 who were ordered killed by the Mullahs in the summer of 1988."
4. Palestine - yet another future Islamic state. The entire idea is a myth and as Fatah makes clear, Palestinians [who are Arabs, Palestine never existed] are just being used by Arab states as pawns against Israel. What will happen when we have yet another Islamic fundamentalist state bordering Israel ? Fatah is happily optimistic - he thinks Palestine will survive in peace. He is wrong of course, but at least he criticises the Arab penchant to support fascists such as Hamas or Hizbollah.
5. Islam's ongoing political war. Fatah does a good job explaining the politicisation of Islam immediately after mad Mohammed's death - a civil war which still rages today between the Sunni's who were more or less from Mohammed's tribal elite and the Shia's who represented the blood lines of Mohammed's family. Islam is riven with political sects and hatreds. It is thus not some unitary, spiritual, faith based system, but more a set of competing interests each vying for political power and wealth. This sectionalism has killed millions of Muslims over the years and continues to stunt Islamic development and acceptance of reality, "The rest of us Muslims can, of course, continue to label each other as non-believers and apostates. We can hate modernity itself, be envious of human joy, bury our heads in the Arabian sands, and let the bloodthirsty desert have the last laugh."
6. Western political cowardice. Fatah's trenchant observation is that the political cowards running Western states will never intercede to disperse domestic Islamic fascism and radicalism. He is right. As such it will be up to the common Muslim and indeed non-Muslim to drag, berate, hit, convince, and cajole Muslims and Islam into the 21rst century. Politicians won't do it. Fatah and many other's like him, both Muslim and non-Muslim must do it or else we face a future civil war within Western states.
7. Islamic violence in the name of supremacy. As Fatah illustrates it is a global problem.
Muslims everywhere are politicising Islam and using violence and war to further their aims and agendas. No other ideology is engaged in the same level of systemic violence. It defies rationality and is the most salient feature of Muslim intolerance.
Fatah is a devout Muslim and earnestly believes that Islamic faith in its benign form is compatible with Western civilisation. On this and many other points in his book he is wrong.
The importance of his book is that he presents a historical and world view which demands Muslim reform and a rejection of extremist political Islam. On this issue hangs the future balance of Western-Muslim relations.
It is up to Muslims to reform their ideology. Fatah and others are demanding a new vision for Islam and if the average Muslim does nothing than they are just as complicit in the current raging fascism of Islam as any delusional Mosque leader, or Western apologist for the 1400 year Muslim jihad.
RELATED STORIES:
For Moderate Muslims @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avYtAyCxUbA&eurl=http://ibloga.blogspot.com/
Ayaan Hirsi Ali & Islam @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6Wrhivp7eQ&mode=related&search=
Myth of Moderates @ http://honestreporting.wordpress.com/2009/01/30/the-mythical-moderates/
Making of Unbeliever @ http://globeonline.wordpress.com/2008/06/25/making-of-an-unbeliever/
Obsession @ http://www.obsessionthemovie.com/trailer-12min.php
Craig Read
The great myth is that all Muslims are moderates and only a few extremists tarnish the holy ideology called Islam. It is about as intelligent as saying that for 3 generations from Bismarck to Hitler, all Germans were moderates, more interested in brautwurst und bier, than in world supremacy and that the great unwashed German mass of course did not support Germany's run of dictators from 1865 to 1945. So it goes with Islam.
The benefit of Fatah's book is that is lays bare to ridicule the idea that there is nothing inherently fascistic in political Islam, or that all Muslims just want to be BMW owning tolerants. It is written by a leading Canadian Muslim leader, a co-founder of the Muslim Canadian Council of Toronto, and a person who struggles with fitting Islam into a secular-tolerant Canadian society. And it is quite a struggle.
Fatah is a reformed Pakistani Marxist who rejects Islamic claims to world domination, a one-world Umma, or the establishment of a new Caliphate to safeguard Islam's destiny.
Hence the title - Chasing an Illusion or the fantasy of a new Muslim caliphate and the recreation of Islam's so-called mythical golden age.
For his trouble and rather considerable courage, he is of course routinely vilified within the Muslim community with Muslim sock-puppets and little minds denigrating his pro Western and liberal attitude.
Fatah's book is a good read because he lays out in rather somber detail, the intolerant and fascist [in the true sense of the word], agenda of extremist political Islam. Islam is of course an ideology, not a faith. This is something that Fatah a practicing Muslim would reject. But at least he and others can recognise the inherent fascistic intolerance and will to rule embedded in the Koran and in political Islam.
Fatah is simply sick to death of the intolerant elements of his 'faith'. His book is an attempt to wake up Muslims to the extremist agendas being fostered not only on Muslims, but also on non-Muslims within the West. Fundamentalist Islam is alive and doing very well within Western states. Wahabbist, neo-Salafist, and Anti-Semitic doctrines are common place throughout Mosques in the West.
Few Muslims bother to criticise these practices and fewer still will do anything to try and reform their so-called 'faith'. What kind of ideology is without a reformation, self criticism or searching analysis ? Is it a faith or an intolerant cult ?
Fatah sums up the intolerant nature of Islam:
"You have been lied to for centuries. Muslims need to educate themselves about Islam, not proselytize their religion to non-Muslims. It is time for them to read the truth about Islamic history......They should stop glorifying the politicization of Islam, a phenomenon which has produced a panaroma of tragedies and bloodshed..."
The general ignorance of Muslims about Islam is always startling. The ritualised, non-thinking nature of Muslim acceptance of all things in the Koran, or all deeds by Muslims as being worthy, is best described as cultish. The lack of knowledge only abets and emboldens Islam's political criminals.
As Fatah says, "By looking the other way, the intelligentsia and the middle classes have become complicit in these crimes. They justify their inaction as patriotism, where they stand in solidarity with the Islamic state....This rejection of the universality of human rights is not limited to the elites of the world's 56 Islamic countries but is also widespread among the leaders of Muslim organisations."
Muslim supremacy is no surprise. Even inside Islam Arabs are primus inter pares, with a divine right to rule over other Muslims. In any event, Muslims in general [you can't be specific about an ideology], generally agree that they and Islam are superior.
The rejection of such Western niceties as human rights, female emancipation, tolerance for Judaism, acceptance of the 'other' be they black, gay, yellow, religious or secular - is endemic within Islam.
The ideology developed by an Arab political-military leader named Mohammed is quite obviously intolerant and uninterested in anything else but its own aggrandizement.
Fatah echoes this criticism, "The Islamic contempt for the West is not an expression of anti imperialism or a reflection of anger against colonialism and its devastating effect. Far from it.....In fact the Islamist disdain for the West is based almost entirely on their rejection of European enlightenment itself - the Renaissance....In short for the jihadi the problem is Western civilisation itself."
The West has always been Islam's problem. The two cultures are completely incompatible. Islam rejects the West's vision of the world one based on law, rationality, plurality, respect, economic integration, tolerance, and order.
Islam's development has never had anything in common with that of the West. Islam is top-down, ritualised, archaic, anti-modern and irrational. Why is anyone surprised by Huntington's bloody borders of Islam ?
When Islam comes up against any other culture there is always bloodshed - 300 million dead over 1400 years of Muslim jihad make that fact indisputable.
Fatah rightly claims that Mohammed was simply an Arab ruler and head of a burgeoning Arab state. Probably the unification of Arab tribes was inevitable. What was not inevitable was that mad Mohammed [or someone else] would replace the 300 odd moon cult deities with one supreme moon cult deity and infuse Judeo-Christianity into Arab pagan practices to create Islam.
Islam is thus the glue to Arab imperialism and later Muslim expansionism.
That Mohammed wanted Islam to dominate the globe is undeniable. But perhaps the modern Muslim can look to reform him or herself and the anti-modern practices of a 7th century cult instead of worrying about the global Umma.
What is refreshing about Fatah's book is that he tackles the untouchables within Islam. Not only does he name Mohammed an Arab head of state he also goes through and calls out the following as examples of Islam backwardness and anti-modern repression:
1. The failed states of the Islamic world - failed due to the implementation of Islamic orthodoxy. He does a great job of analysing Pakistan and the eradication of that country's potential by political Islam.
2. Muslim cultural genocide. A simple example - -ironically according to Fatah 95 % of Mecca's thousand year old development has been demolished by the Saudi authorities [p. 53], yet no Muslim protest, anywhere in the world, has ever been registered against this destruction of Islam's holiest of holy sites. Compare this muted reaction to any activity of a Kaffir or other, even designing or planning to desecrate a Muslim object, let alone engage in a massive cultural eradication in Islam's most important spiritual center. The Muslim hypocrisy reeks. "How can a country bulldoze the grave of the Prophet's daughter, destroy Muhammed's house, build a public toilet inside the house of the Prophet's wife.......Imagine the reaction across the Muslim world if the destruction of the Prophet's home had been blamed on a Jewish conspiracy..."
3. Iran. The prototypical Islamic state is a disaster. The sad state of affairs inside Iran are of course defended with great venom by Western hating apologists and relativists. Yet the real world facts are clear - millions of Iranians are living in a terror state, untold tend of thousands have died there since 1979, and millions have fled. Iran is a Muslim inspired disaster a state which was not Islamic until the mid 7th century, and since then has never achieved peace, stability, or the enrichment of its people. As Fatah asks, "How can any Muslim defend such oppression and mass murder in the name of Islamic solidarity? ....they should imagine walking the shoes of the 30.000 who were ordered killed by the Mullahs in the summer of 1988."
4. Palestine - yet another future Islamic state. The entire idea is a myth and as Fatah makes clear, Palestinians [who are Arabs, Palestine never existed] are just being used by Arab states as pawns against Israel. What will happen when we have yet another Islamic fundamentalist state bordering Israel ? Fatah is happily optimistic - he thinks Palestine will survive in peace. He is wrong of course, but at least he criticises the Arab penchant to support fascists such as Hamas or Hizbollah.
5. Islam's ongoing political war. Fatah does a good job explaining the politicisation of Islam immediately after mad Mohammed's death - a civil war which still rages today between the Sunni's who were more or less from Mohammed's tribal elite and the Shia's who represented the blood lines of Mohammed's family. Islam is riven with political sects and hatreds. It is thus not some unitary, spiritual, faith based system, but more a set of competing interests each vying for political power and wealth. This sectionalism has killed millions of Muslims over the years and continues to stunt Islamic development and acceptance of reality, "The rest of us Muslims can, of course, continue to label each other as non-believers and apostates. We can hate modernity itself, be envious of human joy, bury our heads in the Arabian sands, and let the bloodthirsty desert have the last laugh."
6. Western political cowardice. Fatah's trenchant observation is that the political cowards running Western states will never intercede to disperse domestic Islamic fascism and radicalism. He is right. As such it will be up to the common Muslim and indeed non-Muslim to drag, berate, hit, convince, and cajole Muslims and Islam into the 21rst century. Politicians won't do it. Fatah and many other's like him, both Muslim and non-Muslim must do it or else we face a future civil war within Western states.
7. Islamic violence in the name of supremacy. As Fatah illustrates it is a global problem.
Muslims everywhere are politicising Islam and using violence and war to further their aims and agendas. No other ideology is engaged in the same level of systemic violence. It defies rationality and is the most salient feature of Muslim intolerance.
Fatah is a devout Muslim and earnestly believes that Islamic faith in its benign form is compatible with Western civilisation. On this and many other points in his book he is wrong.
The importance of his book is that he presents a historical and world view which demands Muslim reform and a rejection of extremist political Islam. On this issue hangs the future balance of Western-Muslim relations.
It is up to Muslims to reform their ideology. Fatah and others are demanding a new vision for Islam and if the average Muslim does nothing than they are just as complicit in the current raging fascism of Islam as any delusional Mosque leader, or Western apologist for the 1400 year Muslim jihad.
RELATED STORIES:
For Moderate Muslims @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avYtAyCxUbA&eurl=http://ibloga.blogspot.com/
Ayaan Hirsi Ali & Islam @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6Wrhivp7eQ&mode=related&search=
Myth of Moderates @ http://honestreporting.wordpress.com/2009/01/30/the-mythical-moderates/
Making of Unbeliever @ http://globeonline.wordpress.com/2008/06/25/making-of-an-unbeliever/
Obsession @ http://www.obsessionthemovie.com/trailer-12min.php
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