Monday, March 23, 2009
The Red Badge of Jihad, The Scarlet Suicide Bomber, Silas Arafat....
There are a lot of statistics floating around out there, folks. And while it may be stated that a lot of them are in fact meaningless....and/or deceptive (flat-out incendiary, some of them), you do from time to time come across one that staggers you, leaves you in a speechless state, etc...........................................................I point specifically to this "statistic", folks. It's the one that states that there are more books translated into Spanish EVERY YEAR than have been translated into Arabic for the past thousand years. Youza, huh?...........................................................Now, granted, there could perhaps be some benign explanations here; the fact that there are a lot of Arabs who already speak English, in particular. But, still, folks, how can you not at least consider a slightly cynical interpretation here; the fact that these countries/cultures always seem to suppress dissent/alternative paradigms, interpretations, etc.?...............................................................And what about how this restricted control of information, not only stifles individuality within these societies but how it hampers understanding BETWEEN our cultures? President Obama (quite rightly, in my opinion) wants to more fully engage with these Middle-Eastern countries. I dont know, folks, it seems to me that that might be a tad difficult here. I mean, seriously, will they even understand what he's saying?
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8 comments:
Yo will you are doing a good job of condemning the Arabic speaking peoples of the middle east and Northern Africa, but not the Muslim religion since the majority of people who practice it speak Indonesian, more "Muslims" live there (approx 237,500,000) then live on the Arabian peninsula, (77,983,936) Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, Jordan and Oman Qatar, UAE combined, (I leave out Iran since they are Persian NOT Arabic and speak Farsi as their national language) where Arabic is the native language..
In fact there are about 158,000,000 Muslims in India more then on the Arabian peninsula, and they speak the languages of the Indian continent and Pakistan or Bangladesh, which BTW has about 135,245,000 Muslims who speak, Bengali.
BTW the second most populist Muslim Country is Pakistan (172,800,000) where they speak, Urdu, English with other languages like Pashto, Punjabi, Sindhi, Balochi .. and it is seen as the central arena in the War on terror since almost all the terrorists go thru Pakistan and Afghanistan in their training, except for the Lebanese and Palestinians counters to the Israeli program of Apartheid in the former Palestinian area of the Ottoman Empire.
In fact if you add the Indonesian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Indian Muslim populations together you have 703,545,000 who do not speak Arabic as their primary language, but constitute over half of the worlds Muslims.
You also are leaving out the Muslims who speak Turkish or other central Asian former Soviet countries, let alone the sub-Saharan African countries like East Africa region 66,400,000 or West African region, 180,000,000, which seem to have very significant Muslim populations, but different native languages.
BTW, China has almost 20 million Muslims who speak, Uyghur, Kyrgyz, Kazakh
I do get your seemingly bigoted idea though will,
nice job.
I wasn't talking about India, Pakistan, and Turkey, Clif. I was talking about the repressive regimes of the Middle-East who prefer to keep their people ignorant. It wasn't an attack on the people but their governments. Oh, and do you know one of the books that they DO translate into Arabic? It's called "Mein Kampf". Nice, huh?
Will you proved you are a bigot just like Voltron;
goodbye
Clif, I'm a bigot for pointing out that Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, etc. are closed societies/ repressive regimes? Come on, man. Why do you always have to demonize people who disagree with you?
I really didn't think that this was a controversial post, Volt. I don't know, I guess that everything I say is wrong these days.
No Will, NOT wrong.
When they rage against you like this it means you're getting to the heart of the truth.
Like I said when we first talked, it's about projection. They love their lofty rhetoric and point their fingers at others to cover up their own shortcomings.
When you expose their ideology, you expose their ugly insides to the world. They can't have that, so they MUST attack the messenger.
The main point is this:
They refuse to accept their own humanity.
I recall an argument we had in LC's once. They equate judgment with intolerance, and tolerance with acceptance.
One of their favorite bible quotes is "Judge not lest thou be judged".
Which they take out of context to arrive at the conclusion that we must not judge anyone.
To the contrary, human nature is to judge and the full context of the biblical quote acknowledges that.
The follow up to the "Judge not" verse is to remove the plank from your own eye before attempting to remove the mote from your brothers, and a warning that the same measure we use to judge will be used to judge us.
Simply put it means to know our own human frailties and shortcomings and to judge with compassion.
You will note I'm sure that they do not even acknowledge any human frailties or shortcomings in themselves, and their judgment is not compassionate.
I'm not claiming to be perfect Will, but I do know where my shortcomings lie and I try to be better myself, but it is difficult.
And I'm certain that I have a harsh judgment coming....LOL
They judge and pigeon-hole ALL THE TIME, Volt. You're right. They're the intolerant ones.
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