bradavon wrote:I've been waiting to hear what you've had to say Lost Dragon. Anything further to add?
What else is there to add? Things just repeat themselves. I'm done discussing faith on this board. Been there as you know. Nothing is gonna change. It's so funny, because Mark arguments in a way as if he had originally claimed to know the temperature in an Islamic country when he actually implied he knew how intolerant Islamic countries were. My knowledge doesn't count in his eyes, because he thinks it is my biased opinion. The fact that I have been traveling the Islamic world quite a lot and have many non-Muslim friends who happily live/lived there doesn't change anything as far as his opinion is concerned. Why? Because he has never been there, but he knows how it is there. He knows that Turkey is the ONE exception. The Islamic world spreads from Morocco to Indonesia, but hey, Mark's knows it all, because he also knows it's cold in Antarctica.
I must say though I was quite surprised in a positive way when I read some people's opinions here. Not though by Yi's opinion as he has always been a guy who offends injustice, no matter by whom or to whom injustice has been done.
One thing I would like to say though when it comes to history, yes, Islam was mainly spread by the sword. Not everywhere, but in a lot of places. When you actually open a history book and read about it, you'll find out that it was always armys that were fought when it was a battle about spreading Islam. Almost never were civilians attacked. In the rare cases it was by criminals who acted against the word of Allah and his Prophet (SAS) and they were brought to justice. That's why it is so funny when Islam and all Muslims are associated with terrorist attacks.
Yes, there was 9/11. What 9/11 showed me was mostly how little I actually knew about my own religion let alone other cultures. How could I even expect non-Muslims to know anything at all about Islam. The conflicts that followed in Afghanistan and Iraq were triggered by 9/11 and they could only be triggered, because most people in the West have not the slightest idea about the Muslim world. Also Bush and his advisors, they generally were never in an Islamic country before. I remember statements from German and American workers at the international radio station I worked at (Deutsche Welle). They knew very well I was Muslim and weren't even ashamed of saying that all 1.4 Billion Muslims were terrorists and they need to be killed. Thos people I am speaking of are journalists, people you would usually consider to be educated folks. So if their opinion is that, what does Joe Public think?
But the funny thing is that it didn't even start with 9/11. Instead, the last 200 years were 200 years that most people in the West forget. 200 years in which West Europeans (not even Americans; they entered the region later on) brutally colonised Islamic countries. They killed millions of Muslims. So if you think about who is more violent, the West, especially the West Europeans were far more violent than Muslims. It is not a biased opinion, it is a historic fact. World War I and World War II which caused 70.000.000 dead people. Who started this? Not Muslims for sure. Who killed 6.000.000 Jews? Not Muslims for sure. Gigantic numbers of dead people which we tend to rationalise away. Russian Communism killed 30.000.000 people. Chinese Communism, or rather Mao killed probably around 40.000.000. Of course China isn't the West, but it sure isn't Muslims. In the last 200 years, Muslims haven't done anything that even comes close to what I just pointed out. As Jean-Paul Sartre, the famous French philosopher, said that Arabs were treated like half apes. Muslims were dismissed and not taken seriously. They were treated like animals, literally smoked out (as George Bush used to say so often). Hunted like jackals for example during the French colonisation.
Terrorism begins with injustice. That's why terrorism can only be fought by justice. But the West did the exact opposite. Of course the attacks of 9/11 were brutal attacks against innocent people and against humanity if I may say so. And what was the West's reaction to almost 3000 innocent dead victims? Bombing over 1.000.000 Iraqis who haven't done anything wrong.
The main issue is that Americans and West Europeans believe they are special. That's my observation. I was born in the West and raised in the West so I have a pretty clear picture as far as that is concerned. Most Americans and West Europeans would agree. And if I may say this, a latent form of racism is present here. I am willing to bet my whole income that most people in the West think, 'Those Blacks, those Arabs, those Muslims, they are not like us'. They conceive them as lesser beings.
The Muslim world suffers from atrocious dictatorships which were generally arranged by Western powers. Those governments are generally supported by Americans and some European countries, be it financially or arms.
Don't get me started on Guantanamo or Abu Ghuraib. There is no point in beating around the bush so I'll just go ahead and say that human rights are currently violated the most by Western governments (not people). Because what the West did in Iraq. I repeat, over 1,000,000 innocent civilians were killed for nothing. For a lie. And let's not start talking about the severely injured. In Afghanistan, villages are bombed. Germany is participating in this and yet they talk about human rights the most. It is so awful, coming here and elsewhere in the media reading about Westerners complaining about the Muslim World and how they mistreat human rights. 3000 dead innocents on 9/11. What barbaric people. And yet they kill MILLIONS of innocents. I get angry by that self-righteousness in the West.
We put a ransom of 25,000,000 on Bin Laden's head. He is a murderer and is responsible for the death of probably over 5000 Westerners. But what do we do with a US president who killed over 1,000,000 Iraqis. What is the ransom on his head?
I saw a documentary on German TV about an Iraqi rebel who snipes US soldiers. He was asked by the German reporter: 'Why do you kill?'
The guy's reply will stick in my head forever. He said, 'What would you do if both your brothers were murdered without having done anything at all. What would you do? Please be honest. What would you do if your family was killed for no reason at all?'
And I think of all the Hollywood films where we sympathise with the hero whose family was killed for no reason by gangsters. Western powers are the terrorists in my eyes. They destroy the world. Afghanistan isn't bombarding Germany. Germany bombs and helps bombing Afghanistan. We keep on forgetting this. Our Governments murder hundred thousands of people and people here in the West keep on talking about Muslim violence.
The image of the Islamic World that is being conveyed here on a daily basis is that of a violent world. It is difficult for me to walk through any city in Germany where I could honestly claim people are meeting me with grace of charity (altruism?). I'm not saying it doesn't exist in the West, but if you really want to experience the true meaning of hospitality and friendliness, you have to visit an Islamic country.
The West didn't become number one in the world due to a supremacy of values, but always due to the supremacy of applying violence. The West conquered its current position in the world by violence. And this won't work in the future anymore due to many reasons, but that is a whole study on its own.