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Today: consumption kills eco-systems; fraud, greed, grand larceny and theft bring down world's finances; deceit, infidelity and instant gratification destroy families; murders and wars have left us without peace or stability. On top we have droughts, earthquakes, floods, storms, tsunamis … has the world gone mad! Submit now to Allah before it is too late - to the One and Only God, the Creator, Lord and Sustainer of the universe, Unique in His Person and Actions, without any blemish, weakness or relatives. Follow the Sunnah of Muhammad (the last Messenger and Prophet - upon whom be the peace and blessings of Allah), and join those who will be the really successful ones.

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Monday, February 27, 2006

Hate!

Despite my faith in Allah (SubHana Wa Ta`ala) that whatever happens is for the best; despite all my wisdom and sanity, there are times, far too many of them, when I wish ...

And it is due to betrayal. I talk to people in all innocence, with a view to help them, and they turn it into someting against me. I do not talk, and they still turn it against me.

I do not like my colleagues, I am afraid. I hate them. I wish they did not exist, or that I didn't.




Here is some advice for me. I post it here so I can refer it whenever I need it. I think it is good in many situations, not just the workplace.

UmmWafi
Madina Citizen
Madina Muhsin




Yaa Rabbiy, grant me an understanding heart....


Gender:
Posts: 556
Re: Hate!
« Reply #2 on: Feb 27th, 2006, 10:13pm » Quote » Modify

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Twice I have worked in an all-Muslim environment. I naively thought that things would be all rosy and ukhwah-like. I was wrong. In all counts. Whatever suggestions I made was greeted with suspicions, whatever comments was derided as pompousness etc etc. I saw lots of power politicking and backstabbing going round and many a times I was soo tempted to give back as good as I got. I quit because I didn't want to commit more sins, Astaghfirullah.

However, one important lesson I learnt from all these is, its too too tiring and painful to hate. Hate is an all-consuming emotion that destroys anything good in us. I also learnt that I am as good as the emotions I harbour and I am as good as my response to tests from Allah SubHana Wa Ta`ala. That kept me sane. After a while I begin to seriously ask about MY niyyah. If I am ikhlas in my actions then I shouldn't be affected by other people's response. So now, if a colleague gives me negativity, I just Istighfar and walk away and tell myself I have tried.

I guess right now in my life, after all I have gone through, hatred is something that will only cause me pain and defeat. Its just too tiring.

May Allah ease your burdens Inshallah.

Wassalam
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"Knowledge is the arrival of meaning into the soul and the arrival of soul into meaning. Meaning is understanding and accepting the position of things in the order of Creation and the position of Allah in the order of Existence"
-Prof Syed Naquib Al-Attas

"Truth is Timeless, and returning to Truth is better than continuing in Falsehood"

- 'Umar Ibn al-Khattab ra


JustOne
Madina Citizen
Madina Mujahid




Wisdom begins in wonder


Gender:
Posts: 1428
Re: Hate!
« Reply #3 on: Feb 27th, 2006, 11:48pm » Quote » Modify

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Hate is all-consuming...that's brilliant, UmmWafi, because it really is.

I hate some of my coworkers too. What's worse is that I think it shows. I'll get up and leave the dining hall when contentious subjects come up so as to keep myself from replying.

What I've realized in my years of working (and yes, it's been years even if I haven't stuck to anything for too long)..this is a compilation of advice from other people and my own realizations

1. Be muslim, akhlaaq wise.

2. Set boundaries.

3. Your personal life and your professional life are entirely separate, and you need to let people know this. In fact, when you feel yourself blurring the line, it helps to say this out loud to anyone who can hear you, "My professional and personal life are entirely separate."

4. Do as much as you can, but make sure everyone knows what you're doing. Even if you filed a receipt, create a paper trail, CC it to 20 people, don't let anyone take credit for what you've done. Or worse, don't let anyone misconstrue what you've done. Don't be a nuisance, either.

5. If someone confides in you, no matter how much you feel the need to, do not, by ANY means, let anyone even get the whiff of what happened. Even if you only feel the need to express your amazement at humanity itself, do NOT talk about it.

6.Cut to the chase. When you find someone lingering around in your office (in my case, mostly middle-aged men), ask them what they want. It helps to actually use those words, "so what is it you want?"...If this doesn't work, get up and walk them to the door.

7. Be cordial.

8. Unless you have to be mean. In which case, be mean.

9. "You gotta do what you gotta do." That's another one to keep offhand.

10. Don't take things personally.

11. Sometimes it's easy to tell yourself that someone did something because they are malicious human beings. My advice? Save yourself the emotional trauma (which you do not need in a workplace anyway), and tell yourself that they are not malicious, but simply incompetent.

12. If your boss asks you, "when do you think you can get this in by?" In your head, do a time measurement, and then double it. So if today's monday, and you can get it done by tuesday. Tell him it'll be in by Wedensday. Two reasons: a) it gives you a margin for things to go wrong, b) if you hand it on tuesday, he realizes that you are truly the genius he hired you as.

13. Trust your instincts.

14. Do more than you can. As in, let them see your capacity.

15. Don't do more than your job description. As in, don't take the brunt of it and volunteer to do the filing for the secretary.

16. No gossipping.

17. No discussions on religion.

18. No discussions on politics.

19. No coming to work dressed like a bum.

20. Get there early if you must, but always leave on time. (Like I said, they need to know that you have a personal life which extends beyond your professional life, which is completely separate.)

So maybe these apply more to girls. Ah well.

Wasalaam.
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kickin'dustontheGT
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Humbling the vertical pronoun. "Thus let me live, unseen, unknown; thus unlamented let me die;...and not a stone tell where I lie."


bhaloo
Madina Administrator




Quran 25:63


Gender:
Posts: 2891
Re: Hate!
« Reply #4 on: Feb 28th, 2006, 9:43am » Quote » Modify

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...seek (Allah's) help with patient perserverance and prayer... (Quran 2:45)

"... But if you are constant and do right, not the least harm will their cunning do to you..." (Quran 3:120)

"And if you catch them out, catch them out no worse than they catch you out: but if you show patience, that is indeed the best (course) for those who are patient" (Quran 16:126)

"(Luqman said: -'O my son!... enjoin what is just, and forbid what is wrong: and bear with patient constancy whatever betide you, for this is firmness (of purpose) in (the conduct of) affairs" (Quran 31:17)

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Wasalaam,
Arshad
http://members.cox.net/arshad


ummnajmah
Madina Mumin





Qul Huwwa Allahu Ahad!


Gender:
Posts: 150
Re: Hate!
« Reply #5 on: Feb 28th, 2006, 9:56am » Quote » Modify

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Co-Workers can be vicious, subhanAllah! Bro. Timbuktu, don't let anyone get to you that much that you wish you don't exist. Take Sis Just Ones advice. No wonder you see disgruntled pple who come back and kill other employees. Work can be very stressful, full of jealousy and backstabbing people. Hang in there bro, make dua and try to have patience because you will need it a lot of times. All the best timbuktu.

Sunday, February 19, 2006

true story 004: Where is Khalil?

Where is Khalil?

In a dimly lit small room, with a damp mouldy smell, six humans sit huddled together,

· Two old parents, bent backs, cataract in the eyes
· A wife, looking old due to having seen a good day only once in a while,
· Three children, two school going, having had their schooling resumed only after stops, third ready to go

fear evident from their eyes, waiting, waiting for Khalil!

But where is Khalil?

Perhaps I should start at the beginning, and tell you who is Khalil.

But what is the beginning?

Is the beginning before Khalil’s birth, or even before his parents were married? Is it when his parents had to leave their respective homes in India as a result of anti-Muslim riots in the wake of Independence?

This is how it happened: Lulled by assurances of a peaceful life, and told that all weapons, even kitchen knives, were being collected from everyone in the province, so as to ensure communal peace, Khalil’s grandparents were also persuaded to give up everything in their house that could ever be used in defence. Little known to them, the Sikh and Hindu Mahasabha were being armed by the police and the paramilitary armies of the neighbouring princely Sikh States.

On the night of independence and after that, these were let loose on the Muslim villages, or houses of Muslims, with murder, pillage, rape and abduction, often led by the police, or the Sikh regiments.

When the attackers left the village of Khalil’s grandparents with their booty, including ornaments and some girls, there was little left except dead bodies and a few injured ones who were left for dead. Among those were Khalil’s grandparents and one teenage son. They managed to walk part of the way, and to take a train through part of it, along the route experiencing yet more attacks and yet more dead.

They reached Lahore, but to live their lives meant a lot of struggle. They eventually made Lahore their home. Struggling to make a new life, they married off their son, to whom was born Khalil, whose parents decided that their son would get the highest education. Also living in poverty, they impressed upon their son the virtues of honesty, hard work and education.

Khalil did not disappoint them.

He studied and worked hard.

When his father fell ill and was unable to provide for his family, Khalil worked tuitions to support the family. He was fortunate in that his hard work was rewarded, and he even took a gold medal from the University.

That is where his good luck, or rewards for hard work, ended.

He sent in applications for jobs in the thousands, he appeared in hundreds of them, but was not lucky enough to land a job. Apparently he needed a “good” reference, which means from someone high up in politics, bureaucracy or the army. He knew no one in these.

Khalil was interested in knowledge. He became a member of four libraries in the city, but his membership brought him in contact with people who are considered unsuccessful in this world, so these clubs did not help him either. His networking was in the wrong nets.

He tried starting businesses with money borrowed from friends, or from selling his family’s meager possessions, but here too he was unsuccessful. In the presence of adulterated and sub-standard goods and services, in the need to bribe police officers and protection racketeers (which he refused), his businesses never flourished except for brief periods.

In one of such periods, Khalil’s parents found a wife for their son, and Khalil soon became a father in his own right.

Tired of failure in his own country, he sold off the family “silver”, and bought a visa to Saudi Arabia, which turned out to be fake, but not by the immigration authorities at the airport. So he managed to stay and work for two years, naturally not in well-paying jobs. Enough perhaps to pay off the debts incurred in his visa, but not enough to breathe easy for a while even.

He had to return to Pakistan when the Saudi police, in one of their raids, found he had a fake visa, and the same old story of applications, small transient jobs, hunger and the kids’ intermittent education began.

He had a fine mind. He read a lot, and analysed it. He came to Islamabad once a week or so, met a journalist friend, told him what he had seen or analysed, and went back to Lahore. His journalist friend often used this input to write his column. Eventually, in one meeting, Khalil told his friend Javed that he could not take it any more. Life had been too difficult for him to carry on.

Javed tried to console him, but Khalil was now past consolation.

Javed advised him to start his own business.

Khalil listed the businesses he had started, finances he had gotten together, the hurdles in the way of principles he had encountered, and how his businesses had failed.

Javed felt too deeply for his friend, so asked him to think of a business he could handle best.

Khalil was a good driver. He mentioned this, and together they concluded that running one’s own private commuter van would be a good business for Khalil.

Javed asked around, and found a second hand van for Rs 1.10 million.

Khalil went quiet, but on encouragement, and Javed promising he would also chip in with Rs. 200,000. Khalil calculated and by selling his parents’ house, his wife’s jewelry, and loans from other friends, he could come up with only Rs. 450,000 – thus the total between the two friends was Rs. 650,000.

They were quiet for some hour or so, when Khalil said he would try to get the rest somehow, and to have the van kept for some time.

After a few days, Khalil returned with the balance.

He had sold his kidney and obtained his price in advance.

After a suitable match from one of those who needed a kidney transplant, his kidney was removed, and when he had recovered, he started driving his van. He enjoyed his work, and it paid him well.

It looked as if his troubles were now over.

Far away, in a land of which people like Khalil can only dream, a Danish paper decided that the time to test Muslims had come again, and commissioned 12 caricatures of the prophet (saw), mocking him and the religion which is all people like Khalil have left.

Peaceful negotiations failed; the Prime Minister of Denmark refused even to see the ten ambassadors of Muslim countries about the issue. The Muslims of Denmark sent a delegation to the ME countries, apprising them of the attack on their religion, and seeking support to have this resolved.

Little by little Muslims, tired of centuries of abuse, tired of an elite imposed upon them, protested, some burning down the consulates of the countries where this provocation had taken place.

Pakistan was late on the scene. A protest took place in Lahore. It was meant to be peaceful, but from somewhere an organized gang of motorcyclists appeared, bent upon destruction. They smashed windows, looted stores, set fire to buildings, and to transport.

Khalil was driving his van when the arsonists caught him.

He pleaded with them, to no avail.

In no time his van was on fire.

He tried to extinguish it with his shirt, but what an inadequate fire extinguisher a shirt is.

Finally, he threw his shirt towards the burning van, and disappeared.

He has not been heard of since.

Friday, February 17, 2006

Modern Crusades

The curse of the infidel

A century ago Muslim intellectuals admired the west. Why did we lose their goodwill?


Karen Armstrong
Thursday June 20, 2002
The Guardian

On July 15 1099, the crusaders from western Europe conquered Jerusalem, falling upon its Jewish and Muslim inhabitants like the avenging angels from the Apocalypse. In a massacre that makes September 11 look puny in comparison, some 40,000 people were slaughtered in two days. A thriving, populous city had been transformed into a stinking charnel house. Yet in Europe scholar monks hailed this crime against humanity as the greatest event in world history since the crucifixion of Christ.

The crusades destabilised the Near East, but made little impression on the Islamic world as a whole. In the west, however, they were crucial and formative. This was the period when western Christendom was beginning to recover from the long period of barbarism known as the Dark Ages, and the crusades were the first cooperative act of the new Europe as she struggled back on to the international scene. We continue to talk about "crusades" for justice and peace, and praise a "crusading journalist" who is bravely uncovering some salutary truth, showing that at some unexamined level, crusading is still acceptable to the western soul. One of its most enduring legacies is a profound hatred of Islam.

Before the crusades, Europeans knew very little about Muslims. But after the conquest of Jerusalem, scholars began to cultivate a highly distorted portrait of Islam, and this Islamophobia, entwined with a chronic anti-semitism, would become one of the received ideas of Europe. Christians must have been aware that their crusades violated the spirit of the gospels: Jesus had told his followers to love their enemies, not to exterminate them. This may be the reason why Christian scholars projected their anxiety on to the very people they had damaged.

Thus it was, at a time when Christians were fighting brutal holy wars against Muslims in the Near East, that Islam became known in Europe as an inherently violent and intolerant faith, a religion of the sword. At a time when the popes were trying to impose celibacy on the reluctant clergy, western biographies of the prophet Mohammed, written by priests and monks, depict him, with ill-concealed envy, as a sexual pervert and lecher, who encouraged Muslims to indulge their basest instincts.

At a time when feudal Europe was riddled with hierarchy, Islam was presented as an anarchic religion that gave too much respect and freedom to menials, such as slaves and women. Christians could not see Islam as separate from themselves; it had become, as it were, their shadow-self, the opposite of everything that they thought they were or hoped they were not.

In fact, the reality was very different. Islam, for example, is not the intolerant or violent religion of western fantasy. Mohammed was forced to fight against the city of Mecca, which had vowed to exterminate the new Muslim community, but the Koran, the inspired scripture that he brought to the Arabs, condemns aggressive warfare and permits only a war of self-defence. After five years of warfare, Mohammed turned to more peaceful methods and finally conquered Mecca by an ingenious campaign of non-violence. After the prophet's death, the Muslims established a vast empire that stretched from the Pyrenees to the Himalayas, but these wars of conquest were secular, and were only given a religious interpretation after the event.

In the Islamic empire, Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians enjoyed religious freedom. This reflected the teaching of the Koran, which is a pluralistic scripture, affirmative of other traditions. Muslims are commanded by God to respect the "people of the book", and reminded that they share the same beliefs and the same God.

Mohammed had not intended to found a new religion; he was simply bringing the old religion of the Jews and the Christians to the Arabs, who had never had a prophet before. Constantly the Koran explains that Mohammed has not come to cancel out the revelations brought by Adam, Abraham, Moses or Jesus. Today, Muslim scholars have argued that had Mohammed known about the Buddhists and Hindus, the native Americans or the Australian Aborigines, the Koran would have endorsed their sages and shamans too, because all rightly guided religion comes from God.

But so entrenched are the old medieval ideas that western people find it difficult to believe this. We continue to view Islam through the filter of our own needs and confusions. The question of women is a case in point. None of the major world faiths has been good to women but, like Christianity, Islam began with a fairly positive message, and it was only later that the religion was hijacked by old patriarchal attitudes. The Koran gives women legal rights of inheritance and divorce, which western women would not receive until the 19th century. The Koran does permit men to take four wives, but this was not intended to pander to male lust, it was a matter of social welfare: it enabled widows and orphans to find a protector, without whom it was impossible for them to survive in the harsh conditions of 7th-century Arabia.

There is nothing in the Koran about obligatory veiling for all women or their seclusion in harems. This only came into Islam about three generations after the prophet's death, under the influence of the Greeks of Christian Byzantium, who had long veiled and secluded their women in this way. Veiling was neither a central nor a universal practice; it was usually only upper-class women who wore the veil. But this changed during the colonial period.

Colonialists such as Lord Cromer, the consul general of Egypt from 1883 to 1907, like the Christian missionaries who came in their wake, professed a horror of veiling. Until Muslims aban doned this barbarous practice, Cromer argued in his monumental Modern Egypt, they could never advance in the modern world and needed the supervision of the west. But Lord Cromer was a founder member in London of the Men's League for Opposing Women's Suffrage. Yet again, westerners were viewing Islam through their own muddled preconceptions, but this cynicism damaged the cause of feminism in the Muslim world and gave the veil new importance as a symbol of Islamic and cultural integrity.

We can no longer afford this unbalanced view of Islam, which is damaging to ourselves as well as to Muslims. We should recall that during the 12th century, Muslim scholars and scientists of Spain restored to the west the classical learning it had lost during the Dark Ages. We should also remember that until 1492, Jews and Christians lived peaceably and productively together in Muslim Spain - a coexistence that was impossible elsewhere in Europe.

At the beginning of the 20th century, nearly every single Muslim intellectual was in love with the west, admired its modern society, and campaigned for democracy and constitutional government in their own countries. Instead of seeing the west as their enemy, they recognised it as compatible with their own traditions. We should ask ourselves why we have lost this goodwill.

· Karen Armstrong is the author of Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet (Weidenfeld); The Battle for God: Fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity and Islam (HarperCollins), and Islam: A Short History (Weidenfeld).

comment@guardian.co.uk

Sunday, February 12, 2006

Banning Drugs from blasphemors’ states

I read this in The News, Islamabad, on Saturday 11th Feb, 2006:

Drugs import from blasphemors’ states to be banned
Drugs import from blasphemors’ states to be banned

So the government wants to ban import of medicines from 45 countries!

I couldn't believe it, or rather I could, because we are perhaps the stupidest or the cleverest people on Earth.

Stupid, because what we should be banning is luxury goods and non-essentials like cosmetics, processed cheeses, dried milk etc. And trade only in those items that are needed for saving lives or other essentials. By stopping import of medicines, we shoot ourselves in the foot.

Clever, because this could be a ploy of those ultra Westophones who want to sabotage any expression of religious fervour. This would be ascribed to Muslim Ulema, and the blame for non-availablilty will be laid at their feet.

Saturday, February 11, 2006

Europe's arrogance

Europe's contempt for other cultures can't be sustained

A continent that inflicted colonial brutality all over the globe for 200 years has little claim to the superiority of its values

Martin Jacques
Friday February 17, 2006
The Guardian

Is the argument over the Danish cartoons really reducible to a matter of free speech? Even if we believe that free speech is a fundamental value, that does not give us carte blanche to say what we like in any context, regardless of consequence or effect. Respect for others, especially in an increasingly interdependent world, is a value of at least equal importance.

Europe has never had to worry too much about context or effect because for around 200 years it dominated and colonised most of the world. Such was Europe's omnipotence that it never needed to take into account the sensibilities, beliefs and attitudes of those that it colonised, however sacred and sensitive they might have been. On the contrary, European countries imposed their rulers, religion, beliefs, language, racial hierarchy and customs on those to whom they were entirely alien. There is a profound hypocrisy - and deep historical ignorance - when Europeans complain about the problems posed by the ethnic and religious minorities in their midst, for that is exactly what European colonial rule meant for peoples around the world. With one crucial difference, of course: the white minorities ruled the roost, whereas Europe's new ethnic minorities are marginalised, excluded and castigated, as recent events have shown.

But it is no longer possible for Europe to ignore the sensibilities of peoples with very different values, cultures and religions. First, western Europe now has sizeable minorities whose origins are very different from the host population and who are connected with their former homelands in diverse ways. If European societies want to live in some kind of domestic peace and harmony - rather than in a state of Balkanisation and repression - then they must find ways of integrating these minorities on rather more equal terms than, for the most part, they have so far achieved. That must mean, among other things, respect for their values. Second, it is patently clear that, globally speaking, Europe matters far less than it used to - and in the future will count for less and less. We must not only learn to share our homelands with people from very different roots, we must also learn to share the world with diverse peoples in a very different kind of way from what has been the European practice.

Europe has little experience of this, and what experience it has is mainly confined to less than half a century. Old attitudes of superiority and disdain - dressed up in terms of free speech, progress or whatever - are still very powerful. Nor - as many liberals like to think - are they necessarily in decline. On the contrary, racial bigotry is on the rise, even in countries that have previously been regarded as tolerant. The Danish government depends for its rule on a racist, far-right party that gained 13% of the seats in the last election. The decision of Jyllands-Posten to publish the cartoons - and papers in France, Germany, Italy and elsewhere to reprint them - lay not so much in the tradition of free speech but in European contempt for other cultures and religions: it was a deliberate, calculated insult to the beliefs of others, in this case Muslims.

This kind of mentality - combining Eurocentrism, old colonial attitudes of supremacism, racism, provincialism and sheer ignorance - will serve our continent ill in the future. Europe must learn to live in and with the world, not to dominate it, nor to assume it is superior or more virtuous. Any continent that has inflicted such brutality on the world over a period of 200 years has not too much to be proud of, and much to be modest and humble about - though this is rarely the way our history is presented in Britain, let alone elsewhere. It is worth remembering that while parts of Europe have had free speech (and democracy) for many decades, its colonies were granted neither. But when it comes to our "noble values", our colonial record is always written out of the script.

This attitude of disdain, of assumed superiority, will be increasingly difficult to sustain. We are moving into a world in which the west will no longer be able to call the tune as it once did. China and India will become major global players alongside the US, the EU and Japan. For the first time in modern history the west will no longer be overwhelmingly dominant. By the end of this century Europe is likely to pale into insignificance alongside China and India. In such a world, Europe will be forced to observe and respect the sensibilities of others.

Few in Europe understand or recognise these trends. A small example is the bitter resistance displayed on the continent to the proposed takeover of Arcelor by Mittal Steel: at root the opposition is based on thinly disguised racism. But Europe had better get used to such a phenomenon: takeovers by Indian and Chinese firms are going to become as common as American ones. A profound parochialism grips our continent. When Europe called the global tune it did not matter, because what happened in Europe translated itself into a global trend and a global power. No more: now it is simply provincialism.

When Europe dominated, there were no or few feedback loops. Or, to put it another way, there were few, if any, consequences for its behaviour towards the non-western world: relations were simply too unequal. Now - and increasingly in the future - it will be very different. And the subject of these feedback loops, or consequences, will concern not just present but also past behaviour.

For 200 years the dominant powers have also been the colonial powers: the European countries, the US and Japan. They have never been required to pay their dues for what they did to those whom they possessed and treated with contempt. Europeans have treated this chapter in their history by choosing to forget. So has Japan, except that in its case its neighbours have not only refused to forget but are also increasingly powerful. As a consequence, Japan's present and future is constantly stalked by its history. This future could also lie in wait for Europe. We might think the opium wars are "simply history"; the Chinese (rightly) do not. We might think the Bengal famine belongs in the last century, but Indians do not.

Europe is moving into a very different world. How will it react? If something like the attitude of the Danes prevails - a combination of defensiveness, fear, provincialism and arrogance - then one must fear for Europe's ability to learn to live in this new world. There is another way, but the signs are none too hopeful.

· Martin Jacques is a senior visiting research fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore

mailto:Martinjacques1@aol.com

Friday, February 10, 2006

a conspiracy to burn flags!

"Why was there an abundance of Danish and other Western Flags to burn. Doesn't it show a conspiracy?"

Having revealed the top-secret CIA findings on why the Muslims are violent, (the gene and meme research, in the post titled "We are the Borg!"), I feel compelled to continue in the spirit of telling the Truth, the whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth. So I will reveal why there always is such an abundance of foreign flags for burning.

We are required by our Imams to have at least ten flags of every non-Muslim country in our homes, or else we aren't allowed to attend the Jummaa prayers. This is a lucrative market, so lucrative that every business family in the Muslim countries has had a go at printing flags.

That also shows you the need for having flag-burning festivals, (for what are these demonstrations but festivals), at regular intervals, so as to revitalise the flag printing industry, and to keep the economy rolling.

I hope that answers the question on abundance of flags for burning.

We are the Borg!

The West asks: Why were there protests and boycotts and burning of Embassies and threats over things so innocuous as cartoons. Surely cartoons are for laughing. Don’t Muslims have a sense of humor?

There is an answer that will satisfy the religious, another that will satisfy those who think in terms of politics, yet another other that involves a clash of civilizations, and then there is the truth. I weighed it very carefully, because as some of my readers may have discovered I do a lot of self-censoring, and by the look of things, the West at least does not want talk that is restrained. It is more comfortable with free speech.

OK then, I will take the plunge and tell you the truth about us Muslims; it will be free from self-censor.

There is a big secret about us that is known only to a few, but perhaps some of the truth has got out, hence this constant hammering of the violent minority although an overwhelming majority of Muslims have condemned the slogans calling for death or holocaust.

Research on Islam has been going on for a very long time - centuries. Some of this has resulted in good, and some of this has exposed such dark secrets about us that these secrets have to be kept under wraps.

The CIA thought it knew all about us, but then something happened, and the CIA had to commission this research. Some time ago in the last century it happened so that the Shah of Iran fell, and Iran became an Islamic Republic, and gave up all the goodies and the civilized behaviour like nudity and nightclubs and wine and gambling (all things that enhance the GDP and make one civilized), that it had learnt from the West, and the women went back to wearing the oppressive veil (or at least the hijab) and the like; and horror of horrors, they even voted in the dreaded backward Shariah (the Shia version).

The Director of CIA was grilled on German TV about not being able to foresee it even while the CIA for Asia was centered in Tehran. He said in his defence something to the effect that "we thought we understood the Muslims, but obviously they (the Muslims) have some trait that is unpredictable."

The CIA then set about to remove this unpredictability by commissioning the research. That research yielded what I am going to tell you:

You see we Muslims are violent.

No big deal here as any sensible non-Muslim has seen by now, because although all the Muslims here have condemned the slogans, they haven't condemned the protest over the questioning of "free speech" about the prophet (Peace Be Upon Him). Hence we Muslims must, by definition, be violent.

However, the CIA research goes further, and tells you why:

We Muslims have a "terrorism" gene, and a "terrorism" meme.

If we are born Muslim, we are violent by virtue of this gene, and if we are converts, then alas the meme thing comes into play, because just saying the shahada puts the meme in there.

There really is no hope for us, but as we multiply faster than rabbits and we are immigrating into other cultures, we will take over the world.

At one time Europe understood us better, and the truth about us is told in the frightening stories of yore. The Inquisition understood us best.

We are the Borg; be warned that the world's inhabitants are being Borged.

That’s the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.