CALIIBRE

Possibly 2011's Most Important Quote

2011-12-21T15:29:00.001+07:00

As the year 2011 draws to a close... I found this:

“We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must - at that moment - become the center of the universe.”― Elie Wiesel

Original quote found on Being Me

Those that stand by and do nothing are as culpable as those that commit the atrocities!

caliibre

USA Today Article - No Dinosaurs in Heaven

2011-10-17T11:57:00.002+07:00

A recent poll conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute and Religion News Service found that 38 percent of Americans believe "humans and other living things have existed in their present form since creation." In a recent CNN poll, more than 40% of respondents said evolution was probably or definitely false.

Ref: Full Article

http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/story/2011-10-11/evolution-dinosaurs-heaven/50734904/1

It's a worry… the level of ignorance in the citizens of the "world's dominant power".

Islamization - Coming Soon to a City of 'Yours'?

2010-10-04T11:19:00.004+07:00

Time to be more than just concerned?

caliibre

Stop the Mosque, Pat Condell's Video Wake em Up Call

2010-09-02T12:38:00.000+07:00

He says it all really...

Thank you Pat... and all power to us!

Science can answer moral questions! Sam Harris at TED

2010-04-20T10:57:00.000+07:00

A worthwhile 20 minutes!

www.caliibre.com

Pope at Centre of Child Abuse Storm

2010-03-28T11:21:00.008+07:00

"Pope at centre of child abuse storm" Read the article: Sickening "Pope at centre of child abuse storm" The "buck stops" where?

CALIIBRE.COM

Fostering the idea that children should be offered/presented with a "spherical view of reality" rather than just being stuck with a ‘faith label’ from birth. Against the insidious practice of filling the young with religious dogma. Citizens. Against. Literalistic. Intellectual-Incest. Breeding. Rabid. Egomaniacs. An attack on narrow minded, biased, bullying, self proclaimed or institutionally supported 'truth-peddlers'.

caliibre "hey preacher... leave those kids alone"

Georgia’s Christian right comes out against bills aimed at child prostitution

2010-02-02T10:36:00.000+07:00

Good post on the wrong of the "Christian Right"

"The weight of the state’s Christian right movement just came down in opposition to a pair of bills that would steer young girls under the age of 16 into diversionary programs instead of arresting them on charges of prostitution."

The rest is here:

jim_galloway

and there are some interesting comments as well!

www.caliibre.com

USA an Evangelical Right Wing Nutters Paradise

2009-09-24T09:20:00.004+07:00

Huffing Post Article:

"Evangelical Red Guards

Over the last 30 years Evangelical fundamentalists have managed to do what Chairman Mao failed to do with his Red Guards: indoctrinate a whole generation of evangelical people to see their own society as the enemy and act like subversives from within the culture. These people are as anti-American as Al-Qaeda. The "Christian Reconstruction" movement is working for theocracy"

Read the full worrying developments:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-schaeffer/glenn-beck-and-the-912-ma_b_284387.html

This is a very good article and don't miss the discussion/comments

Seems to me lots of these people are suffering from a lack of emotional intelligence (EQ)

caliibre

Stupid Praying Mother Kills Her Child

2009-05-23T16:37:00.006+07:00

"A mother accused of praying instead of seeking medical help for her dying 11-year-old daughter was found guilty on Friday [May 2nd] of reckless homicide."

http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/5588968/mother-guilty-letting-daughter-die/

Stupid woman makes me sick!!! "Hey preachers leave those kids alone". Perhaps her pastor, minister or whatever should be charged as an accessory. She is "a devout Christian".

calliibre

Arab Imperialism - Arabization

2009-05-01T06:29:00.004+07:00

Interesting article by Anwar Shaikh

"Muslims from all over the world are feared as terrorists in the Western world. Is it a propaganda or misunderstanding? It is neither. Frankly stated, it is the truth.

Islam has divided humankind into two perpetually hostile groups, i.e. the Muslims and the non-Muslims. The former have the duty to hate their own fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters and countrymen if they practise a different faith. The Muslims must force the infidels to embrace Islam, using any means including murder, rape, loot, arson, deception and treason.

Until a country has embraced Islam, it is legally considered a battlefield (Dar-ul-Harb) and the Muslims are obliged to betray their own motherland through civil and military action. Once it is converted to the Muslim ideology, it ranks as a Land of Peacxe (Dar-us-Salaam) but at a very high cost to one's national pride because then it exists as a spiritual and cultural satellite of Arabia. This is what makes Islam the subtle tool of Arab Imperialism."

The rest is here:

http://www.news.faithfreedom.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=790

A very informative series of articles!

Don't Send Your Kids to a Religious School

2009-03-26T08:38:00.008+07:00

All this superstition nonsense and nastiness must have started somewhere...

'Crucifix' killing in French pilgrimage town

"TOULOUSE, France (AFP) - A woman who thought she was the devil killed her elderly mother with a crucifix and other objects in the French Catholic pilgrimage town Lourdes, officials and press reports said Wednesday."

The rest of this sorry tale is here:

http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/newshome/5441478

www.caliibre.com

Is the Pope Crazy?, Vicious?, Irresponsible? or just a Dogmatic Fool?

2009-03-19T17:00:00.017+07:00

"The spread of HIV and Aids in Africa should be tackled through fidelity and abstinence and not by condoms", Pope Benedict XVI has said.

This man and perhaps his less than reputable organization, should be taken to the International Criminal Court for inciting crimes against humanity!

Also from the BBC article... "The UN estimates that without new initiatives and greater access to drugs, more than 80 million Africans may die from Aids by 2025 and HIV infections could reach 90 million, or 10% of the continent's population."

Indonesia's Power Hungry Clerics at it Again

2009-03-19T16:49:00.008+07:00

Hard-line clerics demand ban on Rotary, Lions clubs

The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Mon, 02/02/2009 4:06 PM |

"A group of hard-line clerics calling themselves the People's Ulema Forum (FUU) have demanded President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono ban the international charity and social organizations Rotary Club and Lions Club, claiming they are part of a Zionist movement.

The clerics said Yudhoyono should revoke former president Abdurahman Wahid's 2000 decree that allowed both clubs to operate in Indonesia"

The rest of the report on the nutters rubbish is here

Common Sense from a Most Uncommon Man

2008-05-13T15:38:00.004+07:00

Childish superstition: Einstein's letter makes view of religion relatively clear by James Randerson, science correspondent
The Guardian, Tuesday May 13 2008

"The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this." Albert Einstein

Read the full article here!

If only the worlds less intelligent religious zealots could come to grips with being adults and what that entails, or as John Lennon put it "Imagine".

www.caliibre.com

Makes Me Sick... and Angry

2008-05-11T14:11:00.003+07:00

Why some cultures need to be dumped into the dustbin of history!

'My daughter deserved to die for falling in love'

"Two weeks ago, The Observer revealed how 17-year-old student Rand Abdel-Qader was beaten to death by her father after becoming infatuated with a British soldier in Basra. In this remarkable interview, Abdel-Qader Ali explains why he is unrepentant - and how police backed his actions." Afif Sarhan in Basra and Caroline Davies The Observer, Sunday May 11 2008

www.caliibre.com

The Mohammed Bear Affair - More Evidence of Arrested Development

2007-11-30T11:36:00.001+07:00

In a previous article I argued that religion hampers the development of true morality. Once again with the ‘Mohammad bear affair’ we see more proof that religion also limits intellectual development. Intellect when considered in its fullest sense requires the successful use or application of the three areas of intelligence i.e. problem solving capacity (IQ), emotional intelligence, 'relationship management' (EQ) and spiritual intelligence, 'character development' (SQ). It is also worth remembering that the ability to reason in ‘humans’ is not developed until about the age of nine.

If a bunch of seven year olds and their teacher can create a sense of insult to the fragile egos of supposedly reasonable adults what chance for the future do those tainted by this ‘madness’ (and the rest of us) have. Back in the old days when they had spears or bows and arrows and they where more isolated we may not have needed to worry too much about a bunch of ‘wackos’ brutalizing or slaughtering each other in the Horn of Africa.

Today things are different. With us all needing to address serious problems of our existence it is time for the rest of us to stand, speak out and take action to consign this blurred reality (fantasy) of the masses to the “dustbin of history” where it belongs. Global communication means that religious poison can be spread to all corners of humanity. Childlike ‘we are insulted’ cries by parental minded dictatorial fully-grown ‘adults’ must not go unheeded… they must be stomped on.

‘God’ when will these people grow up, a plea for a saner world!

www.caliibre.com

Hey teacher/preacher leave those kids alone!

2007-11-06T13:31:00.000+07:00

The eight year old son of a friend came home recently from a school in Beijing distressed because his dad was going to hell. His mother is upset and enormous stress has been placed on the family by the incident. Why was this child disturbed? Because his irresponsible prosthelyzing teacher told him dad’s trip to hell was pretty much inevitable.

Reminds me of this event… ‘David Paszkiewicz of the Kearny School District faces public scrutiny over religious discourse delivered in his high school history class. One of his students, Matthew LaClair, broke the story by providing taped recordings of Paszkiewicz's lectures. In September 2006, the teacher spoke on the fallacies of evolution and described dinosaurs as present on Noah's Ark. He continued telling his students that, "If you reject his [Jesus] gift of salvation, then you know where you belong ... If you reject that, you belong in hell."’ (1)

When will these subverters of the young be stopped.

If you are as outraged by this ‘teacher’s’ lousy behaviour as I am or you have your own experiences to recount, please comment below.

Its been a while since I’ve written I guess because I no longer live in Indonesia and I suppose the lack of a manic mullah screaming a call to prayer through a loudspeaker five times a day has made my environment a little more real.

www.caliibre.com

ref: 1) http://www.omninerd.com/news/
Teacher_Preaches_in_Public_Classroom

“Islam is a way of life”… and perhaps that’s the problem

2007-06-15T18:11:00.001+07:00

If you type ‘Islam a way of life’ into Google you will get about 10.9 million listings, so I guess it really must be a lifestyle rather than a religion.

A few quotes and caliibre [bracketed] interjections to confirm [and comment on] this fact:

“Islam is not just a religion. It is a way of life. It should [but doesn’t] bring about peace, stability and success. It is a way of life which does not neglect spiritual values and can bring greatness to the followers of Islam, as it once did.” [This is an admission that it isn’t currently!] (1)

“Malaysia Today” provides an insight in an interesting article by Raja Petra Kamarudin ‘Islam the religion vs. Islam the way of life’ (Oct 03, 2005)…

“Why go to great pains to impress upon all and sundry that Islam is not just a religion but a way of life? Well, ‘religion’ involves a set of rituals based, of course, on certain beliefs or akidah, which would be the foundation of the religion. A way of life, instead, would be broader and the rituals of the religion being just a small part of it. Malays… (abbrev) …would argue that Prophet Muhammad did not introduce a new religion but just perfected the old religions (or corrected the misconceptions and deviations through the ages of the old religions) of the ‘peoples of the Book’ -- meaning Jews and Christians -- and turned it into a way of life.” Interestingly, or perhaps obviously, the author then points out that the Malays in Malaysia are mostly hypocrites as he goes on to say… “But then, when it comes to practice, that is another thing altogether. Malays pay lip service to this whole concept of ‘way of life’.” (2)

Again… “In Islam, the word “religion” means way of life, a way of living that includes all aspects of life, be they spiritual, moral, social, economic, or even political [now there’s a problem, ask the Irish].” (3)

“Islam is not a religion in the common, distorted [is the use of the word distorted an arrogance?] meaning of the word, confining its scope only to the private life of man. By saying that it is a complete way of life, we mean that it caters for all the fields of human existence. In fact, Islam provides guidance for all walks of life – individual and social, material and moral, economic and political, legal and cultural, national and international.” (4) Well there is a load of rubbish if I have ever heard it. Perhaps this quote from Karen Armstrong’s book “The Great Transformation” explains it better than I can: “Zoroaster’s [another religious leader of about 1200 BCE] traumatized vision, with its imagery of burning terror and extermination was vengeful. [Sounds like he was living in times not unlike now.] His career reminds us that political turbulence, atrocity and suffering… [abridged] can inspire a militant piety that polarizes complex reality into oversimplified categories of good and evil.” (5) The major problem with Islam [and other religions for that matter] is that they try to pander to the ignorant ‘tribals’ among us by using the principle of ‘make and keep it simple for the stupids’. Lets be honest there a lot of stupid people out there. Just look at the Palestinian gunmen, Iraqi gunmen, Afghan gunmen to name but a few that you see on TV firing into the air. Perhaps they haven’t noticed they are no longer in the desert and what goes up doesn’t stay with Allah, it comes down… amongst their own local citizens including innocent kids. What a puerile bunch of grubby fundamental orifices this religion has inflicted on the world.

And again… “Islam is a way of life that an individual chooses [or is forced into by his/her parent/s as a result of the accident of the place and the unfortunate circumstances of his or her birth]. This is a fact. It is also a fact that when a society—of individuals—adopts a certain way of life, this way of life will definitely affect that society’s decision-making and leadership, or in other words, politics. So, in that sense, Islam has a lot to do with politics within Muslim societies. In my view, saying that “Islam has nothing to do with politics” is a denial of the very nature of Islam as a comprehensive way of life, not just a system of spiritual rituals performed in a place or time specified for worship, in the traditional sense.” (6) Yes definitely some raw and revolting despots are produced by the politics of Islam.

So have a browse at the Islamic lifestyle at:
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/
and/or at perhaps a worse site at:
http://www.pmw.org.il/tv%20part3.html
and you may see why “the lifestyle” option is a problem and why it represents a way of life that most rational individuals of the 21st century don’t want! In some respects headlines like this say it all… “Female Pakistani minister shot dead for ‘breaking Islamic dress code’”. If you would like to read this article in full it is here:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article1414137.ece

Another female victim of the Islamic lifestyle is discussed in chapter two of Christopher Hitchens’ book “God Is Not Great” and I quote “In Gaza, a young woman named Yusra al-Azami was shot dead in April 2005, for the crime of sitting unchaperoned in a car with her fiancé. The young man escaped with only a vicious beating. The leaders of the Hamas “vice and virtue” squad justified this casual murder and torture by saying that there had been “suspicion of immoral behavior.” In once secular Palestine, mobs of sexually repressed young men are conscripted to snoop around parked cars, and given permission to do what they like. (7)

A further troubling issue is, according to one source, the fact that Muslims must have a: “Belief that Allah (God) has the power to determine one's destiny. A Muslim believes that all that is good and bad emanates from Allah. Allah governs all our actions, but a true believer will be thankful to Allah for all his good deeds and expresses remorse over his bad actions.” (8)

Any system of beliefs that shelters its adherents in a cloak of ‘superior being’ impunity and that negates individual responsibility for humanities wellbeing is an abomination on the earth and its people. Cults and faiths through constant questioning need to be exposed as the shams they are and of course must be vigorously resisted.

Islam in reality is just another ‘religion’ or perhaps ‘cult’ that should be consigned to the dustbin of history with Christianity so it can be forced away from the daily lives of the long suffering ‘realists’ of our troubled earth.

www.caliibre.com

Refs:
1) http://www.iht.com/articles/2002/02/08/ (Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad)
2) http://www.malaysia-today.net/ (Raja Petra Kamarudin)
3) http://www.islamonline.net (Professor Dr. Jamal Badawi)
4) http://www.islamonline.net/ (Dalia Salaheldin, Ask About Islam editorial team)
5) The Great Transformation - Karen Armstrong - Anchor Books p.13
6) http://discover.islamonline.net/ (Jasser Auda, PhD, Dir al-Maqasid Resch. Cntr. Phl. Islamic Law)
7) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18503995/site/newsweek/page/5/
8) http://www.muis.gov.sg/mabims/islamdoc.asp (author unknown)

ps How is this for a 21st century headline: “Iranian police have warned barbers not to give men Western hairstyles or use make up on them.” My your gods or great armies protect you against an Islamic lifestyle!

Malaysiarabia

2007-06-01T16:56:00.000+07:00

May 30 2007, what a sad day for Malaysia. The court verdict against Lina Joy has destroyed her bid to have her religious choice be seen as a matter of personal conscience rather than a state imposed obligation. Whilst the angry young men rejoice and shout “Allah-o-Akbar”, the Muslim religion again trumps the constitution and provides yet another early indication of the cracks forming in this previously rights based democracy.

This verdict and other sad cases such as that of Subashini Rajasperhaps, may mean that the country’s tourist promotion board needs to rework its “Truly Asia” campaign. Perhaps now they need to market as ‘Malaysia truly Arabia’. Actually the government sometime back removed its English street names so it should be no problem for them to re-brand KL as the centre of “ASIARABIA” and perhaps they could call it ‘Riyadh Lumpur’. Oh yes and of course Putrajaya could become Meccaminor.

Now get the tune in the head and its… Malaysia…. truly Arabia… yessssirrrr sounds great.

www.caliibre.com

Jerry Falwell’s Dead - May 15, 2007

2007-05-16T12:24:00.000+07:00

Killed by mother nature in the normal course of events. This special occasion reminds me of the great Clarence Darrow quote: “I never wanted to see anybody die but there are a few obituary notices I have read with pleasure.”

His life for me was a great testimony to another Darrow quote: “The world is made up for the most part of morons and natural tyrants, sure of themselves, strong in their own opinions, never doubting anything.”

What a great day for humanity May 15th has become.

Oh yes and... “a date which will live in infamy” (Roosevelt) perhaps could be applied to August 11 1933, the date of his birth.

www.caliibre.com

Does God really despise Indonesia or isn’t it listening?

2007-03-22T17:55:00.000+07:00

I guess recently the cultists (sometimes referred to as ‘the religious’) in Indonesia are scratching their heads trying to understand the reason for the country’s recent calamities. A prayer session was undertaken in February by a number of the top echelon of cult leaders after the train derailment in central Java that killed five people and injured hundreds that closely followed the crash of Adam Air Flight 574 in Sulawesi and the burning of the Senopati Nusantara ferry in the Java sea that left the country with a combined death toll in the hundreds. The local cult (religious) leaders who held the large joint prayer meeting were apparently asking god to bring safety and relief to Indonesia.

Since the initial prayers there has been the sinking of the already damaged ferry on February 25th while investigators and news people were on board thus losing another 4 lives. There has also been a massive landslide that killed at least 34 in Cibal district, East Nusa Tenggara, Flores Island on March 3rd and a second air crash with 21 killed in Yogyakarta on March 7th. Hence my question; does god really sit about listening to the prayers of the ineffectual and the top ‘god botherers’ of the country?

Then of course we get this…

“Leaders join prayer for RI safety” (Again?) - Saturday, March 10, 2007- M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta. “…the country's leaders sought assistance from on high Friday by joining a mass prayer at the Istiqlal Grand Mosque in Central Jakarta. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Vice President Jusuf Kalla and almost all the ministers from the United Indonesia Cabinet joined with thousands of Muslims to take part in a group prayer (dzikir) held after the Friday prayer. The seemingly ordinary Friday prayer took on new meaning, especially after the director general for Islamic and haj affairs at the Religious Affairs Ministry, Nasaruddin Umar, focused his sermon on natural disasters and other calamities.”

Then on the following Friday we get this ‘The Minister of Religious Affairs Maftuh Basyuni…’ “has called on the public, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, to organize a mass prayer every Friday at least three times a month to mark the nation's repentance, self-introspection and reconciliation with God.” He is then quoted as saying… "If we have not been behaving appropriately, we should start to behave better."

Another Post journalist Mohammad Yazid also on Friday, March 16, 2007 gets a bit closer to the mark by saying; (abridged) “many accidents [have] occurred in Indonesia... [that] could have been prevented if compliance with the regulations on passengers' safety were heeded and the government's control over the roadworthiness, seaworthiness and airworthiness of modes of transportation had been effective.”

So this leads us to the sinister aspects of all these ‘prayer-happy politicians’ being reported at the central (rather than their own) houses of worship. As it happens coincidentally and in normal Indonesian style no government minister has resigned as a result of their ineffective governance, nor for what perhaps may be even seen as a worse case of gross negligence. Why? Because it’s not the government’s or its minister’s fault it’s a clear case of… “inshala” or “god’s will”. Worse still it’s actually the mass population’s fault (us) because we as the Minister for religious affairs puts it “we need to reconcile with God” and “behave properly”.

What a crass crock of crap this is. The government is inept and ministers charged with overseeing what has been proven to be a faulty transport system should resign.

What is particularly annoying about all this is that any emotionally intelligent individual should be able to see that the prayers are a total waste of time and that they won’t solve the problems of any lousy administration. What really irks me personally is that the politicians walk away unscathed for their irresponsible inept behaviour and then in collusion with the high priests of hypocrisy try to shift responsibility onto the general population by selling them on the idea that they are not ‘good’ enough in god’s eyes and deserve this crap.

“You can fool some of the people all of the time etc”

www.caliibre.com

Refs:

http://www.thejakartapost.com/Archives/ArchivesDet2.asp?FileID=20070310.@02
http://www.thejakartapost.com/Archives/ArchivesDet2.asp?FileID=20070316.E02

Pigs... can you believe it?

2007-01-26T19:00:00.000+07:00

See the gif of today’s Wall Street Journal (Asia) Edition

By the way… The Chinese zodiac has been around as part of their tradition or belief system (with animal symbols finalized) since about 200 B.C.E. and there are about 1.35 billion mainland Chinese. Islam was started in 622 C.E. and there are about 20 million Muslims in China.

Read the article and give me a break… no pigs… huh, is this a case of the tail wagging the dog (I mean pig)… see the article… oops most of them don’t like dogs either…

What a load of crap…

If as two ladies reminded me the other day I should respect the beliefs of others isn’t it right that others should respect my beliefs. It is my firm belief that their belief about pigs is a whole lot of crap and it is my belief that they should stop moaning and making a nuisance of themselves and should suffer the lovely little piggly wigglys in silence.

What about respecting the Chinese mainstream, are they to be robbed of the spiritual year of bounty and walk away from the fact that for them pigs are characterized as “honest, noble, generous and joyful”. Pig people are believed to take pleasure in caring for others and constantly worry about the happiness of everyone else in their life. I for one prefer this outlook than the mad bombing secular infighting pain in the backside winging, ‘you must respect me’ Muslim complainants with their anachronistic health fears.

Oh by the way we shouldn't respect the beliefs of others, thats another load of old thinking, they should have to justify their position on sound argument and proof, not just claim 'rights' or considerations just because its always been that way and because 'I believe it'.

www.caliibre.com

What about the real people?

2007-01-26T12:47:00.000+07:00

The arrogance of religious fanatics constantly astounds me particularly when they claim some superior right to exist or right to rule over parts of the earth. These ‘rights supposedly ordained by their mythical personal gods and then reported and supported by the words of their ‘holy’ books or by their so called prophets show how intellectually and spiritually bankrupt many of them are.

Take a look at this lovely curly side burned little prick and ask yourself who taught him this crap. Click the link... watch the video of...

a 'delightful' young Jewish boy whom Jesus loves

Mainstream religion has always and will always, breed radical or fundamentalist elements. Because of this inescapable fact it needs to be put back in its box. The Jews, the Christians and the Muslims don’t have any more claim to the earth than the rest of us and they all need to be resisted, otherwise the rationalists and other intelligent people of the earth will get caught in the crossfire.

So the next time the nasty, ‘I’m in the right’ Catholic Pope talks about interfaith dialogue just remember he is talking about dividing up the power and control of the earth with manic Clerics and anal retentive Rabbi’s. Perhaps it would be better if all “god-botherers”, including the ‘big chip on the shoulder’, ‘live in the past’ Jewish ones could to be separated from the rest of us. So maybe their wall is a good idea and when it is finished we should insist they stay behind it. Also when the Muslims say its not fair and that the world is at war with them claiming ‘it’s only a few radicals spoiling their reputation’, we need to tell them “that’s crap”, its all of you are that the problem and yes our resistance is aimed at all you single minded “we have the answer” freaks no matter whether you call your god; God, Yahweh or Allah… you are all a pain in the arse.

“When the truth dies bad things happen” and the truth is that religion hampers civilizations progress.

www.caliibre.com

How Religion Impedes Moral Development

2007-01-05T18:24:00.001+07:00

First of all it is important to define moral behaviour. To help us in this task here is an amalgam of various dictionary definitions of the word “moral”: ‘relating to principles of right and wrong; i.e. ethics’; “standards of behaviour and character based on those principles i.e. a "moral sense"; a notion of duty and virtue’ and finally from an old Concise Oxford “conforming to or required or justified by conscience if not law”, “the courage to do the right [thing] unmoved by odium or ridicule” and a “standard of conduct respected by good [people] independently of positive law or religion”.

Marvin W. Berkowitz, Ph.D. in an article entitled “The education of the complete moral person” quotes studies in Canada by ‘Walker, Pitts, Hennig, & Matsuba’ that have resulted in the following “twelve most common descriptors, in descending order of prevalence: compassionate/caring, consistent, honest, self-sacrificing, open-minded, thoughtful/rational, socially active, just, courageous, virtuous, autonomous, and empathic/sensitive. Berkowitz also states that he has “less formally found the same basic set of responses in the USA, Scotland, Switzerland and the Netherlands.”

Berkowitz then points out that much human activity is condoned as a result of a state of “social agreement” or “social convention” which does not necessarily make such activities morally ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. He then states… “Therefore, when schools teach social conventions, they must be prepared for moral evaluation of the validity of those conventions, no matter how widely accepted they might be. The personal domain is concerned with those issues, which should not be socially regulated; i.e., matters of personal preference and taste. No one should be able to tell me what my favourite colour should be or whether I should prefer the taste of chocolate ice cream with or without fresh raspberries. Schools certainly should not teach children which flavours or colours they ought to prefer.”

When we look at religion closely, surely by intellect and reason we must immediately come to the conclusion that neither is religion moral, nor do many of its leaders qualify as apt examples of sound morality. Take some the current Pope’s (previously Cardinal Ratzinger) questionable behaviour. If a recent documentary on BBC has it right he was the primary architect of a major cover up and responsible for the withholding of information from civil authorities regarding cases of priests who committed child molestations with what so far has amounted to ‘holy impunity’ for many of the perpetrators. Also you could name a number of Muslim muftis that with the issuing of various fatwas may do what is acceptable to their social congregations however much of what they advocate in no way can be viewed as moral. The call to murder the now famous cartoonists is a great example. I guess also the infamous call for the killing of Salman Rushdie by the Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini calls into question the morality of that individual. Khomeini claimed that Rushdie's murder was a religious duty for Muslims however that is a cultural issue, (as religion is merely a component of culture) and in my view both he and his fatwa were totally immoral under an objective test of ‘Berkowitz’s twelve factors’ and the dictionary definition. It is worth remembering that Hitoshi Igarashi, the Japanese translator of the book The Satanic Verses was murdered and that two other translators of the book survived attempted assassinations.

Another commentator and the original writer that stimulated this particular blog posting, Brad N. Clark, a correctional educator in California sheds some more light on the uselessness of religion as a moral standard setter. In a 1994 article for the “Free Enquiry” he quotes a body of literature that offers, “observations” regarding “religion's negative effect on the development of those functioning at low moral reasoning levels.” His views in the article are also apparently based on his first hand observations of the high levels of religious converts and religiosity levels in US prisons, apparently encouraged by the US government to have the inmates ‘develop’ into more moral citizens by their release. By ‘develop’ I guess he is referring to their personal growth toward being healthy social functioning individuals able to effectively live with those around them. This of course must also assume that the relevant society as a whole is a ‘mature’ and ‘enlightened’ group functioning in a ‘civilized’ manner.

He goes on: “The underlying assumption that religion and morality are interrelated is simply untenable. For example, Freud suggested that religion served to undermine moral responsibility while promoting fanaticism. He contended that people who behave morally only out of fear of supernatural penalty would be unlikely to respect and care for others from an altruistic perspective. This argument receives support from the theory of moral reasoning developed by the late Lawrence Kohlberg.”

“By moral reasoning, Kohlberg (1981) meant the process behind the conceptualisation of the rights and obligations that define an individual's relation to others and to society as a whole. He recognized that moral growth, like cognitive growth, is developmental in nature. Maturation proceeds from a desire to enhance one's self by any means as long as one escapes penalties (stage 1), to a willingness to do for others if there is a clear reciprocation (stage 2), to a need to conform to peer expectations (stage 3), to a need to follow the law uncritically (stage 4), and finally to concern for the rights and humanity of every person that is not bounded by conditions (stages 5 and 6). At the highest "post conventional level," (5&6) moral judgments must be justified on rational-moral grounds rather than by appeal to the order of nature or to religious authority or revelation. Healthy people normally move from one stage to the next, progressing as each stage is understood. In studies involving various cultures, researchers have found that individuals work through these stages between early childhood and young adulthood, although they estimate that only about 20 percent of the population reaches the post conventional levels of stage 5 or 6. What does this research say about the role that religion plays in moral growth? Clouse (1985) summarizes, ‘It would appear from the literature that adults who accept the basic doctrines of the Christian faith are less apt to reason at Kohlberg's highest stages than those who do not accept the Christian faith’ (1992).”

“While Kohlberg never explicitly examined whether religion could arrest moral development, a study he conducted in Turkey found individuals in a strict Muslim community demonstrated no ‘post conventional’ thinking. Clouse's assessment of the relationship between Christianity and moral growth finds confirmation in the circumstances surrounding the quick religious conversions and renewals of prisoners that result from moral reasoning on Kohlberg's lowest levels. The prime motivation is to assure pleasant circumstances in an afterlife, an incentive that has nothing to do with examining one's relationship to others. Accepting ‘Jesus Christ’ as your ‘Lord and Saviour’ under these conditions is an example of a stage 2 ‘deal with God’. Most religious texts are concerned with defining human-to-God relationships. Four of the Ten Commandments dictate rules of behaviour toward [YHWH], not other humans.”

It might be a good place here to reflect on the definitions of EQ and SQ intelligence and consider what religious indoctrination is doing to these two facets of our existence particularly in the area of moral development:

‘Emotional Intelligence is the way we recognize, understand and choose how we think, feel, and act. It shapes our interactions with others and our understanding of ourselves. It defines how and what we learn; it allows us to set priorities; it drives many of our daily actions.’ (Freedman)

‘Spiritual Intelligence, is an internal, innate ability or functioning of the human brain and psyche, which draws on its deepest resources. It is a facility developed over millions of years that allows the brain to find and use meaning in the solution of problems. SQ is what we use to develop our longing and capacity for meaning, vision and value. It allows us to dream and to strive. It underlies the things we believe in and the role our beliefs and values play in the actions that we take and the shape we give to our lives.’ (Zohar)

So if our emotional intelligence levels are limited by a religious dogma that defines us as a Christian or a Jew or a Muslim, or worse still, as someone governed as a sect of one of those religions and if that dogma then expects us to act on those sectarian principals what chance is there for us to lead a moral existence? More particularly if by labelling us (and others) our religious teachers diminish the worth of others who are ‘different’ (as infidels etc), what chance do the religious have to even come to grips with a basic understanding of ‘inherent’ human moral principles? Spiritual intelligence development hijacked, particularly at a young age, by a mindless adherence to a dogma such as ‘all I need is Jesus and I will be all right’, does not promote a thinking, dreaming, vision developing human being that is able to grow and shape his or her own moral future.

Clark continues: “The Bible, and most other religious books, contain numerous examples of low-level moral reasoning, and this makes them poor vehicles for moral development. Consider, for example, the popular Sunday school story of David and Goliath. In the tale, David becomes enraged at the taunting challenge Goliath makes to the Israelites. After volunteering to answer the challenge, David brutally kills Goliath and becomes a tribal hero. To the literal understanding of most children and inmates, the story teaches that violence is an appropriate way to resolve conflict and its use will gain you respect among your peers. Inner-city youths use the same level of moral reasoning when they commit drive-by shootings against those who have offended them.”

“If, then, biblical instruction and the basic doctrines of religion do not contribute to moral growth, does a high level of religiosity improve moral reasoning? This question has special relevance since inmates seem particularly inclined to ‘zealotry’ and are attracted to extremes such as the Calvinistic view of humanity as vile and depraved. Such a perspective seems to speak directly to their own inadequate self-esteem and sense of identity. But it reinforces a belief that they are compelled by their nature to sin, a view that can serve as a rationalization for committing further crime.”

“The high number of religious child molesters illustrates that religiosity provides no guarantee of moral behaviour. It is well recognized that religiosity is central to the personality structure of certain types of child sex offenders (Schouweiler). The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (Hathaway and McKinley), a widely employed psychological assessment, uses religiosity as one indicator of paedophilia. In the reasoning often associated with such individuals, they have been forgiven for all sin (and criminal behaviour) through acceptance of ‘Jesus Christ,’ who redeemed their sinful deeds before they were born. As a consequence, they relinquish all personal accountability for their actions. In addition, a religiously deterministic rationale for criminal behaviour could claim that such conduct is all part of ‘God's Plan.’"

“Research thus indicates that both religious instruction and high levels of religiosity should not be expected to contribute to moral development. Advancement in moral reasoning depends on exposure to the thought processes of Kohlberg's higher stages. The absolutism of religious reasoning encourages an inflexibility that stifles the cognitive conflict. This stifling obviates the mental processes required to advance to the next stage/s of personal moral development.”

Zohar Again: ‘Where IQ and EQ are naturally bounded, and can be quantitatively measured; it is in the nature of SQ to defy boundaries, to continually seek a broader perspective, a bigger picture. As such it resists quantification. Indeed, its essence is not about quantity, but quality.’

Point: By breaking the constraints of “absolutism of religious reasoning” more developed levels of SQ intelligence will help us overcome “naturally bounded” IQ and EQ limits, which in turn can lead us to defy implied doctrinal or cultural boundaries and to therefore continually seek a broader perspective and embrace a bigger picture. Perhaps that’s why madrasas, church schools and other single view organizations try to overcome the very nature of children by using repetition of a limited amount of specific information… to stifle both EQ and SQ.

“A fundamentalist position also limits an individual's ability to understand situations from another's point of view. It creates a personal and subjective orientation that interferes with the development of effective problem solving skills (Hanson,). Further, as Wendell Watters (1992) has noted, emphasis on the human-God bond inhibits the development of supportive human bonds required for adaptive interpersonal and social functioning. These human connections are what prison inmates need to develop most. It must be concluded that the use of religion for correctional rehabilitation is counterproductive to the type of growth that inmates need to make for their successful reintegration into society.”

Brad Clark’s final statement is particularly interesting: “When the issue of the religious indoctrination of children is raised it should be recognized that, from a developmental perspective, the use of religion for moral growth is clearly inappropriate.”

Now although one could argue that this is all theory and conjecture there is some statistical evidence for these statements. Ex Catholic Priest Father Emmett McLoughlin in his book “Crime And Immorality In The Catholic Church” makes the following statements:

“Catholicism, especially in America, now has the most unique opportunity in all history to achieve its goal and fulfil the purpose for which it claims to have been founded. Its most important product, its reason for existence is morality, the moulding of lives that are not only good but better than others, with a greater assurance than that of other religions that its members will be far less sinful, much better emotionally adjusted throughout life and thus more certain of eternal happiness in heaven. The purpose of this [his] book is to show that the Roman Catholic Church in its most important work is a failure. Among its members crime and immorality are greater than among the un-churched or the members of other churches. Whatever else the Roman Catholic Church may be able to do ‘in Heaven, on earth and under the earth,’ it cannot, it has not, and it does not make the majority of its members better and holier.”

In chapter two of his book he quotes prison statistics that show a disproportionate number of Catholics in jail in relation to state population proportions. Here a just a few of the statistics: State Name / Catholic % of population (Catholic % of prisoners);

Arizona/33.16% (53.26%) California/16.83 (43.61) Colorado/10.91 (37.42) Illinois/19.04 (32.35) New Jersey/26.82 (47.66) New York/26.73 (56.46) Oregon/5.95 (18.96) Washington/6.35 (29.43)

From Wikipedia the following also adds to the position that religion and morality are in conflict…

‘All theistic religion devalues human compassion and morality. For a principled atheist/humanist these are the foremost concern. For a religious person, obedience to a deity/scripture is morality and conscience has to take second place. The most widely known example of this is the order to murder Isaac. The Bible contains many injunctions against following one's conscience over scripture. Also, positive actions are supposed to originate not from compassion, but from the fear of punishment.’

This passage for me bears further testimony to Kohlberg’s view that religion is decidedly linked only to lower levels of moral behaviour, if linked to morality at all.

Meta-ethics addresses the question "What is goodness?" and is seeking to understand the nature of ethical properties and evaluations. Divine command theory is the “meta-ethical” theory that holds the view that “moral behaviours are only those that conform to the instructions given or commanded by a god or gods”.

May we for the sake of our children and their children, someday have the collective wisdom to rid the world of these bickering, loathsome, world destroying, simple minded, god bothers.

www.caliibre.com

Refs:
http://tigger.uic.edu/~lnucci/MoralEd/articles/berkowitzed.html
Edited excerpts from Magazine: Free Inquiry Issue: Summer 1994
(vol. 14 no. 3) - Author: Brad Clark
http://usenet.best-buy-online.com/File973.html
Freedman et al. Handle With Care: Emotional Intelligence Activity Book, Intro, 1997/1998
http://www.mastersforum.com/archives/zohar/Zohar_Precis.htm
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/pobrien48/Atheist%20Emmett%20Mclouglin.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_religion#Moral_deficiency

Hey teacher preacher… leave those kids alone!

2006-12-24T18:10:00.000+07:00

ANDERSON COOPER INTERVIEW [edited] (CNN Anderson Cooper 360): A firestorm of controversy is brewing in the Kearny, New Jersey, school district. It all started when Matthew Laclair's teacher began preaching about God in class… Matthew recorded the teacher's comments.

COOPER: So why do you start recording your teacher?   MATTHEW LACLAIR, STUDENT: Well, a lot of the comments that he was making during the first two days of class were extremely inappropriate. COOPER: Like what?   LACLAIR: Well, there were some cases where he would go just into his religion….”

COOPER: This wasn't a religion class? LACLAIR: No, no, this is U.S. history.

AUDIO CLIP of DAVID PASZIEWICZ, TEACHER: “God is not only all loving. The way he describes himself in the scriptures, he is also completely just. He did everything in his power to make sure that you could go to heaven, so much so that he put your sin on his own body, suffered your pains for you and is saying please accept me, believe. You reject that and you belong in Hell.”

COOPER: So he's not talking about, you know, what a religion believes. He's talking about what he believes and stating it as fact. LACLAIR: Exactly… …What he basically said almost in every instance was this [acceptance of Jesus] is the right way and this is only way.   

COOPER: What happened then? You approached the principal?   LACLAIR: After I chased him down for about two weeks to get some other kind of meeting with me and Mr. Pasziewicz and a few others. We had the meeting and in that meeting he denied ever making any of these statements. COOPER: So after a lengthy meeting in which this teacher has denied saying this stuff, you say, "Well, I actually have a tape"? LACLAIR: Exactly.

AUDEO CLIP PASZIEWICZ: The Big Bang theory is that there was nothing out there that was no matter. But yet nothing exploded and created something. Let me give you a clue guys. If there's nothing, it can't explode.

COOPER: What is it that upset you most about his comments? LACLAIR: I have to say just the -- the outright hypocrisy in some of the statements that he would make. And also just how he would blatantly say that evolution is not a science, the big bang theory cannot be true. Anyone with common sense knows that. Even though these scientific statements are accepted widely.

COOPER: …this guy's been teaching for 14 years.   LACLAIR: Fourteen years. And I've talked to former students that have told me the same thing happened in [their] class. And again, this would not have been a big story whatsoever if somebody along the line in the chain of command would have done something right.   

COOPER: What we didn't say in that report is [that Laclair’s] actually had death threats against him [yes sir, there you go, that’s just so typically Christian] and the reaction in the community largely against him, [which] has been something that the family is quite surprised by.

Yet another dangerous creature is exposed… a moralizing god-dam American bible pushing dill unfortunately disguised as a history teacher… Imagine he can potentially mess up a lot more people than one poor futile bomb toting Islamic terrorist. You do the math’s, 14 years times say 200 students a year… well that’s almost World Trade Centre numbers… 2,800 history flunkies turned into Jesus junkies… hallelujah brother!

www.caliibre.com

ref and full report here: http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0612/18/acd.01.html

“Asiarabia” - More evidence of the growing Arabization of South East Asia

2006-12-02T15:14:00.001+07:00

Newsweek International - Dec 4 Issue - By Joe Cochrane and Jonathan Kent

“The meeting of the united Malays National Organization, the ruling pro-Muslim party in Malaysia, was a shocking display of divisiveness. Some UMNO delegates at the rally, which ended Nov. 17, gave speeches that, either explicitly or in veiled terms, were racist or called for violence as a means of settling religious or political differences. One of them, Hasnoor Sidang Hussein, declared: "UMNO is willing to risk lives and bathe in blood in defense of race and religion." Education Minister Hishammuddin Hussein unsheathed a keris (Malay dagger) at the meeting. Party supporters perceived the gesture as invoking Malay power and pride[…]. Twenty years ago, the youth wing had displayed banners calling for the keris to be bathed in the blood of the minority Malaysian Chinese.”

“Southeast Asia's two most important countries [Malaysia and Indonesia] are both drifting toward fundamentalism—a trend made scarier by the inability or unwillingness of some senior political leaders to condemn those promoting the shift. Some analysts are already calling this the "Arabization of the region.”

“Certainly, most agree that mainstream Muslims generally are more religious and conservative than they were 10 years ago, and Southeast Asia's Muslim regions (Indonesia, Malaysia, southern Thailand, southern Philippines) are more radical.”

Full Newsweek story here...

http://ori.msnbc.msn.com/id/15898227/site/newsweek/

Professor Richard Dawkins and (others) are right when they say we must point out the dangerous (and crass) folly of insisting that “the rest of us” should see mainstream religious belief as a taboo area to comment on because of issues of political correctness. Lets face we all know that radicalism grows out of conservative religious practice, which in turn is grounded in mainstream beliefs. The mainstream religious ‘victims’ then by default protect their radical elements by insisting that their religious sensibilities must be respected. Respect needs to be earned by actions not demanded by rhetoric and they, none of them deserve our respect; they are divisive and threaten our civilization, all based on their unsupported myths, what a nasty joke they are.

If you really want to understand more go to “YouTube” and type in “Beyond Belief 06” and listen to some intelligent people discuss the problem of religion. Then if you are ready for some more see this:

video Dawkins 1

and this:

video Root of all evil Dawkins

How do they do it? They grab your unsuspecting kids, unfortunately probably with parental mind-numbed irrational consent or worse, with complicity through parental (our/your) actions of “intellectual incest”…

Back to Arabization… Muslims want support for schools – Reuters - By Manny Mogato

Philippines - MANILA, Nov 23 2006 - Muslim scholars in Southeast Asia urged governments on Thursday to provide Islamic schools with books on local history, culture and customs to check the growing influence of Arab radicalism.

"We're alienating our children from our history, culture and sense of nationalism because we're not producing enough books and materials for our madrasas," Salipada Tamano, a professor of Islamic Studies in the Philippines, told Reuters.”

"It doesn't surprise me if our children were more oriented to Islamic teaching from the Middle East because we've been getting most of our reading materials and our Arabic teachers from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Libya."

“The Philippines has around 2,000 madrasas, relying on material and financial support from local communities and donations from wealthy Islamic states and organisations in the Middle East.”

Full Reuters alert here...

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/MAN263919.htm

Time to resist!

www.caliibre.com

Creationists, Intelligent Design and Sudoku

2006-11-23T18:15:00.000+07:00

Why can “Creationists” &/or “Intelligent Design” advocates ‘solve’ Sudoku Number Puzzles so quickly?

Sample game:

[ - ][ 6 ][ - ]l[ 1 ][ - ][ 4 ]l[ - ][ 5 ][ - ]
[ - ][ - ][ 8 ]l[ 3 ][ - ][ 5 ]l[ 6 ][ - ][ - ]
[ 2 ][ - ][ - ]l[ - ][ - ][ - ]l[ - ][ - ][ 1 ]

-------------+-------------+--------------
[ 8 ][ - ][ - ]l[ 4 ][ - ][ 7 ]l[ - ][ - ][ 6 ]
[ - ][ - ][ 6 ]l[ - ][ - ][ - ]l[ 3 ][ - ][ - ]
[ 7 ][ - ][ - ]l[ 9 ][ - ][ 1 ]l[ - ][ - ][ 4 ]

-------------+-------------+----------------
[ 5 ][ - ][ - ]l[ - ][ - ][ - ]l[ - ][ - ][ 2 ]
[ - ][ - ][ 7 ]l[ 2 ][ - ][ 6 ]l[ 9 ][ - ][ - ]
[ - ][ 4 ][ - ]l[ 5 ][ - ][ 8 ]l[ - ][ 7 ][ - ]

Thinkers Solution: Concentrate turn on the brain and think about it. It's just logic after all. You can check your answer here:

(http://www.sudoku.com/)... just move your curser over the puzzle and the numbers appear.

However why should we turn on our brain and think? Just use a creationists approach and life is much simpler…

Creationist’s solution:

[ G ][ 6 ][ G ]l[ 1 ][ G ][ 4 ]l[ G ][ 5 ][ G ]
[ G ][ G ][ 8 ]l[ 3 ][ G ][ 5 ]l[ 6 ][ G ][ G ]
[ 2 ][ G ][ G ]l[ G ][ G ][ G ]l[ G ][G ][ 1 ]

----------------+---------------+-------------
[ 8 ][ G ][ G ]l[ 4 ][ G ][ 7 ]l[ G ][ G ][ 6 ]
[ G ][ G ][ 6 ]l[ G ][ G ][ G ]l[ 3 ][ G ][ G ]
[ 7 ][ G ][ G ]l[ 9 ][ G ][ 1 ]l[ G ][ G ][ 4 ]

----------------+--------------+--------------

[ 5 ][ G ][ G ]l[ G ][ G ][ G ]l[ G ][ G ][ 2 ]
[ G ][ G ][ 7 ]l[ 2 ][ G ][ 6 ]l[ 9 ][ G ][ G ]
[ G ][ 4 ][ G ]l[ 5 ][ G ][ 8 ]l[ G ][ 7 ][ G ]

THEY JUST PUT A “G” IN ALL THE EMPTY SQUARES; it’s just a matter of faith you know! It’s the same method 'Design so called Scientists' resort to in trying to prove their unsustainable “intelligent design theory”. They just assume all gaps in current understanding and/or knowledge regarding evolution must be filled with a (G=god) solution. Saves them having to think and question I suppose; blind faith, a refuge for the feeble-minded!

If you are thinking “Christian” when we mention creationists here is a little information…

“Islamic creationists are more likely to be day-age, Old Earth creationists; accepting Genesis only as a corrupted version of the original message of God to the Hebrews. The Qur'an account is relatively vague, even as to the number of days of creation: while most have the conventional six, one ambiguous passage adds up to eight. Also, in various verses the "days of God" are taken to be a thousand (Al-Hajj 47, As-Sajdah 5) or even fifty thousand (Al-Ma`arij 4) years in length, though these are in different contexts than creation. [Huh!!!?] So forcing the text into a day-age interpretation is somewhat easier for the Islamic case. They also don't have to worry as much about the stated order of creation in the Genesis story, as little is said about this matter in the Qur'an.

Contemporary Islam in general has a greater tendency towards literalism than Christianity regarding its sacred texts. The Qur'an is taken by almost all Muslims, conservative and liberal, as being the direct and unaltered word of their God. The historical conditions being such that many Muslims feel culturally threatened by a powerful and intrusive West that is more technologically advanced, there may be less of an opportunity at the present to develop analogues to non literal modernist theologies. Since science is indispensable in order to emerge from backwardness relative to the cultural competitor and religious identity is nonnegotiable to large degree, creationism can be an attractive compromise. Science must validate, not threaten, the revealed truth.”

For the full disturbing story you can go here:

(http://www.geocities.com/evrimbilim/te1makale1.html)

Makes you think?

www.caliibre.com

Parents should think carefully before subjecting their children to Religious Indoctrination

2006-11-17T15:44:00.000+07:00

Pascal Boyer’s research into “Children’s Acquisition of Religious Concepts through Intuitive Ontology and Cultural Input” (*) on which much of which this post is based gives us great insights into the workings and development of the ‘hardwired’ human brain. It should also give thinking parents something to ponder before automatically carrying on the narrow religious perspectives that have shaped their own lives and that have both been in the past and are today, the cause of many of societies most violent and ‘human existence threatening’ problems.

First the definition of Ontology (1.0):

Ontology is variously described as: The study of the broadest range of categories of existence, which also asks questions about the existence of particular kinds of objects, such as numbers or moral facts. (1.1) The study of the nature of being, reality, and substance. (1.2) A branch of metaphysics concerned specifically with what (kinds of) things there are. (1.3) A study of the ultimate nature of things. (1.4) The science of being or reality in the abstract, particularly as related to ideas or theories. (1.5) The study of being and what constitutes objective and subjective existence and what it means to exist (1.6)

Do children have a natural propensity to develop religious beliefs?

‘Recent research on children's thinking about imaginary beings, magic, religion and the supernatural indicates that their thinking stretches beyond the ordinary boundaries of reality. The evolution of imaginative capacities in humans, becomes clear when we focus on basic imagination that is generally automatic and largely unconscious that helps us produce representations of such basic things as; what people will say next, that people exist when out of sight, or what aspects of our environment are potentially dangerous. These examples suggest that there may not be one faculty of imagination but many specialised "what if" inferential systems in human minds. The more recent research offers a counterpoint on the development of children's domain-specific knowledge about the ordinary nature of things that has traditionally suggested that children [only] become increasingly scientific and rational over the course of their development.’ (*)

In acquiring an intuitive understanding of the physical, biological or psychological domains, even young children recognize that there are constraints on what can happen. However, once such constraints are acknowledged, children are in a position to think about the violation of those very same constraints and to contemplate the impossible. Perhaps the real contribution of this research is that it introduces the notion that children's ideas about fantasy, magic, religion, and science are interrelated in important ways. (2.0)

Cognition is “the process of being or ability to be aware, knowing, thinking, learning, reasoning and judging”. Cognitive developmental evidence is sometimes conscripted to support "naturalized epistemology" arguments to the effect that a general epistemic stance leads children to build theory-like accounts of underlying properties of different kinds of input. (3.1)

Epistemology

Epistemology is the study of the nature and scope of knowledge. The term "epistemology" is based on the Greek words "episteme" (knowledge) and "logos" (account/explanation). Epistemology looks at the proposition that knowledge is what is both true and believed, though not all that is both true and believed counts as knowledge. For a diagram of this you can go here:

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Classical-Definition-of-Kno.gif).

Much of the debate in this field has focused on analyzing the nature of knowledge and how it relates to similar notions such as truth, belief and justification. It also deals with the means of production of knowledge, as well as skepticism about different knowledge claims. In other words, epistemology primarily addresses the following questions: "What is knowledge?", "How is knowledge acquired?", and "What do people know?". Recent studies have dramatically challenged centuries-old assumptions. (3.2)

Two Levels of the mental representation of conceptual knowledge

‘In the mental representation of conceptual knowledge we can distinguish between two levels of organisation, that of ‘kind-concepts’ (or ‘entry-level’ concepts) on the one hand and that of ‘ontological categories’ on the other. The former are concepts like ‘giraffe’ or ‘telephone’ or ‘uncle’ or ‘tree’ or ‘river’. Their representation activates higher-level categories of the fundamental kinds of things in the world, like animal, artefact, person, plant, natural object. Any object in the word that is identified as belonging to a kind-concept thereby activates a particular ontological category. In the same way, concepts of imaginary objects and beings are intuitively associated with particular ontological categories. The concept of ‘spirit’ we find in so many cultures activates the category PERSON. If you pray to a particular statue of the Virgin, you are standing or kneeling in front of an ARTEFACT. If you think that some antelopes can disappear at will, you must activate your ANIMAL category to represent these special beings.’ (3.3)

‘Two inferential routes allow children to produce expectations about new instances of ontological categories like 'animal' and 'artefact'. One is to generalise information from a 'look-up table' of familiar kind-concepts. The other one is to use independent expectations at the level of ontological domains. Evidence suggests that what prompts conceptual acquisition is not a general epistemic stance but a series of category-specific intuitive principles that constitute an evolved 'natural metaphysics'. [Metaphysics (Greek/Latin words meta = after/beyond and physics = nature) is a branch of study concerned with abstract thought and philosophy about topics not on the concrete or physical level of understanding].’ (*)

What we can perhaps conclude is that the human mind through the process of evolution has become hardwired with, what for the sake of a better term, we could call ‘instinctual survival knowledge of which perhaps a natural tendency to be religious is a part.

Humans have therefore it appears developed or inherited from previous generations a system of mind ‘categories and category-specific inferential processes founded on definite biases in prototype formation. Evidence for this system provides a better understanding of the limited 'plasticity' of ontological commitments as well as a computationally plausible account of their initial state, avoiding ambiguities about innateness. This may provide a starting point for a 'naturalized epistemology' that takes into account evolved properties of human conceptual structures.’ (*)

Human ‘expertise’ consists of different domains of competence

‘Research has also begun to suggest that human expertise about the natural and social environment, including what is often called 'semantic knowledge', or “Semantic memory which refers to the memory of meanings, understandings and other knowledge; in contrast to episodic memory” (3.4) is best construed as consisting of different domains of competence. Each of these corresponds to recurrent evolutionary problems, is organised along specific principles, is the outcome of a specific developmental pathway and is based on specific neural structures. What we call a 'human evolved intuitive ontology' comprises a catalogue of broad domains of information, different sets of principles applied to these different domains as well as different learning rules to acquire more information about those objects. Neuro-imaging and cognitive neuroscience are now adding to the picture of a federation of evolved competencies.’ (*)

‘Children's learning - in the domains of science and religion specifically and in many other cultural domains as well, relies extensively on testimony and other forms of culturally transmitted information. The cognitive processes that enable such learning must also administrate the evaluation, qualification, and storage of that information, while guarding against the dangers of false or misleading information. Currently, the development of these appraisal processes is not clearly understood. Recent work has begun to address three important dimensions of the problem: how children and adults evaluate truth in communication, how they gauge the inferential potential of information and how they encode and evaluate its source.’ (*)

Another element that comes into play here is ‘trust’ and it has also been discovered that the human tendency to trust is a chemical process stimulated by the oxytocin hormone that is secreted in brain tissues and synthesized by the hypothalamus. This small, but crucial feature located deep in the brain controls biological reactions like hunger, thirst and body temperature, as well as visceral fight-or-flight reactions associated with powerful, basic emotions like fear and anger. (3.5) Obviously one of the processes that children will fall victim to when assessing information validity is naturally higher level of the trust hormone that would be present between parents and children in ‘normal’ relationships. So if mum and dad are filling their head with rubbish it is more likely to be accepted as truth (or worse reality) due to the child’s weaken resistance or ability to analyse because of the trust bond.

Evolution of the modern mind and the origins of culture

The human cultural explosion is often explained in terms of "liberating events", of a newly acquired flexibility in mental representations. Actual cultural transmission is in fact constrained by evolved properties of ontological categories and principles. More generally, "cultural mind" typical of recent human evolution is not so much an "unconstrained" mind as a mind equipped with a host of complex specialised capacities that make certain kinds of mental representations likely to succeed in cultural transmission. (*)

Religious Thought and Behaviour As By-products of Brain Function

Religious concepts activate various functionally distinct mental systems, present also in non-religious contexts and 'tweak' the usual inferences of these systems.

They deal firstly with detection and representation of “animacy” (combination of initiative or autonomy, choice or purposefulness and strategy or reactivity). (4.1) Animacy can be more properly understood as a framework or way of thinking. Animate thinking stems from a basic need to explain happenings and tell simple stories about them and a need to fit things into roles in the stories as actors and objects of action. Scientific and mechanistic ways of thinking are in some sense attempts to get beyond these basic animistic tendencies, in that they tend to eliminate autonomy by searching for a cause for every action. But the tendency to describe the world in terms of [individuals as] autonomous actors is strong. (4.2)

Secondly religious concepts activate mental systems that deal with “agency”. Briefly, agency in simple terms deals with four factors: stimulating agency, behaviour-cue, behaviour-object and behaviour-act. They may be thought of as very loosely analogous to the physiologist's concepts of external stimulus, receptor-process, conductor-process, and effector-process. The stimulating agency may be defined in any standardized terms, those of physics, of physiology, or of common sense and it constitutes the independent, initiating cause of the whole behaviour phenomenon. Thus on different occasions it may consists variously in and be describable as, as sense-organ stimulation (in the case of perceptual behaviour), as the administering of a particular drug, e.g., hashish (in the case of hallucinatory behaviour), or as the neurological end-result of a preceding activity (in the case of a behaviour based upon memory or recall). (4.3) In the theory of Agency the key concepts present within "agency" are that “the individual”, “action”, “will” (as in the will to do something), “intentionality”, “”choice” and “freedom” Key concepts against which "agency" is commonly situated are: structure, determinism, society, environment, inevitability. From the point of view of “philosophy” agency is about “what is the individual, self or person?” (e.g., what is the unit of 'agency'?), or what, as a contrast, is not-agent (e.g. environment, structure, inanimate)? Agency can also be expressed as the concept of: the self is that which knows itself; existence is best understood by radical categorical divisions between mind-body, self-other, etcetera, for heuristic and ontological reasons. (4.4)

‘Religious concepts also activate mental systems involved in normal, social exchange, moral intuitions, precaution against natural hazards and the understanding of misfortune. Each of these activates distinct neural resources or families of networks. What makes notions of supernatural agency intuitively plausible? Evidence suggests that it is the joint, coordinated activation of these diverse systems, a supposition that opens up the prospect of a cognitive neuroscience as a legitimate way of exploring religious beliefs [as a being a natural function of the evolution the human brain and based on some level of survival the mechanism or even a ‘misfiring’ of that mechanism].’ (*)

The role of rituals and… why do we indulge in “Collective Ritual”?

‘Ritualized behaviour is a specific way of organizing the flow of action, characterized by stereotypy, rigidity in performance, a feeling of compulsion and specific themes, in particular the potential danger from contamination, predation and social hazard. A neuro-cognitive model of ritualized behaviour in human development and pathology, based on the activation of a specific hazard-precaution system specialized in the detection of and response to potential threats seems to exist. Certain features of collective rituals, by conveying information about potential danger and presenting appropriate reaction as a sequence of rigidly described precautionary measures, probably activate this neuro-cognitive system. This makes some collective ritual sequences highly attention-demanding and intuitively compelling and contributes to their transmission from place to place or generation to generation. The recurrence of ritualized behaviour [as used in many religious and cult practices] as a central feature of collective ceremonies may be explained as a consequence of this bias in selective transmission.’ (*)

This of course explains why religious organisations are so keen on rituals and it is also why cult like governments such as North Korea hold large cultural rituals to denigrate the US and to worn the citizenry of the ‘evils’ beyond their borders.

Ritualized Behaviour, Precaution Systems and Action-Parsing in Developmental, Pathological and Cultural Rituals

‘Stereotypic, rigidly scripted behaviour found in cultural rituals is also found in children's routines, in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and in normal adults around certain stages of the life-cycle. Researchers now offer an explanation of an evolved “Precaution System” geared to the detection of and reaction to INFERRED THREATS TO FITNESS, distinct from systems for manifest danger. The “Precaution System” includes a repertoire of potential hazards as well as a repertoire of species-typical precautions. Impairment in the system's feedback accounts for OCD rituals. Gradual calibration of this system occurs through childhood routines. Mimicry of this system's natural input makes cultural rituals salient and compelling.’ (*)

One could from this standpoint almost view highly religious people as suffering from varying levels of socialised obsessive-compulsive disorder. They again, to my way of thinking, could be seen as individuals suffering from seeing themself existing at the lower “Maslow Needs Motivation Levels” of physiological/security (or insecurity?) or at best prestige seeking, thus they are being locked into a system that is constantly stimulating a ‘natural’ “Precaution System” response.

Conceptual and Strategic Selection in Evolved Minds

‘Culturally successful religious concepts are the outcome of selective processes that make some concepts more likely than others to be easily acquired, stored and transmitted. Among the constructs of human imagination, some connect to intuitive ontological principles in such a way that they constitute a small catalogue of culturally successful supernatural concepts. Experimental and anthropological evidence confirm the salience and transmission potential of this catalogue. Among these supernatural concepts, cognitive capacities for social interaction introduce a further selection. As a result, some concepts of supernatural agents are connected to morality, group-identity, ritual and emotion. These typical 'religious' supernatural agents are tacitly presumed to have access to information that is crucial to social interaction, an assumption that boosts their spread in human groups.’ (*)
Why Is Religion Natural?

‘Is religious belief a mere leap into irrationality as many sceptics assume? Psychology suggests that there may be more to belief than the suspension of reason. Religious beliefs and practices are found in all human groups and go back to the very beginnings of human culture. What makes religion so 'natural'? One particular [traditional] view of religion, popular among sceptics, is what Boyer calls the 'sleep of reason' interpretation. According to this view, people have religious beliefs because they fail to reason properly. If only they grounded their reasoning in sound logic or rational order, they would not have supernatural beliefs, including superstitions and religion. Boyer thinks this view is misguided, for several reasons; because it assumes a dramatic difference between religious and commonsense ordinary thinking, where there isn't one; because it suggests that belief is a matter of deliberate weighing of evidence, which is generally not the case; because it implies that religious concepts could be eliminated by mere argument, which is implausible; and most importantly because it obscures the real reasons why religion is so extraordinarily widespread in human cultures.’ (*)

Boyer’s interesting article, which explains his thoughts on this subject can be found in its entirety here: http://www.csicop.org/si/2004-03/religion.html

For in depth information you can also read “Functional Origins of Religious Concepts” here: http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/anthro/bec/papers/

Another insight into the human mind and ‘God’ titled “Gods, Spirits and the Mental Instincts that Create Them” can be found here:

http://www.srhe.ucsb.edu/lectures/text/boyerText.html

So what’s the point Richard?

According to Boyer, “RELIGIOUS CONCEPTS ARE PARASITIC UPON MORAL INTUITIONS”. He also says, “there is an early-developed specific inference system, a specialised 'moral sense' underlying moral intuitions. Notions of morality are distinct from those used to evaluate other aspects of social interaction (this is why social conventions and moral imperatives are so easily distinguished). They provide an initial basis on which children can understand adult moral understandings.” ‘This capacity for entertaining abstract intuitions about the moral nature of courses of action was found in children with various amounts of experience with other children [and also in children] of different cultures.’

What I also find interesting is this: “That children have early moral concepts does not mean that they have the same moral understandings as adults, far from it. First, young children have more difficulty in figuring out other agents' intentions and feelings; second, they do not have a rich repertoire of past episodes to draw from when representing the key features of a situation; third, they may not be aware of local parameters of social interaction.” (5.1)

So my point is that the traditional (and current) practice of indoctrination of children, particularly by parents (“intellectual incest” as I have called it) in a singular religious view or “faith labelling” as Prof. Dawkins calls it, IS AN INDEFENSIBLE PRACTICE. The reason is that much religious practice actually corrupts the inherent moral nature of innocents and contributes to the delinquency of individuals by providing and promoting a belief, which in effect is saying, that all that is moral can be ignored and subjugated in the name of the influencing agent’s concept or view of ‘god’ and ‘god’s word’ and by the influencing parties’ interpretation of ‘god’s’ laws. Corruption of the innocent by the powerful.

So rather than being a system of morality or a recipe for a ‘correct and righteous lifestyle’ as religious adherents claim, their faiths are actually nothing more than a divisive mind numbing load old rubbish inflicted by immoral adults on children that are too young to resist. If religious traditions where true (and moral) there could only be one religion. Not only are there many religions, there are many grubby factions all arguing about who has the correct view of their particular prophet’s teachings. If the religions truly did represent “god’s word” and god was there in the theistic sense these divisions of opinion surely could not exist. Where for example is the morality in the ‘Caliph succession’ argument between Shiites and Sunnis or in the procedural or doctrinal argument between the Catholics and the Anglicans?

The religious leaders and their abetting adult followers are on about power influence and “ownership” rather than any moral crusade. The ownership of children by parents is a contentious issue and I believe that parents do not own their children however they do bare responsibility for protection and support until the child can fend for itself. Adults that for example give their daughters up to marriage at ages as young as five are not living up to their ‘human moral’ responsibility any more than are domineering parents who over manage their children’s decisions and/or indoctrinate them in such things as an Evangelistic way of life.

“In a high-ownership situation, parents feel they have a right to control their children's behaviour and life choices, even that of adult children. They themselves often live their lives through their children. Their children's professional success or breeding success is their own. Their children's disgrace is theirs too. Reinforcing this set-up, communication in the family tends to be one-way. The parents communicate their expectations (not always explicitly either) and the children are expected to deliver. Through the growing up years, emotional control is fine-tuned to make the children feel extremely guilty about letting the parents down. The parents may even expect that they should be the ones choosing the marriage spouse for their son or daughter. In extreme cases, the head of the family (almost always the father) may feel he owns the family or family name to such an extent that if a daughter dishonours the family by having sexual flings, the head of the family feels empowered to kill her. Even in the present time, this kind of thing happens.” (5.2)

As an alternative, parents who do not feel any right of ownership over their grown children and see their offspring as equals are more likely to produce an adult person of mature ‘character’ rather than a lesser being who needs to rely on a religious crutch. The United Nations and much of educated society that has more humanistic values are in a battle to encourage this kind of relationship and to the more open kind of parent-child communication that goes with it, even when the children are young. Parents may be disappointed, even hurt, when it turns out that a son or daughter is not a carbon image of themselves however in all of nature it is the parent’s responsibility to produce an independent person able to pursue their own life goals. This done it helps if the society they live in makes them responsible for outcomes and builds on human progress as a whole.

This is not any easy concept to get agreement on and some downsides for non acceptance

“In the United States [for example], people talk about wanting a child of their own and by this they usually mean a child born to them from their own genes to create a biological connection. Americans often think of "their" child as a possession that they alone control, free from the interference of others. People do not willingly share control over a child, as seen by the difficulties divorced couples face in custody disputes that involve sharing their "own" child. Each parent wants full custody of the child, or complete ownership and control. Visiting rights are not usually awarded to the grandparents, aunts, uncles, or other members of either parent's kin group. Sharing would be interpreted as losing control.” (6.1)

Go a little farther east and you find ‘the Arab father has traditionally maintained his authority and responsibility mainly because he has owned the family's property and provided the family's livelihood. This hierarchical structure of the traditional Arab family reflects the fact that families are stratified on the basis of sex and age, where the young are subordinate to the old and females to males leading to a situation where the most repressed elements of Arab society are the poor, the women, and their children. In such relationships, downward communication often takes the form of orders, instructions, warnings, threats, shaming and the like.’ (6.2)

So what’s the harm, you still may think? Well tradition and culture are not always deserving of protection just because they are a traditional culture that may have existed for centuries. The world is changing and obsolete, or even worse immoral, acts perpetrated in the name of ownership need to be stopped. Cannibalism for example has been stamped out of New Guinea for both moral and practical health reasons.

A current case in point of the downside of individuals assuming they own their children: “Sociologists and government officials began documenting sporadic examples of female infanticide in India about 10 years ago. The practice of killing newborn girls is largely a rural phenomenon in India; although its extent has not been documented, one indication came in a survey by the Community Services Guild of Madras, a city in Tamil Nadu. Of the 1,250 women questioned, the survey concluded that more than half had killed baby daughters.” (6.3)

So who fights for the parents to maintain ownership?

The partners in crime, Christian Churches, Islamic Muftis and Mullahs and all the other god botherers in the world.

“Presented by the Holy See to all persons, institutions and authorities concerned with the mission of the family in today's world October 22, 1983 CHARTER OF THE [Catholic] RIGHTS OF THE FAMILY”

Excerpts:

“The activities of public authorities and private organizations which attempt in any way to limit the freedom of couples in deciding about their children constitute a grave offence against human dignity and justice.”

“Since they have conferred life on their children, parents have the original, primary and inalienable right to educate them; hence they must be acknowledged as the first and foremost educators of their children.”

“Parents have the right to educate their children in conformity with their moral and religious convictions, taking into account the cultural traditions of the family…”

“Parents have the right to freely choose schools or other means necessary to educate their children in keeping with their convictions. Public authorities must ensure that public subsidies are so allocated that parents are truly free to exercise this right without incurring unjust burdens. Parents should not have to sustain, directly or indirectly, extra charges which would deny or unjustly limit the exercise of this freedom.” Yes we must keep those divisive church schools funded by the government!

“Parents have the right to ensure that their children are not compelled to attend classes which are not in agreement with their own moral and religious convictions. In particular, sex education is a basic right of the parents and must always be carried out under their close supervision, whether at home or in educational centres chosen and controlled by them.” Ah yes for gods’ sake don’t teach them any evolution stuff, they may see the truth (realty)!

“The rights of parents are violated when a compulsory system of education is imposed by the State from which all religious formation is excluded.” Rubbish!

“Every family has the right to live freely its own domestic religious life under the guidance of the parents, as well as the right to profess publicly and to propagate the faith, to take part in public worship and in freely chosen programs of religious instruction, without suffering discrimination.” Nope, can’t anymore, you can thank the radical Islamists for that! Oh, I guess oversexed Priests also must take some of the blame for the tighter civil control now obviously required as well. (7.1)

And… The First Presidency and Council of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints The Family: A Proclamation to the World - This proclamation was read by President Gordon B. Hinckley as part of his message at the General Relief Society Meeting held September 23, 1995, in Salt Lake City, Utah: “Parents have a sacred duty to rear their children in love and righteousness, to provide for their physical and spiritual needs, to teach them to love and serve one another, to observe the commandments of God and to be law-abiding citizens wherever they live.” “BY DIVINE DESIGN, FATHERS ARE TO PRESIDE [hold authority] over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families.” (7.2)

A warning for all

“Amartya Sen [is] a Nobel laureate, a former master of Trinity College, Cambridge, and professor of economics and philosophy at Harvard. [...] In his recent book Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny. [In the book] Sen argues that we are doing something terrible to our children by letting them attend faith schools. He writes: "[...] Under this system, young children are placed in the domain of singular affiliations well before they have the ability to reason about different systems of identification that may compete for their attention." It's a dismal image (isn't it?) of small children thus having destinies foisted upon them before they can think. Sen argues that this classification is not just disastrous for the child's development, but for community solidarity too. We saw something similar in Northern Ireland, he contends, where state-run denominational schools "fed the political distancing of Catholics and Protestants". The Guardian, July 2006 (8.1)

A better view (The wording of The UN’s cartoon no. 23 on the right’s of the Child…)

"Your children, are not YOUR children,
They are the sons and the daughters of life's longing for itself,
They come through you, but not from you
And although they are with you, they belong not to you,
You can give them your love but not your thoughts,
They have their own thoughts,
They have their own thoughts." (8.2)

www.caliibre.com

Refs:
Note* A number of references and authors of essays, report, books, etc., that Boyer is commenting
on are not shown and a full list can be found at Pascal Boyer’s site listed immediately below.
http://artsci.wustl.edu/%7Epboyer/PBoyerHomeSite/articles.html (*)
http://www.google.co.id/search?hl=en&lr=&amp;defl=en&q=define:
Ontology&sa=X&oi=glossary_definition&ct=title (1.0)
www.filosofia.net/materiales/rec/glosaen.htm (1.1)
www.carm.org/atheism/terms.htm (1.2)
www.shef.ac.uk/~phil/other/philterms.html (1.3)
www.willdurant.com/glossary.htm (1.4)
www.mises.org/easier/O.asp (1.5)
web.cn.edu/kwheeler/lit_terms_P.html (1.6)
(http://72.14.235.104/search?q=cache:tH6QE0mwcSwJ:www.abebooks.com
/sm-search-more-books-from-this-seller--is!0521665876.html+New+lines+of+research
+on+children%27s+thinking+that+stretches+beyond+the+ordinary+boundaries+of+reality.
The+study+of+early+cognitive+development+has+emphasized+the+way+in+which+young
+children&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1) (2.0)
www.memorydisorder.org/glossaryterms.htm (3.1)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemology (3.2)
http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/anthro/bec/papers/boyer_religious_concepts.htm (3.3)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_memory (3.4)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1414568/posts (3.5)
http://hometown.aol.com/miletus1/animacy.htm (4.1)
http://xenia.media.mit.edu/~mt/thesis/mt-thesis-3.2.html#Heading47 (4.2)
http://www.answers.com/topic/means-agency-way (4.3)
http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/tburke1/agency.html (4.4)
http://www.srhe.ucsb.edu/lectures/text/boyerText.html (5.1)
http://www.yawningbread.org/arch_2001/yax-249.htm (5.2)
http://www.scu.edu/ethics/publications/other/lawreview/manymothers.html (6.1)
http://arabworld.nitle.org/texts.php?module_id=8&amp;reading_id=13&sequence=3 (6.2)
http://acc6.its.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~phalsall/texts/chinwomn.html (6.3)
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/family/documents/rc_pc_family
_doc_19831022_family-rights_en.html (7.1)
http://www.lds.org/library/display/0,4945,161-1-11-1,00.html (7.2)
http://www.vexen.co.uk/religion/faithschools.html (8.1)
http://www.unicef.org/crcartoons/ (8.2)

Hell House yet another perverse religious abuse of children

2006-11-02T19:06:00.000+07:00

For Anderson cooper 360, CNN's Tom Foreman took a look in Texas. October 31 2006Excerpts edited for brevity:

‘FOREMAN: This is Hell House, a shocking, rocking, roaring attempt to transform the horrors of Halloween into the fear of God. The man, who has turned Hell House into a US national phenomenon, is Pastor Keenan Roberts. PASTOR KEENAN ROBERTS, HELL HOUSE CREATOR: Hell House is aggressive. We're very aggressive in the name of Jesus. FOREMAN: How many churches have you seen this done in? ROBERTS: Well, across the United States, they'll be probably about 3,000. ROBERTS: This is absolutely a modern day parable. It is helping portray and colour and bring to life, to reach the sight and sound generation. It is -- it is using the tools that are attractive to this culture to help them understand spiritual principles of Christ. FOREMAN: Certainly, learning about sin and salvation is why many came here. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it's a fair reflection of what's going on in the world today. You know, some of the scenes.’

‘FOREMAN: Ordelia Ortiz brought her daughter, Araceli (ph). UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You can't trust anybody nowadays. I mean, you have to be careful with everybody, anybody. So I just want her to have an open eye out for it. FOREMAN: What are you scared of? What do you think you're going to see? UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Things I might go through later on during life. FOREMAN: But in the very first room on the 45-minute free tour, it is clear this is not Sunday School. UNIDENTIFIED MALE ACTOR IN SCENE: Let's have ourselves a little gay pride. FOREMAN: This is what makes Hell House so controversial: a mock gay wedding presided over by a demon, who doesn't just say this is wrong but quite literally damns homosexuals to death by AIDS and eternity in hell. Room after room the sins roll by: domestic violence, Internet porn, drinking and driving. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's no gray. There's right and wrong. There's heaven and hell. There's Jesus and Satan. There's forgiveness and unforgiveness. And this makes the message of the gospel, it packages it in a contemporary rather format that young people will come and see.’ ’FOREMAN: Certainly, many people experience something powerful. The exit is a parade of emotion. Remember Araceli Ortiz and her mother? [Then you see a shot of the distressed sobbing Arceli] [To Arceli] You're pretty upset. What's so upsetting about this? ARCELI: Sobs and puts her face in her hankerchief unable to speak. FORMAN: [To the dopey mother] was this good to bring her here? THE MOTHER DOPEY ORDELIA: In a way I would say yes; in way, no. FOREMAN: Hell House organizers say 75 percent of their visitors are people who don't regularly go to church. And that's who they're after. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Best thing that could ever happen to me. FOREMAN: Why? UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Because I need the lord in my life.’ They then cut to an interview with Pastor Philip Wise, Senior Pastor of the 2nd Baptist Church and Critic of the Hell House movement. ‘FOREMAN [The organisers of the Hell House] would also say we believe something, and we're acting on it. Isn't that what any person of faith should do? WISE: Well, I would just say if you believe that, then you believe the people who flew the planes into the Twin Towers were doing God's work. Response to the statement by THE GRUBBY PASTOR ROBERTS: To compare us to terrorists is just absurd. The people that point fingers at this as the problem are pointing in the wrong direction. We are giving people -- we're giving people the answer.’ (1)Obviously this deplorable individual, whom in my opinion should be sued for child abuse, cannot differentiate between an ‘opinion’ and an ‘answer’. He also can’t seem to understand the connect between Christian dogma and/or Islamic dogma and violence.

What Is Psychological Trauma? - By Esther Giller - President and Director, The Sidran Foundation

The key to understanding traumatic events is that it refers to extreme stress that overwhelms a person's ability to cope. There are no clear divisions between stress which leads to trauma, which leads to adaptation. It is also important to keep in mind that stress reactions are clearly physiological as well. Different experts in the field define psychological trauma in different ways. What I want to emphasize is that it is an individual's subjective experience that determines whether an event is or is not traumatic. Psychological trauma is the unique individual experience of an event or enduring conditions, in which: The individual's ability to integrate his/her emotional experience is overwhelmed, or the individual experiences (subjectively) a threat to life, bodily integrity, or sanity. Thus, a traumatic event or situation creates psychological trauma when it overwhelms the individual's perceived ability to cope and leaves that person fearing death, annihilation, mutilation, or psychosis. The individual feels emotionally, cognitively, and physically overwhelmed. The circumstances of the event commonly include abuse of power, betrayal of trust, entrapment, helplessness, pain, confusion, and/or loss. (2)

Emotional abuse of children can range from a simple verbal insult to an extreme form of punishment. The following are a selected few examples of emotional child abuse: Yelling or screaming, threatening or frightening, negative comparisons to others, belittling; telling the child he or she is ‘no good’, ‘worthless’ or ‘bad’, shaming, humiliating, terrorizing a child and witnessing the physical abuse of others

Child abuse can have dire consequences, during both childhood and adulthood. Child abuse may result in: Impaired social behaviour, antisocial behaviour, difficulty establishing intimate personal relationships, alienation and withdrawal, depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, feelings of worthlessness, self-injury, suicidal tendencies, substance abuse and high levels of medical illness, eating disorders or drastic changes in appetite, problems in school or work, impaired psychological development; personality disorders, cognitive disorders, nightmares and bed wetting and on becoming adults abusive parenting or care giving (3)

Religious abuse or cult abuse is amongst other things, where the child is forced to accept the narrow, exclusive religious views of the parent or guardian to the exclusion of any other belief or possibility of any belief. (4) Religion-related abuse has significantly more negative implications for its victims' long-term psychological well-being. (5)

Coercive persuasion can be defined in the technological concept as the effective restraining, impairing, or compelling through the application of psychological forces. A coercive persuasion program is a behavioural change technology applied to cause the "learning" and "adoption" of a set of behaviours or an ideology under certain conditions. Over time, coercive persuasion, a psychological force akin in some ways to legal concepts of undue influence, can be even more effective than pain, torture, drugs, and use of physical force. (6)

Spreading the crap: Churches and youth groups have gobbled up Roberts' $299 production kit, which consists of a 300-page manual on how to put on Hell House, ranging from the creation of "Satan's throne room" to sound effects like thunderclaps. Roberts was youth pastor at Abundant Life Christian Center in Arvada when he decided to create a scripted production out of an older idea dating back to the 1970s, which used haunted-house, Halloween scare tactics to teach Christian morality. Roberts' production provoked a firestorm and also drew thousands of visitors. He's since founded his own church, [tax free profits perhaps?], New Destiny Christian Center, in Thornton. The church is mounting its own Hell House production. (7)

Christian Extortion At It's Worst, (B Phelps Reviewing the documentary DVD): “The most frightening part of this documentary is when young children, after being subjected to scenes that relentlessly hammer them with violent images, are psychologically coerced into going through a door "where there are people waiting to pray with you", or re-enter the secular world and risk damnation. As a psychotherapist, (another thing that evangelicals believe are of the devil) I can now fully understand why the majority of my most impaired clients come from fundamentalist backgrounds. Allowing young children to go through a Hell House is nothing short of child abuse, and at the very least Christian extortion.” (8)

Charge Pastor Keenan Roberts with child abuse - NOW

“Hey preacher… leave those kids alone!”

www.caliibre.com

Refs:
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0610/31/acd.01.html (1)
http://www.sidran.org/whatistrauma.html (2)
http://www.helpguide.org/mental/child_abuse_physical_emotional
_sexual_neglect.htm#definition (3)
http://www.bullyonline.org/related/abuse.htm (4)
http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=15917247 (5)
http://www.factnet.org/rancho1.htm (6)
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/
0,1299,DRMN_15_5029091,00.html (7)
http://www.amazon.ca/Hell-House-George-Whittenburg-Ratliff
/dp/B000092T6A (8)

Muslims need to open both “I’s”

2006-11-01T16:17:00.000+07:00

As a result of a comment I left on iFaqeer’s blog on the Pope’s now infamous comments and the growth of ‘Islamophobia’ he posted an interesting response.

Part of what iFaqeer said is as follows (you can see the full response at iFaqeer)...

“caliibre in my very humble opinion, there's another "I" word that you never hear about that is even more relevant and to most Muslims (or at least it used to be, till very recently), even more authoritative.”…“Ijtihad has, more often than not actually been number 4 on the list of what carries authority in matters Islamic.” The “third source [after the Qur'an, the Hadith] of authority on matters Islamic is none other than IJMA. Ijma is, simply, the majority opinion of the global Muslim community, the Ummah. Or, in a word, democracy.” “The word has the same root, J-M-A, as Jumuah, the day Muslims gather for congregational prayer. Or the word so many Islamist parties and groups around the world, ironically, use in their name: as in Jama'a Islamiyya’…’The [radical] Islamists will never talk about it [Ijma] because their ideology, their views are not in sync with the Ijma, the opinion, the democratic opinion of the global Muslim community, the Ummah’

‘So it is not that Muslims need to come up with something completely new. It is that ALL of us--you, me, Irshad Manji (author and Islamic refusenik), Usama bin Laden (embittered Saudi dissident and world wide terrorist), Daniel Pipes (American neoconservative, columnist, author, counter-terrorism analyst and scholar of Middle Eastern history) need to stop pretending that the Islamists of today represent the traditional understanding of Islam and try to go back and engage with Muslims as they have been and though the Islamists gain ground with every outrage they cause to others or claim against Muslims and start from there.’

I understand iFaqeer’s point and his obvious frustration at the apparent influence on world opinion that the more radical elements of his religious tradition are having, however… I don’t believe its up to the rest of us to solve the problem… that responsibility lays squarely on the shoulders of the greater Islamic community [the Ummah] itself. The current furore over of the shabby (grubby?) teachings of the Australian (Egyptian?) mufti is a great example. Here the Ummah needs to refute his stance and disassociate themselves from his ancient view and Dark Age lifestyle attitudes by having him physically removed from the leadership of their religious establishment. I think religion in itself creates more harm than good, however if some people need it, so be it… HOWEVER, seeing it as a lifestyle and a natural part of civic, educational, political and cultural trends in a modern free society IS JUST NOT ACCEPTABLE for many of us in the ‘free world’.

It is not just conservative Islam by the way, conservative Christian groups are just as distasteful and many of their attitudes, in my humble opinion, are also NOT ACCEPTABLE. As an example this morning I watched Anderson Cooper 360. A segment on “Hell Houses”, (depicting hell for abortionists, gays etc., including a viewing of the crimes), that are run by Christian groups was aired. This segment showed how wacko vicious ‘pious’ religious nutters go about scaring young children out of their wits to force them into religion. One young girl went in (with her dopey mother) expecting to see something about future adult life problems (in her words) and came out devastated and in tears. To my way of thinking the organisers of these activities should be sued for child abuse. The psychological effect on children that this crap induces can screw them up for the rest of their lives. Remember also that fundamentalism always has it roots in mainstream religious teaching (Prof Dawkins). Anyway I digress.

iFaqeer goes on…

”I am not saying the traditional practice and understanding of Islam by my parents' and grandparents' generations is right and appropriate for the 21st century. In fact, I am saying the exact opposite: that we need to go to sources of Islamic authority and engage them and mine them anew for principles and wisdom relevant for this new century.”

On this point I agree with him completely – again I call for Ijtihad - now.He again says…

”And Ijma--inclusive, democratic, decision-making is right up there in the top row of principles, most Muslims used to know and believe in it [Ijma], above the "I" word [Ijtihad) you hear so much about.”

This all sounds great however the Wikipedia says the following: “In reality, ijma referred only to the consensus of traditional Islamic scholars (Arabic ulema) on particular points of Islamic law. Various proponents of liberal movements within Islam criticize the traditional view that ijma' is only a consensus among traditional Islamic scholars (Arabic ulema). They claim that truly democratic consensus should involve the entire community rather than a small and conservative clerical class, especially since there is no hierarchical system in Islam.” (*)

If world religions cannot agree on a common set of 21st century world friendly rules of engagement and how they should deal with internal conflicts and each other (let alone how they deal with secular society) I doubt that any true progress through the ideal of Ijma is possible. This view is particularly relevant in the case of Islam … proof… ongoing unremitting sectarian violence.

By the way:

Quote: “A survey showed yesterday (Nov 12 2004) that many Indonesians support the implementation of strict Islamic law, with nearly 60 percent saying they want adulterers to be whipped and 40 percent backing cutting off a thief's hand.”

Quote: “One in 10 people polled (Indonesians - Sept/Oct 2006) say they support the actions of terrorist Imam Samudra, who's currently on death row for his role in the Bali bombings. Almost one in five back the terrorist group Jemaah Islamiah's use of violence to force the creation of an Islamic state.” (**)

You do the maths… 220mil X (85% Muslim pop percentage) x 60% = Y (whippings)
OK… I will help with the easier one in ten calculation… (220mil x 85%)/10 = 18.7 mil.

Just imagine that’s almost equal to the entire population of secular Australia and about 4.67 times the population of Singapore.

www.caliibre.com

Refs
http://ifaqeer.blogspot.com/2006/09/karen-armstrong-on-popes-speech.html
CNN – Anderson Cooper 360 Nov 1 2006
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ijma (*)

http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2006/s1766106.htm(**)

The primary cause of the ‘East’ v’s ‘West’ collision, a mismatched “Moral Zeitgeist”

2006-10-29T18:05:00.001+07:00

Prof Richard Dawkins in his book “The God Delusion” describes ‘how our morality has shifted through the centuries by what he calls a “moral zeitgeist”. [Zeitgeist he explains a German word meaning ‘spirit of the times’]. Dawkins states "We do not ground our morality in holy books, no matter what we may fondly imagine. We simply do not [now, in Christian tradition] kill people for adultery, working on the sabbath, or for many other [historical] biblical offences.” In the book he also mentions the current Zeitgeist or attitudes to slavery, incest, needless suffering, free speech, cheating and killing in general.’ ‘Instead [of a biblical guide] we use our senses, intelligence and new information to change our social condition by revising our outlook on racism, gender, and crime. We no longer believe in slavery. Women now have the right to vote. We simply don't need holy books to determine our moral status.’ (1)

In the article (ref 2 below) he says, “Religious apologists will try to persuade you that, without scriptural texts, we’d have no moral compass, no guidelines for what is right and what is wrong. Anybody who advocates basing our morals on the Bible has not read the Bible with sufficient attention. It is, of course, true that you can find verses of the Bible and the Koran, which we today might regard as moral, for example the Sermon on the Mount. You can also find verses suggesting that the worst thing you can do is make a graven image or break the sabbath. Both deserve the death penalty, as does cheeking your parents. The Bible is an ethical disaster area with islands of decent morality dotted about here and there.”

’When sceptics point to particularly nasty bits of the Old Testament – for example the disgusting story of Abraham almost sacrificing Isaac (or his other son Ishmael according to Muslim tradition), religious apologists are apt to reply in exasperation: “Yes of course, but we don’t believe that any more. We’ve moved on.” Theologians have moved on and have rejected the nasty verses (or written them off as ‘symbolic’ or ‘allegorical’ or ‘poetic’) while accepting the nice ones literally.’ He is again I assume referring to the western Christian perspective rather than today’s ‘total world’ reality. Perhaps it would have been more appropriate and accurate if he had of said SOME theologians.

He goes on…

”This is where the shifting moral Zeitgeist comes in. Public opinion moves in a mysteriously synchronous fashion, usually in the direction of becoming more liberal and gentle, although there are temporary reversals such as the United States is undergoing at the moment. The vanguard of opinion in one generation may lag behind the most reactionary and conservative representatives of a future generation.” He then uses the following example “Abraham Lincoln was far ahead of his time – but his time was the nineteenth century, when just about everybody was racist by today’s standards. Here is what Lincoln said in 1858:”

”I will say, then, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races; that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say, in addition to this, that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And in as much as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.”

Again he goes on to say: “I don’t know why the Zeitgeist changes so consistently, but it does.” He continues: ‘this shift is witnessed by: newspaper editorials, books, political speeches, judges’ decisions, parliamentary or congressional debates, the patter of stand up comedians, soap opera scripts and dinner party and bar room conversations.’ What we can see from looking at these over time is a constant and mainly positive shift in what is acceptable in society as a whole. “Our rapidly decreasing tolerance of collateral damage in warfare is one manifestation and an important one”. (2)

In the book he also examples the moving Zeitgeist trend by listing the dates at which women were given the right to vote.

New Zealand 1893, Australia 1902, Finland 1906, Norway 1913, United States 1920, Britain 1928, France 1945, Belgium 1946, Switzerland 1971 and Finally Kuwait 2006.

This brings me to my main point. What most ‘enlightened’ individuals have against fundamentalist and repressive regimes and their ‘holy ordinances’, is that they are out of step with the modern worlds moral Zeitgeist. What is worse is that as well as being out of step they want the rest of us to regress to a point somewhere in the past which is not acceptable to any free thinking intelligent individual. To be fair Dawkins does say that the trend although progressive [in the sense of upward or ‘morally improving’] is a “sawtooth not a smooth improvement” and that “there have been some appalling reversals”. I put this proposition to a friend who has lived for some years in the Middle East to which she responded, ‘it’s not a matter of the west being at the point of the sawtooth and Islamic (Arab) countries being in the trough [bottom of the notch], Arab countries are a large number of notches back’.

Unfortunately this “Arab moral Zeitgeist” or perhaps “Islamic moral Zeitgeist” is being pushed on the rest of the world. A few examples from the Jakarta Post dated 27th and 28th of October 2006. Headline: “Iran veil obligation masks colourful diversity”; quote: ”By the end of August this year the Iranian police said they had handed out 64,000 warnings to women for poor wearing of the veil”. Headline: “Saudi youth bored in Islamic state”; quote: “Islamist hardliners or ‘forces of darkness’ as [young Saudi] Omran’s blog has dubbed them, have come out fighting against liberal trends in society, arguing their must be limits to change in the land where Islam was born and which contains its holiest shrines.” And in other parts of the world: Headline: ‘Iraqi, afghan and Somali women under attack - UN”; quote: “Women [in the headlined countries] are facing violence (even as targets for assassination), especially when they speak out for women’s rights a senior United Nations official [Noelene Heyzer] told the UN Security Council.’ Headline: “Australian mufti’s sermons suspended amid firestorm over women comments”; quote “he said in one of his religious speeches that immodestly dressed women [whom he stated were like uncovered meat] were inviting sexual attack. Headline: ”Polygamy issue arouses intense passions in Muslim Malaysia”; quote: “The issue of polygamy is being hotly debated in mainly-Muslim Malaysia, after the government proposed legislation that would make it easier to enter into multiple marriages – a practice some women’s group’s want banned. Muslim men here are allowed up to four wives, but activists say the practice is cruel and that it has been distorted from its original purpose during the days of the Prophet which was to protect widows and orphans.”

This leads me to the question: Is Prime Minister Badawi just another ‘Muslim Leader’ with a Skewed Anachronistic Worldview?

Abdullah Ahmad Badawi (AB-PM-Mal) - CNN Talk Asia transcript (edited for clarity and brevity, abridged excerpts) CNN - posted - October 23, 2006 - Anjali Rao (AR-Interviewer)

Excerpt of an AB UN Speech: "I am afraid the schism between the west and the Muslim world will grow even deeper unless the international community is prepared to accept certain facts as the truth!"

AR: I'd like to discuss with you is the role of Islam in the world at the moment. What is it that you think the non-Muslim world is missing?

AB: What they are missing is that Muslims have not been really able to portray faithfully in their country's development, and the development of Muslim xxxx??? [Ummah???] that reflect the true teaching of Islam. Through the activities of so-called Muslim terrorists, they have created bad name for Islam, and the Muslim. And today, there doesn't seem to be any kind of understanding, enough understanding, to create a better rapport, better relations between the two. And that to me, is the cause of what we are seeing today.

Ric (my, comment): With all due respect this is ‘a load of old goats knees’ and much of the teaching (or more correctly perhaps, the interpretations by later scholars) needs to be abandoned and as Dawkins explains in his book, ‘radicalism grows directly from mainstream teachings’ and unfortunately it also “teaches us not to change our minds”, even I guess in spite of new evidence or changing realities.

AR: You've also recently spoken of the humiliation that Muslims feel. Why is that an overriding emotion among the Islamic community and is it something that you yourself, as a Muslim feel?

AB: I do feel that way too. There's one thing that the west has failed to understand. That, to a Muslim, religion is very important. Religion to the Muslim is not kept at home. It is not a matter for the relatives. For the Muslim, religion is important. In the corporate sector, in his business, in the government, in whatever he does, he is very much dictated by the teachings of Islam. So really it is the interpretation of the Koran.

Ric: Exactly our (the ‘west’s’ point), we don’t want to go back to an era of non voting women and all the other crass and backward practices that many Islamic states practice today. Have the religion if you must, however don’t impose a Middle Ages lifestyle on the rest of the world or expect the rest of the world to condone your bad behaviour. You should feel humiliated, perhaps that’s a start to the process of thinking about whether as leaders (and followers) if your attitudes are appropriate for today or not.

AR: Speaking of violent reactions, there was, recently such a response to the comments made by the Pope. Are Muslims being over sensitive?

AB: Well when it comes to religion we are always very sensitive. Many people, when it comes to race, we are always very sensitive. Not just us, anybody else become very, very sensitive. The Pope need not bring it up! Why did he have to say it considering the present situation? Considering that between the Muslim group and non-Muslim group there is a state of tension, there's a state of perhaps, not perhaps, a state of unhappiness, a lack of trust and confidence. That's very important. So don't bring it up!

Ric: Surely the propensity for individuals to fly off the handle and go ‘wacky bananas’ at every adverse comment that is thrown at Muslims is a demonstration of the less than desirable levels of Emotional and Spiritual Intelligence much of the Ummah. Perhaps its time to educate the followers in a more adult (rather than a moralistic parent or fractious child) approach to life, i.e. recite less and understand more. By the way can you tell the city dwelling Arabs that they are not in the desert anymore and when they recklessly fire the guns in the air that “what goes up must come down” and they are risking the death of their neighbours and their children every time they do it… I mean how smart are these people! I don’t suppose this is covered in the Qur’an however I could be wrong.

AR: Prime Minister you recently met with George W Bush. One of the things I know you were talking with him about was the desire to really create global peace. But you said that your approaches to it differed. How important is it for heads of state to really be in step in order to achieve that?

AB: Well I think it's important, …if we want global peace, then it must be all of us, [we] must more or less have the same ideas of how to do it. If it's not exactly the same, the ideas must be compatible.

…When I was with him, I spoke as a Muslim, as a man from the East, a Malay, as a leader of a Muslim country, as the chairman of OIC. And I would like to reflect our feelings, our concerns and views on many things.

Ric: Please… I implore you, can you not just speak as a global human being and get the Ummah to move a bit further along the moral Zeitgeist… PLEASE

AR: Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew says that the Chinese population here is systematically marginalized. He's now sent you a letter explaining his comments. What do you want to hear from him? …and …Are you saying that his accusations are groundless?

AB: I will know what I can hear when I read his letter. But certainly I wouldn't want him to raise an issue like that [Marginalisation of the Chinese]. No, he doesn't have to. Yes, it's groundless. And it is an issue that can cause unhappiness to many people. Why? Some may even regard it as tantamount to interfering with what we are doing. The Chinese in Malaysia are doing well. They are better off than the indigenous people, than the Malays.

Ric: No criticism again, control the press… yes and the world I suggest will continue to interfere welcome to the 21st century, no man (or country) is an island etc…

AR: That's what he was saying though wasn't it, that because they're so successful that's why they're marginalized.

AB: No, they have been so successful because we give them opportunities to be successful. We allow their people, we allow their children to go to Chinese school, vocational school, to learn Mandarin. And they practice their cultures. Their Chinese New Year is celebrated not only by them, but also by the Malays, the Indians who are the Malays the Muslims, the Hindus. We have respect, mutual respect. That is growing in Malaysia, that's true.

Ric: Is PM Badawi inadvertently showing his true colours here when he refers to his own Chinese citizen’s as “their people” “ALLOW their children”, “their culture” and “them”? What a disgraceful thing for the leader of “Malaysia Truly Asia” to say and what terrible attitudes does it witness.

AR: You have said that freedom of press has its boundaries and that unbridled freedom could also lead to the chaos and suffering for everybody. (Yes it's true I still hold to that view.) In what sense? Why would there be such chaos and suffering?

AB: Because press can be irresponsible, can incite feelings, can also create mistrust, can also create a state of tension. What happens is, for example, you remember the caricature of Prophet Muhammad? Yes, nobody forgets about it, you see how the Muslims feel about it. If I have the same thing here in Malaysia, my god, you know what is going to happen!

Ric: Dear PM Badawi, the press doesn’t create tension, badly raised, backward and bigoted individuals of low moral and ethical standards carry the tension with them always… and what’s more, these individuals will use any excuse to lash out, particularly if they can get away with their anti-social behaviour in the name of god.

AR: But then where are you going to draw the line between freedom of expression and clamping down?

AB: The drawing of the line comes from an understanding of those people who are in the press, understanding of our society, of our sensitivities. That is very important, they understand the society, our cultures, our values, our sensitivities and political sensitivities. That's very, very important. If they understand, they'll know what to say and what not to say. And there are occasions when the press did something which many of us thought, oh my god what has happened? We have to deal with it. We have to deal with it, we have to cope with it, we have to understand but they cannot be doing that all the time. We can't, because I want to say there is no such thing as absolute freedom. The degree of freedom that one exercises varies from one country to another. This is the truth. (3)

Ric: Oh dear, oh dear… so disappointing and this from what is touted as worlds most shining example of what a Muslim nation can become.

Finally as writing this I heard on Australia Network – Insiders – Presented Barry Cassidy, a comment by one of his panellists that the area of where the Australian's, nasty, female “meat” hating, [Egyptian) mufti’s mosque is, Lakemba (Sydney), enjoys the lowest literacy rate, highest unemployment rate and the highest rate of violence in Australia… so I ask which is the chicken and which is the egg?

www.caliibre.com

Refs:
http://richarddawkins.net/article,230,Review-of-The-God-Delusion,

Jim-Walker--NoBeliefscom (1)
http://richarddawkins.net/article,180,Collateral-Damage-

Part-2,Richard-Dawkins(2)

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/10/23

/talkasia.badawi.script/index.html (3)

The primary cause of the ‘East’ v’s ‘West’ collision, a mismatched “Moral Zeitgeist”

2006-10-29T18:05:00.000+07:00

In the book he also examples the moving Zeitgeist trend by listing the dates at which women were given the right to vote.

New Zealand 1893, Australia 1902, Finland 1906, Norway 1913, United States 1920, Britain 1928, France 1945, Belgium 1946, Switzerland 1971 and Finally Kuwait 2006.

This brings me to my main point. What most ‘enlightened’ individuals have against fundamentalist and repressive regimes and their ‘holy ordinances’, is that they are out of step with the modern worlds moral Zeitgeist. What is worse is that as well as being out of step they want the rest of us to regress to a point somewhere in the past which is not acceptable to any free thinking intelligent individual. To be fair Dawkins does say that the trend although progressive [in the sense of upward or ‘morally improving’] is a “sawtooth not a smooth improvement” and that “there have been some appalling reversals”. I put this proposition to a friend who has lived for some years in the Middle East to which she responded, ‘it’s not a matter of the west being at the point of the sawtooth and Islamic (Arab) countries being in the trough [bottom of the notch], Arab countries are a large number of notches back’.

Unfortunately this “Arab moral Zeitgeist” or perhaps “Islamic moral Zeitgeist” is being pushed on the rest of the world. A few examples from the Jakarta Post dated 27th and 28th of October 2006. Headline: “Iran veil obligation masks colourful diversity”; quote: ”By the end of August this year the Iranian police said they had handed out 64,000 warnings to women for poor wearing of the veil”. Headline: “Saudi youth bored in Islamic state”; quote: “Islamist hardliners or ‘forces of darkness’ as [young Saudi] Omran’s blog has dubbed them, have come out fighting against liberal trends in society, arguing their must be limits to change in the land where Islam was born and which contains its holiest shrines.” And in other parts of the world: Headline: ‘Iraqi, afghan and Somali women under attack - UN”; quote: “Women [in the headlined countries] are facing violence (even as targets for assassination), especially when they speak out for women’s rights a senior United Nations official [Noelene Heyzer] told the UN Security Council.’ Headline: “Australian mufti’s sermons suspended amid firestorm over women comments”; quote “he said in one of his religious speeches that immodestly dressed women [whom he stated were like uncovered meat] were inviting sexual attack. Headline: ”Polygamy issue arouses intense passions in Muslim Malaysia”; quote: “The issue of polygamy is being hotly debated in mainly-Muslim Malaysia, after the government proposed legislation that would make it easier to enter into multiple marriages – a practice some women’s group’s want banned. Muslim men here are allowed up to four wives, but activists say the practice is cruel and that it has been distorted from its original purpose during the days of the Prophet which was to protect widows and orphans.”

This leads me to the question: Is Prime Minister Badawi just another ‘Muslim Leader’ with a Skewed Anachronistic Worldview?

Abdullah Ahmad Badawi (AB-PM-Mal) - CNN Talk Asia transcript (edited for clarity and brevity, abridged excerpts) CNN - posted - October 23, 2006 - Anjali Rao (AR-Interviewer)

Excerpt of an AB UN Speech: "I am afraid the schism between the west and the Muslim world will grow even deeper unless the international community is prepared to accept certain facts as the truth!"

AR: I'd like to discuss with you is the role of Islam in the world at the moment. What is it that you think the non-Muslim world is missing?

AB: What they are missing is that Muslims have not been really able to portray faithfully in their country's development, and the development of Muslim xxxx??? [Ummah???] that reflect the true teaching of Islam. Through the activities of so-called Muslim terrorists, they have created bad name for Islam, and the Muslim. And today, there doesn't seem to be any kind of understanding, enough understanding, to create a better rapport, better relations between the two. And that to me, is the cause of what we are seeing today.

Ric (my, comment): With all due respect this is ‘a load of old goats knees’ and much of the teaching (or more correctly perhaps, the interpretations by later scholars) needs to be abandoned and as Dawkins explains in his book, ‘radicalism grows directly from mainstream teachings’ and unfortunately it also “teaches us not to change our minds”, even I guess in spite of new evidence or changing realities.

AR: You've also recently spoken of the humiliation that Muslims feel. Why is that an overriding emotion among the Islamic community and is it something that you yourself, as a Muslim feel?

AB: I do feel that way too. There's one thing that the west has failed to understand. That, to a Muslim, religion is very important. Religion to the Muslim is not kept at home. It is not a matter for the relatives. For the Muslim, religion is important. In the corporate sector, in his business, in the government, in whatever he does, he is very much dictated by the teachings of Islam. So really it is the interpretation of the Koran.

Ric: Exactly our (the ‘west’s’ point), we don’t want to go back to an era of non voting women and all the other crass and backward practices that many Islamic states practice today. Have the religion if you must, however don’t impose a Middle Ages lifestyle on the rest of the world or expect the rest of the world to condone your bad behaviour. You should feel humiliated, perhaps that’s a start to the process of thinking about whether as leaders (and followers) if your attitudes are appropriate for today or not.

AR: Speaking of violent reactions, there was, recently such a response to the comments made by the Pope. Are Muslims being over sensitive?

AB: Well when it comes to religion we are always very sensitive. Many people, when it comes to race, we are always very sensitive. Not just us, anybody else become very, very sensitive. The Pope need not bring it up! Why did he have to say it considering the present situation? Considering that between the Muslim group and non-Muslim group there is a state of tension, there's a state of perhaps, not perhaps, a state of unhappiness, a lack of trust and confidence. That's very important. So don't bring it up!

Ric: Surely the propensity for individuals to fly off the handle and go ‘wacky bananas’ at every adverse comment that is thrown at Muslims is a demonstration of the less than desirable levels of Emotional and Spiritual Intelligence much of the Ummah. Perhaps its time to educate the followers in a more adult (rather than a moralistic parent or fractious child) approach to life, i.e. recite less and understand more. By the way can you tell the city dwelling Arabs that they are not in the desert anymore and when they recklessly fire the guns in the air that “what goes up must come down” and they are risking the death of their neighbours and their children every time they do it… I mean how smart are these people! I don’t suppose this is covered in the Qur’an however I could be wrong.

AR: Prime Minister you recently met with George W Bush. One of the things I know you were talking with him about was the desire to really create global peace. But you said that your approaches to it differed. How important is it for heads of state to really be in step in order to achieve that?

AB: Well I think it's important, …if we want global peace, then it must be all of us, [we] must more or less have the same ideas of how to do it. If it's not exactly the same, the ideas must be compatible.

…When I was with him, I spoke as a Muslim, as a man from the East, a Malay, as a leader of a Muslim country, as the chairman of OIC. And I would like to reflect our feelings, our concerns and views on many things.

Ric: Please… I implore you, can you not just speak as a global human being and get the Ummah to move a bit further along the moral Zeitgeist… PLEASE

AR: Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew says that the Chinese population here is systematically marginalized. He's now sent you a letter explaining his comments. What do you want to hear from him? …and …Are you saying that his accusations are groundless?

AB: I will know what I can hear when I read his letter. But certainly I wouldn't want him to raise an issue like that [Marginalisation of the Chinese]. No, he doesn't have to. Yes, it's groundless. And it is an issue that can cause unhappiness to many people. Why? Some may even regard it as tantamount to interfering with what we are doing. The Chinese in Malaysia are doing well. They are better off than the indigenous people, than the Malays.

Ric: No criticism again, control the press… yes and the world I suggest will continue to interfere welcome to the 21st century, no man (or country) is an island etc…

AR: That's what he was saying though wasn't it, that because they're so successful that's why they're marginalized.

AB: No, they have been so successful because we give them opportunities to be successful. We allow their people, we allow their children to go to Chinese school, vocational school, to learn Mandarin. And they practice their cultures. Their Chinese New Year is celebrated not only by them, but also by the Malays, the Indians who are the Malays the Muslims, the Hindus. We have respect, mutual respect. That is growing in Malaysia, that's true.

Ric: Is PM Badawi inadvertently showing his true colours here when he refers to his own Chinese citizen’s as “their people” “ALLOW their children”, “their culture” and “them”? What a disgraceful thing for the leader of “Malaysia Truly Asia” to say and what terrible attitudes does it witness.

AR: You have said that freedom of press has its boundaries and that unbridled freedom could also lead to the chaos and suffering for everybody. (Yes it's true I still hold to that view.) In what sense? Why would there be such chaos and suffering?

AB: Because press can be irresponsible, can incite feelings, can also create mistrust, can also create a state of tension. What happens is, for example, you remember the caricature of Prophet Muhammad? Yes, nobody forgets about it, you see how the Muslims feel about it. If I have the same thing here in Malaysia, my god, you know what is going to happen!

Ric: Dear PM Badawi, the press doesn’t create tension, badly raised, backward and bigoted individuals of low moral and ethical standards carry the tension with them always… and what’s more, these individuals will use any excuse to lash out, particularly if they can get away with their anti-social behaviour in the name of god.

AR: But then where are you going to draw the line between freedom of expression and clamping down?

AB: The drawing of the line comes from an understanding of those people who are in the press, understanding of our society, of our sensitivities. That is very important, they understand the society, our cultures, our values, our sensitivities and political sensitivities. That's very, very important. If they understand, they'll know what to say and what not to say. And there are occasions when the press did something which many of us thought, oh my god what has happened? We have to deal with it. We have to deal with it, we have to cope with it, we have to understand but they cannot be doing that all the time. We can't, because I want to say there is no such thing as absolute freedom. The degree of freedom that one exercises varies from one country to another. This is the truth. (3)

Ric: Oh dear, oh dear… so disappointing and this from what is touted as worlds most shining example of what a Muslim nation can become.

Finally as writing this I heard on Australia Network – Insiders – Presented Barry Cassidy, a comment by one of his panellists that the area of where the Australian's, nasty, female “meat” hating, [Egyptian) mufti’s mosque is, Lakemba (Sydney), enjoys the lowest literacy rate, highest unemployment rate and the highest rate of violence in Australia… so I ask which is the chicken and which is the egg?

www.caliibre.com

Refs: http://richarddawkins.net/article,230,Review-of-The-God-Delusion,
Jim-Walker--NoBeliefscom(1)
http://richarddawkins.net/article,180,Collateral-Damage-
Part-2,Richard-Dawkins(2)
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/10/23/talkasia.badawi.script/index.html(3)

The Battle for Saudi Arabia & Malaysia and the Club of… Doom

2006-10-25T16:48:00.000+07:00

The title of this post refers to two books I have read within the last week or so. Both books deal with the issue of ‘Islamic fundamentalism’ that increasingly troubles the thinking and globally aware people of the world. I make the distinction of ‘thinking and aware people’ as unfortunately much of the worlds population is tragically so confined by their oppressive governments through various degrees or combinations of poverty, limited access to education and censorship that what is happening outside their immediate vicinity is of little or no interest to them. Unfortunately these people will only know their fate when it is too late for them to do anything about the onslaught of violence. As sad as the state of the aforementioned group is, there is another large group of individuals that is of greater concern; those that know what is going on and choose either out of fear, smugness, or worse, complicity, to close a blind eye to the victimisation and brutality being committed on others by various religious factions in the name of their god and his prophets.

Amongst my own friends and relatives, discussion of religious issues can bring an instant and disappointing retort of, ‘don’t tell me anymore, I am comfortable where I am’. Two illustrative quotes; “don’t spoil my religious belief with the facts” and “don’t rob me of my god”. So you may think I should be more diplomatic and politically correct particularly amongst my own family and perhaps follow the advice of one family member that I “should respect the beliefs of others”. This is an old appeasers argument put forward by those trying to protect perceived sovereignty over their own areas of existence that inadvertently often commit ‘sins’ of omission in under its umbrella. On a small scale, as within families and friends, I guess other than being personally disappointing it is no big deal. Unfortunately on a world scale this ‘don’t disturb me I am comfortable’ attitude leads to disasters such as Darfur and Iraq. I highlight the two books reviewed below in the hope that it will stimulate/awaken a need in some to take a more proactive and responsible approach towards the wellbeing of the world community as a whole.

The first book “The Battle for Saudi Arabia” by As’ad Abukhalil (Seven Stories Press) is an exposé on Saudi Arabia’s “bizarre government and fanatic ideology”. A particularly troubling aspect of the Saudi aggression is, as As’ad puts it, the fact that “the United States leads a decades-long foreign policy that supports Saudi Arabia and protects it from criticism and embarrassment.” He goes on; “Oil and other self-serving interests steered previous U.S. administrations away from their hollow slogans about democracy and human rights, including that of Jimmy Carter, the self-described human rights president, who never directly acknowledged the Saudi governments corruption, cruelty and abuse.”

Particularly interesting sections of this easy to read book cover, the unholy alliance between the corrupt and perhaps immoral Saudi royal family and the dangerous and fanatic Wahhabi sect of supposedly ‘pure Islam’. Another highlight explains the relatively recent oil wealth driven ‘globalization of Wahhabi Da’wah’. Da’wah is the “Islamic call, or the effort to win converts and adherents.” As’ad also states in this section “Islam was [is] bound to clash with territorial nationalism because its scope is not limited to one piece of land.” The Saudi religious/cultural arrogance is perhaps fuelled by the fact that as he states “Arabs have often interpreted the verse in the Qur’an (and you have the best peoples evolved for humankind) to imply their ethnic superiority over other peoples”, [also] perhaps because “the Prophet was an Arab and the Qur’an was revealed, according to Muslims, by God in the Arab tongue.”

There is much to be learnt from this book that covers a broader range of issues than I can mention here. From my perspective it is a must read for all those that value their and their children’s future’s if only on the basis of “know thy enemy”. Why enemy… because they are the most dangerous nation on earth regardless of what the god bothering, war-mongering George may consider as being his personal axis of evil.

The second book “Malaysia and the Club of Doom” by Syed Akbar Ali (Self Published) is an interesting look from a Malaysian perspective at Islam and its effects on the overall health of the nations in which it is practiced. This is an important view as Malaysia is often seen as a great example of how and Islamic inspired population can successfully adopt a democratic government and succeed in the modern ‘economically globalised’ world.

The chapter headings give an introduction to the books direction, 1 Failed States, 2 Pakistan – A Failed State, 3 Can Malaysia Become a Failed State, 4 Muslim Violence is So Predicable, 5 Denial – The Fuel of Falsehood, 6 Throwing Up New Hatreds Against Non Muslims, 7 The Hatred of Dogs and House Lizards 8 Failure Written in Stone, 9 Some Advice to the Leaders and Politicians, 10 The Ummah [Islamic Community] is Lawless 11 Falsely Accusing the Qur’an: A Clash of Fools 12 Doom, Doom and More Doom

The author Syed starts out by asking the question - What are Failed Nations? He then goes on to explain how Islamic countries can rightly be called failed states. Some of the criteria he uses are: ”technologically less advanced”, “generally characterised as poor”, “economies dependent on export of primary products”. He also says that a failed state shows the following symptoms: 1 Restrictions on free flow of information, 2 Subjugation of women, 3 Inability to accept responsibility, for individual or collective failure, 4 Basic unit of social organisation is the extended family or clan, 5 Domination by a restrictive religion, 6 Low valuation of Education, 7 Low prestige assigned to work.

In the same chapter he explains that as well as the criteria and symptoms above: ‘Often an Islamic Country may also suffer violence either from within its own borders against its own people or violence imposed from outside.’ “Another distinct feature of Islamic Countries is that the people are always walking around in fear of suffering embarrassment from breaching some religious rule or other. They always seem to suffer a guilty conscience. Generally Muslims are an unhappy lot. And on top of it all the ‘Islamic Country’ suffers the fit [in the sense of a trance] that it is somehow still blessed by God and that its inhabitants, especially its religious leaders, will go to heaven.” (Also sounds a bit Catholic to me!)

Syed is particularly astute in his condemnation of the adverse effects of the “Arabization process” and on the culture of the Arabs themselves. He’ states: ”Today the vast majority of Arab countries – which most definitely form the remnant of the ‘Islamic Civilisation’ – are Failed States. The Arab Human Development Report 2004 produced by the United Nations Development summarises all Arab states as: lacking freedom and good governance, suffering acute corruption, marginalizing segments of their population like women and minorities and also that Arab governments suffer a crisis of legitimacy. This means their governments do not represent the will of the people.” “The Arab countries are failures… all the 22 members of the Arab League today are basket cases.”

Syed uses a number of statistics to justify his conclusions, here are a couple: “Oil rich Saudi Arabia, U.A.E., Kuwait and Qatar collectively produce goods and services (mostly oil) worth $430 billion; Netherlands alone has a higher annual GDP while Buddhist Thailand produces goods and services worth $429 billion.” “Fifty-seven Muslim majority countries have an average of ten universities each for a total of less than 600 universities for 1.4 billion people; [whereas] India has 8,407 universities [and] the US has 5,758 universities.” “Over the past 105 years, 1.4 billion Muslims have produced eight Nobel Prize Laureates while a mere 1.4 million Jews have produced 167.” His conclusion is that Muslims suffer because they refuse to keep pace with the times. He also goes on to say that it is not Islam that is the problem it is the fact that many so called religious leaders do not understand the true tenants of Islam, rather they follow the Hadith and Fiqh which he also seems to see as merely the words of men as against the Qur’an which is the word of god.

In later chapters he looks at everything from, poor hygiene factors, an ill-founded dislike of lizards and dogs, illegitimate use of fatwas, an ‘inherited’ Arab aversion to hard work, the predictable violence of Muslims due to their feelings of hopelessness and denial, the intrusive over zealous moral squads and their intrusion into the private lives of others, legalised short tem sex only marriages, to the turmoil created by growing radicalism in Indonesia and Malaysia.

Syed is branded in Malaysia as a liberal however he says he is a “hardcore conservative fundamentalist Muslim” and that it is others, the so-called ‘religious’ interpreters that are being liberal in not sticking to the teachings of the Qur’an. What he is saying is best summed up by this quote; “The Qur’an is almost entirely different from what is preached by religious scholars. We can see many examples throughout this book. Too often what they teach is not found in the Qur’an at all. That is why I [he] keep[s] saying that religion and Islam are not the same. Islam is a ‘deen’ or way of life based on science and reason whereas religion has so many illogical shades and flavours.” It is a pity he has not addressed some of the more distasteful areas of the Qur’an and suggested how they can be overcome much as the Christians through the reformation have overcome the immoral and violent versus in the bible. Maybe in his next book.

I recommend both these books to anyone concerned regarding the adverse effects that ‘Wahhabi style dogma’ I having on the rest of the ‘civilised’ world. Malicious Stone Age thinking religious fanatics a raising their voices in France, England, Asia and many other places that they have migrated to for a better life, in an attempt to reduce us all to their level of hopelessness and moral poverty. I guess it is a global case of misery enjoys company.

‘No its not my business’, ‘I am comfortable and will leave to the diplomats or military’… that won’t work… take the initiative get involved, even if it is through joining the discussion… SAY NO TO RELIGIOUS TYRANNY. Oh and beware of the Christian religious right in the US (and other places) as well, they are just as dangerous as this bunch of freaks.

By the way how quickly can the downward trend occur?

Until the 1980s Malays in Malaysia identified themselves first as Malays, second as Muslims and third as Malaysians. Recent polls have disclosed a fundamental shift: 73% identify themselves first as Muslims, 14% as Malaysians and 13% as Malays. (*)

www.caliibre.com

Refs:
The Battle for Saudi Arabia by As’ad Abukhalil (Seven Stories Press)
Malaysia and the Club of Doom by Syed Akbar Ali (Self Published)

*http://www.malaysia-today.net/Blog-n/2006/10/muslim-anger-on-rise.htm

Genocide in Darfur: Sudanese Government funding of the Janjaweed and the rest of the world’s shameful complicity!

2006-10-13T18:04:00.000+07:00

U.S.A.

US retirement funds invest in companies doing business in Sudan. The California Public Employees Retirement System, or CalPERS, the US’s largest public retirement fund, is one of the biggest investors (2005) at a total of $7.5 billion, according to the Conflict Securities Advisory Group, a private firm that specializes in terrorism risk research for investors. Close behind is the California State Teachers Retirement System with $5.8 billion. Retirement funds in Florida, Alabama, Michigan, and Kentucky are the next biggest investors, but in dozens of states retirement systems have similar investments.

RUSSIA

Russia, a G8 member, has an arms-for-oil deal with Khartoum, according to Global Policy Forum, an international policy monitor and advocacy group with ties to the United Nations. In early 2002, the Russian oil company Slavnest signed a $200 million deal to develop untapped oil fields in central Sudan in exchange for Sudan’s right to manufacture Russian battle tanks, making Moscow a chief source of Sudan’s arms, according to organization.

CHINA

China, whose booming economy is driven by oil, became a major investor in the North African nation’s exploding oil industry, which pumped 345,000 barrels of crude per day in 2004, according to the U.S. Energy Administration. Sudan has at least 563 million barrels of underground crude oil. Companies from AUSTRIA, CANADA, FRANCE, QATAR, KUWAIT, MALAYSIA and SWEDEN also have oil-producing facilities in Sudan, according to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). (1)

Because the Sudanese government is funding the Janjaweed, companies that substantially aid the government must be seen as complicit in the Sudanese attempt at genocide.

Some of the companies involved: ABB (Switzerland), PetroChina (China), Sinopec (China), Tatneft (Russia), Alcatel (France), Siemens AG (Germany), Alstom Power (France), Bharat Heavy Electricals (India), Harbin Power Equipment Company (China), Lundin Petroleum (Sweden), Nam Fatt Company Bhd (Malaysia), Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (India), PECD Bhd (Malaysia), Schlumberger Technology (US) and Kuwait Petroleum Corp. (Kuwait) (2)

After much public pressure - May 17th 2006, “the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS) board announced that it would not permit its fund managers to buy shares in nine companies that do business in Sudan.” However, “CalPERS will continue its current policy of ‘constructive engagement’ with companies in its portfolio that have ties to Sudan, CalPERS Investment Committee Chair Charles P. Valdes said in a CalPERS press release. Such engagement ‘means identifying companies that have a presence in Sudan, determining the impact of their business on human rights, and demanding that they respond to our concerns.’” (3) What a crock — divest now!

What can you do for the oppressed in Darfur, check your super fund and ask them to divest any holdings in companies that do business with the Sudanese Government.

…and

Arab League members show their distain for the ‘Civilised World’ again

“The Arab League said in a statement, members of US Congress had signed a letter sent to Amr Moussa (The Arab League's secretary-general) in which they supported the Arab states’ pledge to fund the African Union (AU) mission in Darfur but only as a temporary measure before a U.N. force takes over. The AU agreed in September to extend its mission in Darfur until December 31, with logistical and material support from the United Nations and funding from Arab states but the congressmen voiced concern that no Arab nation had fulfilled its pledge to support the African force. An Arab League spokesman told Reuters that as of Thursday, only Qatar had contributed.” (Reuters October 13 2006) (4)

What a useless, grubby, ineffective organisation the Arab League is!!!

Oh well I guess their wealthiest member is too busy building Mosques and Wahhabi touting boarding schools.

www.caliibre.com

Refs:
http://www.sudantribune.com/article.php3?id_article=10720 (1)
http://www.brownalumnimagazine.com/storydetail.cfm?ID=3127 (2)
http://blog.issproxy.com/2006/05/calpers_makes_sudan_divestment.html (3)

http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article18090 (4)

The Saudi Money Trail – the tragedy continues!

2006-10-13T06:33:00.000+07:00

The worldwide export of Wahhabi Islam

‘The worldwide export of Wahhabi Islam began in 1962, when Saudi Arabia's ruling Saud family founded the Muslim World League in Mecca to promote "Islamic solidarity." The Sauds were seeking to counter the fiery pan-Arab nationalism of Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser, who was calling for the Saudi monarchy to be overthrown. The family also saw the export of Islam, which they call "Dawah," as a sacred duty as their land was the birthplace of Islam. By 1982, the Saud family was feeling threatened by the Islamic revolution begun by Shiite Muslim leader Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran and the extremism of some of its own citizens, who had temporarily seized the Grand Mosque in Mecca in 1979. Again, the family turned to Dawah. King Fahd issued a directive that "no limits be put on expenditures for the propagation of Islam," according to Nawaf Obaid, a Saudi oil and security analyst. Saudi Arabia now had the money: Its oil revenue had skyrocketed after the 1973 oil embargo. King Fahd used the cash to build mosques, Islamic centers and schools by the thousands around the world. Over the next two decades, the kingdom established 200 Islamic colleges, 210 Islamic centers, 1,500 mosques and 2,000 schools for Muslim children in non-Islamic countries, according to King Fahd's personal Web site. In 1984, the king built a $130 million printing plant in Medina devoted to producing Saudi-approved translations of the Koran. By 2000, the kingdom had distributed 138 million copies worldwide. Exactly how much has been spent to spread Wahhabism is unclear. David D. Aufhauser, a former Treasury Department general counsel, told a US Senate committee in June (2004) that estimates went "north of $75 billion."’ (Washington Post Thursday, August 19, 2004) (1)

‘Interference’ in Cambodia

‘In a police raid in May 2003 on Cambodian the al-Mukara Islamic School three foreign-born men affiliated with the school and the Saudi charity that ran the institution were arrested; a Cambodian teacher at another Islamic school was detained a few weeks later. All were charged with “international terrorism and with links to Jemaah Islamiyah.” At the time according to General Sok Phal, chief of Cambodia’s intelligence and security agencies, money sent from Saudi Arabia to sustain the school was being used to conduct Jemaah Islamiyah and al-Qaeda support activities. Apparently $10,000 wire transfers would appear in the school’s Cambodian bank account on a monthly basis, only to disappear shortly thereafter.’

‘There was at the time a significant flow of aid from the Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Malaysia to Cambodia’s Muslim population. The focus of the money in the predominantly Buddhist country is the Cham community which makes up about 6 percent of Cambodia’s population and which has its own language, culture and whose religion is Islam. Accompany some of the aid was radical Islamic proselytizing and recruiting drives that even led some Cambodians to training camps in Afghanistan. The money that flowed into Cham communities also sponsored pilgrimages to Mecca, build mosques and Islamic schools, and provided other religious and social services. A number of Saudi Arabia’s quasi-state-run charities also brought in clerics that preached Wahhabism, Saudi Arabia’s austere, fundamentalist form of Islam. Among the Saudi charities in Cambodia was the al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, which had allegedly laundered money to al-Qaeda in Southeast Asia and whose offices in at least 11 countries were designated by the U.S. Treasury (and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) as supporters of terrorism. The majority of Chams traditionally belong to the Shafi’iyah branch of Sunni Islam, however Wahhabi quickly became the second largest and most rapidly growing sect. Dakwah (the activity of propagating Islamic values), to some a fundamentalist Islamic movement, has also made significant inroads in Cambodia.’ (The American Prospect Online Edition January 1 2004) (2)

The Saudi Fifth Column On USA’s Campuses

‘The Saudis have steadily infiltrated American educational institutions with vast infusions of cash. At the same time they look to steer college curricula and public opinion – especially about the Middle East – toward their Wahhabist goals. Money the Saudis are pouring into our (US) universities in the form of gifts and endowments is alarming: King Fahd donated $20 million dollars to set up a Middle East Studies Center at the University of Arkansas; $5 million was donated to UC Berkeley’s Center For Middle East Studies from two Saudi sheiks linked to funding al-Qaeda; $2.5 million dollars to Harvard; $8.1 million dollars to Georgetown; $11 million dollars to Cornell; $1.5 million dollars to Texas A&M; $5 million dollars to MIT; $1 million dollars to Princeton. Rutgers received $5 million dollars to endow a chair. So did Columbia, which tried to obscure the money’s source. Other recipients of Saudi largesse include UC-Santa Barbara, Johns Hopkins, Rice University, American University, University of Chicago, Syracuse University, USC, UCLA, Duke University and Howard University, among many others.’ (FrontPageMagazine.com April 5, 2004) (3)

More than $27 million in "suspicious" transactions

‘A 2003/4 US federal investigation into the bank accounts of the Saudi Embassy in Washington identified more than $27 million in "suspicious" transactions, including hundreds of thousands of dollars paid to Muslim charities and to clerics and Saudi students who were being scrutinized for possible links to terrorist activity, according to government documents obtained by NEWSWEEK at the time. The probe also uncovered large wire transfers overseas by the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar bin Sultan. The transactions eventually prompted the Saudi Embassy's long time bank, the Riggs Bank of Washington, D.C., to drop the Saudis as a client after embassy officials were "unable to provide an explanation that was satisfying," according to a source familiar with the discussions.’ (Newsweek April 12, 2004) (4)

Central mosque of Rome

‘The huge central mosque of Rome was built, almost entirely with Saudi money. To be more precise, I should say that the mosque of Rome was built with the money of the Saudi Royal Family. And to go even more in depth, I should add that there is a Crown Prince from the Saudi Royal Family who has taken charge of the whole operation. As far as my knowledge, the Rome central mosque is the largest in Europe. Speaking of Europe, the Saudis fund Islamic Centres from Britain to Switzerland. If we want to look at Eastern-Europe, Bosnian Muslims, the so-called "Bosniaks" have received huge amounts of money from Saudi charities and if we keep looking east, the same Saudi charities fund Kossovan’s and Chechens. Both Western Europe and Eastern Europe are full of Saudi-funded charities: the typical name would be "Islamic Relief".’ (Octavio Johanson, on Daniel Pipes Feb 1, 2005) (5)

Turkeys Justice and Reconciliation Party - political interference in a secular state

‘Turkeys Justice and Reconciliation Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi, AKP) swept to victory in Turkey's parliamentary elections on November 3, 2002. Since being elected AKP leaders have blurred the distinction between business and politics. More troubling yet is the pattern of tying Turkish domestic and foreign policy to an influx of what is called Yesil Sermaye, "green money," from wealthy Islamist businessmen and Middle Eastern states. Where goes the AKP? Is leader Erdoğan's party a threat to Turkish secularism, or the product of it? Does the AKP represent an Islamist Trojan horse? Today, in private conversations and in the National Assembly, many Turkish officials discuss green money and AKP financial opacity as the new threat. Money buys the short-term popularity necessary to initiate long-term changes, be they in Turkey's foreign or domestic policy. Under apparent Saudi influence, such changes will likely further erode Turkish secularism. If the AKP is able to translate money into power and power into money, then the main loser will be Turkish secularism. As an executive with one of Istanbul's largest firms said, "The AKP is like a cancer. You feel fine, but then one day you start coughing blood. By the time you realize there's a problem, it's too far-gone."’ (Middle East Quarterly - Winter 2005) (6)

Gutless behaviour, or perhaps even worse, sinister deeds in the US Congress

Behaviour ‘The disgraceful scuttling of a new bill in the US House of Representatives must be a worry to many Americans. “H.R. bill 609” would have amended the Higher Education Act of 1965 and required America's colleges and universities to report any donations received from Saudi Arabia. The new bill, was put before one chamber of Congress by Congressman Dan Burton [R-IN], and would have required US colleges and universities to report such donations through the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), a publicly available and searchable database. According to an aide to Congressman Burton, the amending bill made it past committee and when presented on the House floor was about to be put to a voice vote where a simple "yea" or "nay" vote would have led to its passage. George Miller [D-CA], as leader of the Democratic caucus stated his side had no objections to the bill just before a vote was held. But when the voice vote was requested, someone from the floor said "no," thus requiring a roll call vote where each representative would be recognized on how he voted on the matter. In what should have been a shoo-in, the amendment was voted down at the last minute on a roll call vote 306 to 120. Miller himself, who raised no objections to the amendment moments earlier, voted down the bill when his identity could be linked to its passage along with the rest of the House. This illustrates the sway of Saudi money – even in the US Congress, the "voice of the people."’ (American Thinker April 20, 2006 - On March 29th, 2006) (7)

US says funds flow in from Saudi Arabia to Somalia

‘Funds are flowing to support the Islamic Courts movement that seized the capital Mogadishu this month (June 06), said a senior U.S. official on Thursday (27th). The State Department's point person on Africa, Jendayi Frazer… "I don't want to say the Saudi government is supporting any particular (Islamic) court but I do know that there is money coming in from Saudi Arabia," Frazer told the House of Representatives International Relations Committee. "There is money coming in from Yemen and arms from Eritrea and other places", she said, adding that some of the funds came from Somali businessmen based in Saudi Arabia. Hard-line cleric Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, who is on a U.S. list of al Qaeda associates and was named head of the Council of the Islamic Courts last weekend, had showed "aggression" toward the United States, she said. Frazer defended U.S. policy and said the main goal was to ensure Somalia did not become a haven for terrorists, in addition to boosting the credibility of the [UN backed] transitional government, which is too weak to enter the capital.’ (Reuters - June 29, 2006) (8)

India finds Pakistani and Saudi money behind July 11 Mumbai serial train blasts

‘In the first indication that the blasts, which killed at least 163 people and injured 464, could be foreign funded, police today (July 31) claimed they had seized 37,000 riyals (approx USD10,000) sent from Saudi Arabia through “hawala” (a money transfer system) to Faizal Sheikh, a key Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) operative, arrested last week in the case. Though the money was sent by Faizal's brother, who lives in Saudi Arabia, anti-terrorist squad officials said that what was suspicious is that part of the money came a day before and remaining amount a day after the blasts. "Of the total money, 25,000 riyals were sent a day before the blasts, and 12,000 Riyals came a day after," ATS Chief K P Raghuvanshi told reporters here [India]’. (India Daily Jul. 31, 2006) (9)

Now something very worrying in Singapore!

Along with the warm political ties, the economic and trade relations between Singapore and Saudi Arabia have also been strengthened in the past year. Saudi Arabia is Singapore's largest trading partner in the Middle East with bilateral trade growing by over 50 percent to reach 10 billion U.S. dollars in 2005. It is also Singapore's largest foreign investor from the Middle East. (English People’s Daily – Xinhua April 14 2006) (10)

Saudi Education Ministry officials are intending to travel to Singapore to boost educational ties between the two countries, Arab News reported. Singapore's Minister of Education showed, during a seminar attended by students from Saudi Arabia, China, Japan, Singapore and Malaysia, that they want to build a relationship at the school level with Saudi Arabia. Singapore authorities are eager to boost some of Middle Eastern students in Singapore's government-funded and privately run educational system. (MENA FN Aug 10 2006) (11)

www.caliibre.com

Refs:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A13266-2004Aug18? (1)
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=8137 (2)
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=12833 (3)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4661093/ (4)
http://www.danielpipes.org/comments/20032 (5)
http://www.meforum.org/article/684#_ftn53 (6)
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=5428 (7)
http://www.boston.com/news/world/africa/articles/2006/06/29 (8)
http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/12295.asp (9)
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200604/14/eng20060414_258435.html (10)http://www.menafn.com/qn_news_story_s.asp?StoryId=1093123245 (11)

Religious Nutter Notes October 2006

2006-10-08T06:02:00.000+07:00

Muslim taxis refuse to carry guide dogs (Melbourne Australia)

‘Muslim taxi drivers are refusing to transport guide dogs and passengers carrying alcohol. "I don't refuse to take people, but it's hard for me because my religion tells me I should not go near dogs," driver Imran said. Victorian Taxi Association had appealed to the mufti of Melbourne to allow Muslim cabbies to carry guide dogs. “Dogs are considered unclean by many Muslims”.’ (1)

Let's go to 'Jesus Camp' [Documentary] - “Evangelical Christians are here to save the day”

“The filmmakers go beyond the camp to visit an Evangelical home-schooled household, where the only thing worse than a non-believer is the fanged beast known as science. It's like the Batman to their Joker. The Evangelicals do not believe in global warming, evolution, the separation of church and state, or dirty, stinking liberals. They feel with Bush in charge, their way of life will soon dominate America. At the camp, they touch and pray to a cardboard cutout of Bush, and await the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court with bated breath. The President is their savior, and they sleep soundly in the knowledge that he takes a meeting with an Evangelical leader every week for guidance.”

“It comes down to this: these are children. Impressionable, innocent, incredibly camera-aware, loving, ready-to-please children. They have not chosen this way of life; it's being legally programmed into them for the benefit of adults who are afraid they might lose their moral standing without a backup generation to replace them. Where is the line? Condemn this way of life, and you're branded an America-hating witch. Celebrate this culture of indoctrination, and it sets a dangerous precedent.” (2)

The ‘Exclusive Brethren’ Australia

“A wealthy and exclusive religious cult, which has been blamed for destroying families is operating in at least six private schools in Queensland with the help of government funding. The Exclusive Brethren, which has been exposed in recent months for its controversial forays into politics in both New Zealand and Australia, is also actively scheming to ensure John Howard is re-elected as Prime Minister in next year’s federal poll. Mr Howard revealed [recently] that he had met with members of the Exclusive Brethren, saying “it’s a free country… and like any other group they are entitled to put their views to the Government”. (3)

United Islam Youth (Indonesia) reported for hacking Banyan tree

“The Jakarta administration filed a complaint with the Jakarta Police on Monday afternoon against youth organization United Islam Youth (Persis) for allegedly cutting down a 100-year-old banyan tree Sunday near Harmoni Central Busway station in Central Jakarta. The group defended their action by saying they did it for a cause, that is, to diminish the misleading belief about it being a sacred tree. Such a perception could corrupt moral and religious faith, the group said.” (4)

It’s a sick world we live in

www.caliibre.com

Refs:
http://au.news.yahoo.com/061007/2/10ttm.html (1)
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?
at_code=364545&no=321317&rel_no=1 (2)
http://www.religionnewsblog.com/16190/exclusive-brethren-fanatics-get-public-funds (3)

http://www.thejakartapost.com/Archives/ArchivesDet2.asp?FileID=20061003.C01 (4)

Arabization and why it must be resisted

2006-09-27T18:10:00.000+07:00

Much as many nations of the east fear the invasion of western culture the same is true of many non-Arab nations fearing a process of Arabization. Arabization is the transformation of a geographical area and its inhabitants into the adoption of Arab cultural values. The most obvious outcome of this often quite lengthy process is the adoption of the Arabic language however some cultural effects are much more dramatic.

So who are the Arabs?

In the Arab tradition they are descendent from two main stocks: the first settled in the mountains of South-western Arabia (the Yemen), claim decent from Qahtan (Yoktan of the Bible) and became known as Yamanis. The second settled in North-Central Arabia, claimed descent from Ishmael and are called the Qaysis. Even now every Bedouin tribe still claims descent from one or the other group and the rivalry between the two has caused many civil wars throughout history and even conflicts in the wider Arab world. (1)

Arabs are a branch of the Semitic race which from the earliest historic times inhabited the Arabian peninsula and were originally restricted to the nomad tribes who ranged in the north of the peninsula east of Palestine and the Syro-Arabian desert. It is in this narrow sense "Arab" is used in the Assyrian and Minaean inscriptions. Due to the fact that the "Arabs" were the chief people near the Greek and Roman colonies in Syria and Mesopotamia, classical writers used the term both in its local and general sense. Arabs of the “narrow definition” of the race are also found in south Arabia among the Ariba Arabs, among the mountaineers of Hadramut (a district on the south coast of Arabia, bounded W. by Yemen, E. by Oman and N. by the Dahna desert) and Yemen itself and among the Bedouin tribes roaming over the interior of central and northern Arabia.

In a more general sense the Arabs of the coasts and those of Mesopotamia are of mixed race, showing Turkish, Negroid and Hamitic crossings. The people of Syria and Palestine are a mixture of Arab, Phoenician and Jewish descent.

The “northern Arabs” or inland Arabs are perhaps the most ancient and in many ways represent the purest surviving type of the true Semite. Certainly the inhabitants of Yemen are not and in historic Ethnology times never were, pure Semites. Somali and other elements, generally described under the collective racial name of Hamitic, are clearly traceable; but the inland Arabs still present the nearest approach to the primitive Semitic type. The origin of the Arab race can only be a matter of conjecture ad from the earliest historic times have been divided into North Arabians and the South Arabians.

The ancient and undoubted division of the Arab race - roughly represented to-day by the universally adopted classification into Arabs proper and Bedouin Arabs has caused much dispute among ethnologists. All authorities agree in declaring the race to be Semitic in the broadest ethnological signification of that term, but some thought they saw in this division of the race an indication of a dual origin. They asserted that the purer branch of the Arab family was represented by the sedentary Arabs who were of Hamitic, i.e. African ancestry, and that the nomad Arabs were Arabs only by adoption and were nearer akin to the true Semites. Latterly ethnologists are inclined to agree that there is little really to be said for the African ancestry theory and that the Arab race had its beginning in the deserts of south Arabia, that in short the true Arabs are aborigines.

As a result of the loss of the caravan trade through the increase of shipping over time the abandonment of great cities and the ruin of many original tribes contributed to the apparent nationalization of the Arab peoples. Though the traditional jealousy and hostility of the two branches, the Yemenites and Ishmaelites, remained, the Arab world had attained by the levelling process of common misfortune the superficial unity it presents to-day. The nation thus formed, never a nation in the strict sense of the word, was distinctively and thoroughly Semitic in character and language, and has remained unchanged to the present day.

The purest Arabic, that which is as nearly as possible identical in the choice of words and in its inflections with the language of the Koran, is spoken in Nejd a region, “central Saudi Arabia. Riyadh, the country's capital and major city, is located there. The Nejd is a vast plateau from 2,500 to 5,000 ft (762–1,524 m) high. There is a chain of oasis settlements in the eastern section and nomadic Bedouins roam the area. Nejd is also the stronghold of the Wahhabi movement. Next in purity comes the Arabic of Shammar. Throughout the Hijaz (Hejaz) district, to the west, in general the language is not equally correct; in el-Hasa, Bahrein and Oman it is decidedly influenced by the foreign element called Nabataean. In Yemen, as in other southern districts of the peninsula, Arabic merges insensibly into the Himyaritic or African dialect of Hadramut and Mahra. (2)

According to ‘Arab world Nitle org’ at the time of Muhammad, central Arabia (now Saudi Arabia) was a vast empty space on the geopolitical map, a region little known and of little concern to the three major civilizations that surrounded it. To the north and west was the Byzantine Roman empire; to the northeast the Sassanian Persian Empire; and to the southeast the Abyssinian-Yemenite civilization. Each of these empires had satellite Arab tribes more or less under their political and cultural influence. In the centre of this world, at the blank spot on the geopolitical map, were the Bedouin. The Arab heartland is claimed by some to be the province of Hijaz in what is now western Saudi Arabia. (3)

In modern times “Arabs” as a name originally applied only to the Semitic peoples of the Arabian Peninsula now refers to those persons whose primary language is Arabic. They constitute most of the population of Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, the West Bank, and Yemen; Arab communities are also found elsewhere in the world. The term does not usually include Arabic-speaking Jews (found chiefly in North Africa and formerly also in Yemen and Iraq), Kurds, Berbers, Copts, and Druze, but it does include Arabic-speaking Christians (chiefly found in Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan). To this day Arabs are socially divided into two groups: the settled Arab [fellahin=villagers, or hadar=townspeople] and the nomadic Bedouin. (4)

The coming of Islam

Around the year 610 CE, the birth year of Islam, Mecca in Hijaz was one of the central towns in a trade area that existed along busy north south caravan routes. People came to Hijaz from Africa, Mesopotamia, Phoenicia, and from Egypt. The little evidence we have suggests that the Arabs in this era were no longer a pure Bedouin race because intermarriage and the freedom of Arab women to choose their own bedmates that had over time created a diverse society. Arab identity (or possibly more correctly “Arabized people”) would spread greatly with the advances of Islam. Although Arabs originating from the Arab heartland at some time immigrated into all the new territories which today have a population defined as "Arabs," these territories were already peopled by a population far larger than the Arab immigrants. For a number of reasons, however, Arab lifestyles, Arab identity and Arabic language would come to replace the original lifestyles, identities and languages.

Arabs would also come to have some influence to the race makeup of other lands however, in most cases the Arab peoples living in lands originally non-Arab, represent about the same racial composition as before the Arabization. Hence the former Egyptians, Mesopotamians, Phoenicians, Canaanites, (most of the) Berbers etc. are still there and through this process they have simply changed their identities.

Ethnically, Arabs are mostly dark haired with brown eyes, and medium light skin. There are through this constant mixing process ‘Arabs’ that are black, and Arabs that are quite blond. These differences are regional and an obvious result of the process described above. Moreover, the number of ethnically pure Arabs in many ‘Arab lands’ might constitute only a single digit percentage. (5)

The force with which Islam spread from its origins in Mecca and Medina in the nearby region of Al Hijaz (the Hejaz) led to Yemen's rapid and thorough conversion to Islam. Yemenis were well-represented among the first soldiers of Islam who marched north, west, and east of Arabia to expand Muslim territory. Yemen was ruled by a series of Muslim caliphs, beginning with the Umayyad dynasty, which ruled from Damascus in the latter part of the 7th century; Umayyad rule was followed by the Abbasid caliphs in the early 8th century (seeCaliphate). The founding of a local Yemeni dynasty in the 9th century effectively ended both Abbasid rule from Baghdad and the authority of the Arab caliphate.

What can be considered ‘full Arabization’ of the Middle East took place only after the coming of Islam. The Arabs if fact were not the first Semitic peoples who migrated out of the peninsula they were preceded by the Aramaeans (upper Mesopotamia - Syria), Canaanites (Israel/Palestine) and the Akkadians (northern Mesopotamia/Iraq). After the rise of Islam in the Arabian Peninsula, Arab culture and language spread through trade with African states, conquest and intermarriage of the local population with the Arabs.

Countries and territories that are traditionally thought to have gone through an Arabization process include Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Iraq, and the Sudan. Also, though Yemen is also often traditionally held to be the homeland of Arabs, most of the population did not speak Arabic; historically they spoke South Semitic languages prior to the spread of Islam and perhaps it also can be seen as going through a process of Arabization.

The influence of the Arabic language and culture has also been profound in many other countries and Arabic is often source of vocabulary in varying degrees for languages as diverse as Berber, Kurdish, Farsi, Swahili, Urdu, spoken Hindi, Turkish, Bahasa Malayu and Bahasa Indonesia. (6)

Arabization and the confusion regarding ethnicity of many groups from the Middle East and the common misconception that all those from the region are ‘all Arabs’ can create difficulties. As an example following the events of September 11, 2001, Assyrians, including Chaldeans and Syriacs, have found themselves in the ironic position of having to defend the ‘integrity of their identity’ against an erroneous association with the Arab race, by both the misinformed (particularly Americans) and groups in the west driven by a persistent fundamentalist Arabist ideology transplanted from the Middle East. The practical ramifications of the Arabist desire to usurp Assyrian identity for example are by no means trivial. By counting Assyrians, including Chaldeans and Syriacs, as Arabs, Arabist groups such as the Arab American Institute is attempting to enhance their demographic and by extension, political clout in the U.S. (7)

Arabization as a modern political tool

A relatively modern example of a government driven Arabization process can be found in Algeria. In reaction to the previous French cultural and linguistic imperialism, the leaders of the War of Independence (1954-62) and successive governments committed themselves to reviving indigenous Arabic and Islamic cultural values and to establishing Arabic as the national language. The aim was to recover the pre-colonial past and to use it, together with Arabic, to restore (if not create) a national identity and personality for the new state and population. Translated into an official policy actually called “Arabization”, it was consistently supported by Arabists, who were ascendant in the Algerian government following independence. Their goal was a country where the language (Arabic), religion (Islam), and national identity (Algerian) were free, as far as practical, of French language and influence. This process has encountered opposition from two main quarters: the "modernizers" among bureaucrats and technocrats and the Berbers, or, more specifically, the Kabyles. For the urban elite, French constituted the medium of modernization and technology. French facilitated their access to Western commerce and to economic development theory and culture and their command of the language guaranteed their continued social and political prominence. The Kabyles minority also strongly identified with these arguments. Young Kabyle students were particularly vocal in expressing their opposition to Arabization. In the early 1980s, their movement and demands formed the basis of the so-called "Berber question" or the Kabyle "cultural movement." Militant Kabyles complained about "cultural imperialism" and "domination" by the Arabic-speaking majority. (8)

Arabization and ethnic cleansing

A more violent Arabization process can be seen in the history of the Ba’th party and Saddam Hussein’s rule of Iraq. Kurdish, Turkoman, Assyrian and Chaldean Christian families were forcibly expelled from Iraqi government-held areas of the northern oil fields and most ended up destitute in the Kurdish self-rule region. They were the victims of nearly 40 years of ethnic cleansing under Iraqi government's Arabization policies enforced since the 1960s and that continued until Saddam and the Ba’thists were forcibly removed.

Even along the ‘border’ Kurdish sources say that in the final ten years alone, nearly 200,000 people had been forced out of the predominantly Kurdish districts of Kirkuk, Khanaqin and Sinjar, which run along the line between Kurdish- and central government-held areas. The reason was to extend the ‘Arab areas’ of Iraq.

Huge oil fields stretching from south of Kirkuk up to Erbil were discovered in the early part of the twentieth century. They offered the Kurds enormous economic promise however instead mainly brought political catastrophe. Since Kirkuk oil accounted for 70 percent of Iraq's total oil output by the 1970s, successive post-monarchy regimes have not been amenable to Kurdish views that Kirkuk should be a part of their autonomous region. Various autonomy negotiations between the Kurds and Iraqi regimes, from the 1960s to 1991, fell on the sword of control of Kirkuk.

When the Ba'th Party first came to power in 1963, it immediately began to force Kurds, Turkomans and Christians from the villages surrounding the northern oil fields. Their villages were destroyed and rebuilt for Arab settlers. With the defeat of the Kurdish rebellion in 1975, the Ba'thist government seized the opportunity to bring the Kurds to heel once and for all. This required moving Kurds off their ancestral homelands and into areas where they could be controlled. The Ba'th regime also took this opportunity to settle the demographic balance in the disputed areas near the oilfields. Arabization that had begun in the 1960s was reinvigorated. More than one million Kurdish, Turkoman and Assyrian residents were forced out of the disputed districts of Khanaqin, Kirkuk, Mandali, Zakuh and Sinjar. They were replaced with Egyptian and Iraqi Arab settlers enticed northward with housing and property incentives. Laws were altered to make it difficult for Kurds to hold property or gain employment. Arabs were rewarded financially for marrying Kurdish women. Kurdish civil servants were moved out of Kurdistan to work in Arab districts. The Kurdish faculty at the new university in Sulaimaniyya were dismissed. Kurdish names were changed to Arab names. The city of Kirkuk, for example, was changed to al-Ta'mim, "nationalization." Arabization was no haphazard operation, in the 1970s, the Ba'th government set up the Revolutionary Command Council's Committee for Northern Affairs, headed by Saddam Hussein, to orchestrate the mass relocation of the Kurdish population.

In 1988 Saddam’s the Ba'th Party instituted the final solution to the "Kurdish problem" with the 1988 Anfal campaign of genocide, run from Kirkuk by Saddam Hussein's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid. During the Anfal campaign, 100,000 Kurds, the vast majority of them non-combatants, were killed outright. Another 182,000 disappeared and are presumed dead, and as many as 4,000 more villages were destroyed and another 500,000 people were forced to collective towns. Arabization policies continued to increase in intensity when the Iraqi government retook Kirkuk after the 1991 uprising and with renewed fervour, they brutally forced out thousands more of the Kurds.

Under Saddam all Iraqis had an identification card that identified them by ethnic origin. Non-Arabs were "allowed" to fill in a form saying they would like to "correct" their ethnicity to Arab. If they refused, again they and their families were forced into the Kurdish-controlled area, leaving behind all possessions. They were not allowed to sell any property they may have owned. If they "corrected" their ethnic identity to Arab, they are often told: well, if you are an Arab, you might as well live in the south. They are then shipped off to the predominantly Shi’a south, and are sometimes allowed to bring household goods. (9)

Iranians resist Arabization, however fail to hold off Political Islamization and become a hijacked theocratic ‘Arab’ state

The case of Iran is interesting probably more for its fight against Arabization than the influence that the Arab culture has had on its population. It also gives some insight as to why the process of Arabization is potentially such a developing phobia for the non-Arab world. An excellent article by Dr. Kaveh Farrokh on the topic can be found at http://www.iran-heritage.org/interestgroups/history-article2.htm

A couple of short excerpts: firstly regarding ‘Ibn-Khaldun, Arab historian, (1332-1406 AD) who reputedly is ranked among the best in Arab scholars in history. The Modern ‘pan-Arabist’ movement feels uncomfortable with his work and you can see why when you consider the following, (The Muqaddimah Translated by F. Rosenthal (III, pp. 311-15, 271-4 [Arabic]; R.N. Frye (p.91):’)

"…It is a remarkable fact that, with few exceptions, most Muslim scholars…in the intellectual sciences have been non-Arabs…thus the founders of grammar were Sibawaih and after him, al-Farisi and Az-Zajjaj. All of them were of Persian descent…they invented rules of (Arabic) grammar…great jurists were Persians… only the Persians engaged in the task of preserving knowledge and writing systematic scholarly works. Thus the truth of the statement of the prophet becomes apparent, 'If learning were suspended in the highest parts of heaven the Persians would attain it’…The intellectual sciences were also the preserve of the Persians, left alone by the Arabs, who did not cultivate them…as was the case with all crafts…This situation continued in the cities as long as the Persians and Persian countries, Iraq, Khorasan and Transoxiana (modern Central Asia), retained their sedentary culture."

Secondly: ‘It is not an exaggeration to state that Arab nationalists have re-written much of Arab history, especially as it pertains to Persian contributions to Islamic and Arabian civilization. The following observation by Sir Richard Nelson Frye encapsulates the crisis in Arab attitudes towards the Iranians (See R.N. Frye, The Golden Age of Persia, London: Butler & Tanner Ltd., 1989, p.236):’

"Arabs no longer understand the role of Iran and the Persian language in the formation of Islamic culture. Perhaps they wish to forget the past, but in so doing they remove the bases of their own spiritual, moral and cultural being…without the heritage of the past and a healthy respect for it…there is little chance for stability and proper growth" “It may [be] argued that one source of the political, economic and technological stagnation so evident in the Arab world at present may stem from what has been taught (and continues to be taught) to Arabs at primary, secondary and post-secondary education.”

Thirdly: ‘It should come as no surprise that many Arabs (including high ranking statesmen and highly educated professors) now believe that the following Iranian scholars of the Islamic era to be all Arabs: Zakaria Razi "Rhazes" (860- 923 or 932, born in Rayy, near Tehran), Abu Ali Sina "Avecenna" (980 -1037, born in Afshana, near Bukhara, ancient Samanid Capital), Abu Rayhan Biruni (973 - 1043, born in Khiva, Ancient Khwarazm now modern Afghanistan), Omar Khayyam (1044-1123, born in Nishabur, Khorasan), Mohammad Khwarazmi (d. 844, born in Khiva, Ancient Khwarazm, now in Modern Afghanistan). Not a single one of these scientists hailed from an Arab-speaking region, all were born in what is now Iran or the former realms of Persian speaking world.” (10)

This is an outstanding example of truth trying to overcome reality and a blatant attempt to rewrite history for pride/political/power/ purposes. Arabization on the surface seems to demand that what can’t be subjugated by force or reoriented by mass immigration and indoctrination, must be absorbed by stealth and lies. Remember here we are talking about Arabization rather than Islamization although obviously Islam in many respects is a reflection of Arab culture and thinking.

Muhammad was born in Mecca. He belonged to the clan of Hashim, a poor but respected branch of the prestigious and influential tribe of Quraysh. According to tradition, Muhammad traced his genealogy back as far as Adnan, whom the northern Arabs believed to be their common ancestor. Following Meccan customs, his mother sent him to the desert to be wet nursed by a Bedouin Mother. The desert air was thought fresher than Mecca’s and it was felt that in this climate, a city boy would have a sturdier start in life. At the age of six Muhammad lost his mother Amina, and at the age of eight his grandfather Abd al-Muttalib. Muhammad then came under care of his uncle Abu Talib, who had been recently appointed as the leader of the Hashim clan. (11)

Despite the physical impoverishment of Bedouin life, the Bedouin were viewed as the most authentic bearers of Arab culture. Even the townsmen of Mecca looked to the Bedouin as the personification of Arab values (the word 'arab’ according to some originally meant a pastoral nomad) and Muhammad himself was sent out to live with the family of his wet nurse in order to be educated in Bedouin cultural values.

The centre of modern Arab culture the Qur'an retains key Bedouin values such as remembrance, generosity, hospitality, and valour however the social context for such values is transformed. The remembrance is no longer of a beloved and a lost tribal love affair of earlier Bedouin poems, rather of the deity who, even when figured in later poetry as a beloved, maintains a more explicitly transcendent character. The traditional Bedouin journey through the desert evolves into a moral and spiritual journey, a journey of the human being toward the divine lord. The traditional generous poetic hero, “the Karim”, is still the model of human excellence, however the hero is no longer the tribal chief or even the prophet, rather it is the ‘all-giving generous deity’ Allah and also the modern “Karim” becomes the individual who imitates that generosity by working for the Islamic concepts of social justice. (2)

It is worth remembering that at the Time of Mohammed Arabs were mainly nomads living in the central and northern Arabian Peninsula. Some of them had settled around the oases. Desert life was exceedingly harsh. The nomads lived off the camel, drinking its milk and very occasionally eating its meat. The other staple food was dates. This society was poor and unsophisticated, barely touched by civilization and had no written code of laws. Survival depended on loyalty to one's family or clan (group of families) or tribe. Individual crimes were restrained by the fear of lasting vengeance. As Montgomery Watt describes it, on behalf of a kinsman almost anything was permitted, "there was no wrong in killing someone not a member of one's tribe or of an allied tribe, though it would be unwise to do so if the victim's tribe was strong". The whole family, clan or tribe, that is all members, were held responsible for the acts of any one of them. Fear of vengeance, of retribution, ('life for life, etc) helped to create such security as there was with survival depended on the solidarity and strength of the tribe.

No such restraints applied to communal acts of violence. Inter-tribal disputes might be settled by an arbiter considered to be an authority on tribal customs, there were raids and reprisals aimed at driving off the opponents' camels. Women and children captured in tribal warfare who were not ransomed became tribal slaves and could be bought and sold. A defeated tribe's males could be slaughtered even after surrendering, their women and children enslaved, their possessions distributed among the victors. With loot (material and human) apparently the key objective of intertribal skirmishes and warfare. Apart from those who were full members of the tribe by descent, there would be others attached to it such as slaves. There were also 'clients' of the tribe who had asked for the sheikh's temporary protection, for example while pasturing their flocks on his land. Mohammed is born into this kind of society of illiterate desert Arabs (12)

Bedouin – Arabs, today

The Bedouin usually form the poorest social group in the lands they live in, however they are proud of what they consider their superior way of life and see themselves as the noblest class in Arab society. All Arab countries in the Middle East have Bedouin populations. Once dominant, they are now marginalised and often scornfully regarded as primitive, which is paradoxically often joined by admiration of noble Bedouin virtues as the model of the pure Arabic-Islamic culture. It is however only in countries where they form the original population, such as Saudi-Arabia, Jordan and the Gulf States, that they have some power and status and can help determine the means and pace of their shift to the modern world.

Bedouins today are still organised in tribes of varying sizes. In the context of the modern state the power of the Sheikhs is diminishing, and the tribal structure is weakened. The dependence of the individual on the tribe's support and approval has diminished, and though it is still unthinkable for women to act against the will of their male relatives, individual men have more freedom and personal choice.

Older Bedouin tend to be illiterate, however most of the younger generation have had access to public education and can read and write. A growing proportion of them are graduating from high schools and universities. In place of the older illiterate however powerful Sheikhs a new elite of younger educated men is emerging who have acquired the knowledge necessary to protect Bedouin interests in a modern state. Land is an issue of great importance to the Bedouins because of their traditional need for immense areas to sustain their traditional pastoral way of life. However, the vast desert and semi-desert expanses are being continually infringed on by the population explosion and industrialisation of the last decades. Modern armies also need large tracts for bases and manoeuvres and large areas have been fenced off. Governments also take over traditional Bedouin lands for oil production, urbanisation and the military.

Forced expropriation of land by the state backed by its military might is a fact of life in the Middle East. These lands are then given to settled farmers and used to found new industrial centres. The Bedouins retain only a small part of the lands they consider their own if they submit to the plans of the authorities to settle them in villages and townships. In the 1950's Saudi-Arabia and Syria nationalised Bedouin range lands and Jordan severely limited goat grazing. Israel reduced the amount of land in the Negev available to its Bedouin in an effort to induce them to settle in villages and towns. Family ties are still very strong and are reinforced by intermarriage within the tribe, preferably to cousins (father's brother's daughters). Marriages are prearranged however the young people do know each other and have some say in the matter. Each unit has a strong sense of collective honour and loyalty that it defends against all other groups.

Bedouin society is patriarchal, all members of a tribe claiming descent by male line from a common ancestor. The Sheikh as leader of the tribe has considerable power but is limited by custom, precedent and the advice of the council of tribal elders. Age is respected as it has the experience crucial for survival in a difficult environment. The Sheikh is elected from a noble family, any member of that family being eligible for the position when he dies. The eldest male is accepted as ruler of each family unit. The Bedouin have kept their lifestyle through the centuries, controlled by a strict code of rules that it is shameful to break. It stresses the values of loyalty to the tribe, obedience, generosity, hospitality, honour, cunning and revenge.

The status of women is low, although nomadic Bedouin women are less segregated than town and village women and they are not generally veiled. In the past, great Sheikhs would have many wives and concubines, these marital alliances cementing political ties. It is claimed that King Abdul-Aziz ibn-Saud, founder of Saudi-Arabia, had at least twenty-two wives representing most major Arabian tribes (plus many concubines) who bore him forty-seven sons and many daughters. Their descendants now number over 30,000 Saudi-Arabians and are the elite of the kingdom binding it together by their blood ties.

With the rise of Islam most accepted the new religion, the Jewish tribes were exterminated and the Christian ones expelled. Islam became the basis of Bedouin social and religious life, although many pre-Islamic beliefs and customs were retained. Most tribes are still devoutly religious, in Arabia due to the impact of the Wahhabi revival of the last two centuries, and lately as a reaction to the Shi'a fundamentalism of Iran. Prayer times fit naturally into their daily routine, and the fast and religious feasts are strictly kept.

Bedouin are fatalists by nature as a result of their precarious existence in the desert. Folk-Islam is widespread; especially fear of the evil eye and evil spirits. Charms and amulets are worn as protection against them. The desert is believed to be inhabited by Jinns and mad people are said to be possessed by them. Bedouin are careful not to praise anything directly, for fear of the evil eye. Men, animals and motor vehicles carry charms to protect them from it.

Total number of Bedouins (nomadic, semi-nomadic and settled) in the Arab world today: 15 - 20 million. Breakdown: Saudi Arabia - 4m, Sudan - 5m, Egypt - 1.1 million, Syria - 1m, Maghreb - 1m, Gulf States - 0.5m, Kuwait - 0.5m, Yemen - 0.5m, Jordan - 0.3 m, Iraq - 0.2 m, Libya - 0.2m, Turkey - 0.15m, Israel - 0.1 m (1)

Saudi Culture (The centre of Islam)

Saudi Arabian culture revolves almost entirely around the religion of Islam. Islam's two holiest sites, Mecca and Medina, are located in the country. The public practice of any religion other than Islam, including Christianity and Judaism, the presence of churches and open possession of Christian religious materials are outlawed in Saudi Arabia. Islam's holy book the Qur'an is Saudi Arabia's constitution, and Shari'ah (Islamic law) is the foundation of its legal system.

Saudi Arabian dress is strongly symbolic, representing the people's ties to the land, the past, and Islam. Saudi women must wear a long cloak (abaya) and veil (niqab) when they leave the house to protect their modesty. The law does not apply to foreigners at such a high degree, but both men and women are told to dress modestly. Public theatres and cinemas are prohibited, as Wahhabi tradition deems those institutions to be incompatible with Islam. (13)

The Arab Psyche and as one Arab discussion site puts it “Why do we (Arabs) lag behind?”

As we study the Arab psyche, it becomes apparent that it has, in its long decline from its golden age, to today, fallen into backwardness and become weak and intellectually sterile. Since the early years of this century, many Arab thinkers have recognised that Arab civilisation is no more able to contribute or make a difference in human development. Amongst those that have been most concerned, were Jamul Uddin Al-Afghani and his student Shaikh Mohammed Abdul. Both men outlined programmes for reawakening the Muslim world that would see Arab/Muslim society once again regain the heights of their past glory. Al Afghani believed the "reawakening could be best achieved by establishing a Muslim University”, while Abdu believed that the "awakening" would be achieved through scientific and educational awareness.

Another scholar Abdul Rahman Al Kawakibi, contributed to this stream of thinking in his book Umm Al Qura. In it, he proposed that scholars from throughout the Muslim world would convene a conference in "Umm Al Quara" (the Holy City of Mecca) to consider Muslim affairs and the reasons for the backwardness and stagnation of Arab civilisation.

In addition, the Lebanese scholar Shakeeb Arslan, attempted to analyse and explain the underlying reasons behind Arab backwardness, while other nations were still developing. His conclusion was that the West had continued to make progress in science, was willing to explore it with open minds and was prepared to exploit its discoveries for the benefit of mankind. Another Muslim scholar, Abu Al Hassan Al Nadwi, dealt with this issue in his book " What did the world lose by the deterioration of Muslims?" He takes the view that the responsibility of the Western world for Muslim deterioration is no less the responsibility of Muslims themselves. The Algerian Muslim scholar, Malik bin Nabi, believes that strong links must be developed with modern cultures. He is a proponent of the idea that the cultural stagnation of Muslims made them an easy target for Western imperialism, and made them willing to succumb to it. His issue has also become a point of interest.

The Arab need to return to scientific and international arenas

The Arab psyche must break the chains of the old sterile thinking that has bound it for so long. It must acquire an awareness of the world around it and interact with it; this will break down the barrier of helplessness that has kept it chained for so long. Arabs can only do this if they start with a new spirit, and a rejuvenated psyche that has new energy and vision. It is crucial that they stop blaming others for their backwardness. They must look to themselves for the cause, and have the will to change. For many centuries, the Arab world was burdened by a series of invasions, such as the Crusades, the Moguls, the Mamelukes and the Turks and culminated in the atrocities of modern western imperialism. Naturally, the Arab psyche was seriously affected by this legacy of the past and the suffering of the present – these adverse effects that are still present in the Arab consciousness today and are partly responsible for Arab backwardness and pose a barrier to accelerated scientific and intellectual progress. Civilisation is only achieved a technology-orientated mind. It is therefore imperative to rid the Arab psyche of impediments that preclude us from achieving our goals. This will only be possible by installing high ideals and by advocating scientific modes of thought, leading to a brighter future, with hope and confidence. (14)

The Negative Traits of the Arab Personality

The negative traits of the Arab personality as shown by experience and proven by scholars can be summed up as follows: -

Tribalism and Nepotism

Cultural schizophrenia caused tribalism and nepotism to spread and persist in Arab societies. This means that our culture is just a whitewash that has no influence on our behaviour. Rather, our behaviour is governed by ancient precepts that go back to pre-Islamic times; namely, tribalism with all its biases that put the interest of tribe members before the common interest of society at large. In addition, personal interest appears to shape individual behaviour. These two patterns are common in Arab societies. In the first instance, the tribal pattern exploits all principles and value and employs them for the interest of the tribe only. This explains why the electoral process in some of the Arab countries is based on tribal considerations and not on intellectual merits or national interests. In the second instance, intellectuals use ideas and principles as springboard to get high positions, prestige or money. There is no doubt that these two patterns caused harm to the progress movement in our societies and caused it to deviate from its proper course.

The Foreigner’s Complex

This means that Arabs admire the sayings and deeds of foreign people. They trust their qualifications, products and expertise. This is evidenced in the high demand for foreign-made products although such products are produced locally. Furthermore, this complex finds expression in hiring foreign experts at very high salaries. It is quite possible that an Arab expert may suggest and idea or propose a project which may not receive a positive response. But, when the same idea is suggested by a foreign expert, it may be hailed by some as a wonderful idea. (15)

Conspiratorial Frame of Mind

This represents the tendency to interpret events, attribute failures and problems the beset the Arab world to a cause which is external to the Arab personality; namely, a foreign plot. According to this interpretation, this means that the failures encountered and are still being encountered by the Arabs do not stem from the poor management of the political, economic and social movements. Rather, they attribute them to the intrigues fabricated by the foreign enemy, i.e. the West. Every time a minor or major event occurs in the Arab world, it is interpreted as a foreign conspiracy against the Arabs and Islam. This interpretation has its roots in the ancient and modern ambition of the West in the Arab world. These ambitions extended from the Crusades to modern imperialism and its effort to weaken the Arab world and ensure that it remains under its influence and a market for its products.

Tendency to Believe in the Supernatural

There is a tendency among a significant segment of the Arab society, even on the more educated level, to have faith in magicians, astrologers and fortune-tellers. The Arab environment is a fertile ground for these swindlers who practice their tricks make large sums of money. The newspapers report almost daily stories about one or more of these swindlers who convinced their victims to employ the ‘Jennies’ to find lost treasures, to multiply his fortune or to cure him of serious illness. This means that the Arabs still believe in superstition, which was common in the pre-Islamic period.
This danger of this phenomenon stems from the fact that the thinking mode of the individual becomes unsound and far from being systematic in the sense that it fails to link between event and its real causes. Rather, it links events to the extraordinary and supernatural. This is far removed from the rational and scientific reasoning which is necessary to solve problems systematically. Doing so on the individual level, will ultimately contribute to the progress and development of the entire society. (16)

Human Rights

The fact has to be faced that the Arab world collectively has one of the worse human rights records in the modern world. Here is what Amnesty International for Human Rights has said about the region in its annual report for the year 2000: “During 1999, widespread and serious human rights violations - including large-scale executions, routine use of torture and unfair trials, often before special courts, took place throughout much of the Middle East and North Africa”. In common with the previous year, the climate of impunity remained, with few steps being taken to bring to justice those responsible for past human rights violations. Our record on human rights should not be based on corrupt and notoriously inhuman police States; rather, our ambition should be to have our region judged by the more tolerant and positive aspects of Arab society, so that we are seen by the rest of the world as a humane, wealthy, liberal culture, well able to tolerate cultural diversity and change. [Saudi Arabia as the centre of Islam and keeper/protector of the holy cities is probably the best (or worst) example of this undesirable state.] (17)

Arab proverbs, adapted from “Understanding Arabs by Margaret Nydell”, consist of:

Support your Muslim brother, whether he is the tyrant or the tyrannized.
(Rightly or wrongly stick together)

The hand of God is with the group.
(Allah is on the Arab side so all atrocities can be committed in his name)

Older than you by a day, wiser than you by a year.
(No ‘western’ style meritocracy can exist with this philosophy)

It’s all fate and chance.
(Fatalistic and unlike the western view of the world, personal actions and choices will have no effect on the future)

If a rich man ate a snake, they would say it was because of his wisdom; if a poor man ate
it, they would say it was because of his stupidity.
(Wealth is can excuse all indiscretions and is the primary evidence of intellect)

Patience is beautiful… and Haste is from the devil and patience is from Allah.
(No wonder change is so slow)

A concealed sin is two-thirds forgiven
(Probably the most morally corrupt attitude of all) (18)

Examples of troubling and ongoing attempts at Arabization

Thailand

Muslim [“Arab”] awareness is spreading across the narrow, elongated arm of land that reaches down from the body of Buddhist Thailand in the north to the Muslim nation of Malaysia in the south. You see it among the 1,700 students who cram the classrooms of Narathiwat's Islamic Foundation for Education, built 20 years ago with a donation from the late King Faysal of Saudi Arabia. And you sense it in the faces of the tiny children learning Arabic from Jitsom bint Salih in a one-room madrasa, or Qur'anic school, in the sand-swept coastal hamlet of Ban Budi.

The Telok Manok mosque is part of an Islamic tradition that remains real for almost all Thai Muslims. Late on a rainswept afternoon, we met young men there who were making a form of pilgrimage to the region's oldest mosque. Muhammad Said and Muhammad Hashim had both come from their homes in the Malaysian state of Perak. They were visiting their Thai friends, Muhammad Bidi Talodin and his cousin Ramli Talodin. We conversed in neither Thai nor Malay but in Arabic: Muhammad Bidi learned the language as a student in Benghazi, Libya and 30-year-old Ramli had spent four years in Kuwait and six in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where he graduated with a degree in education. Now he teaches at the Islamic Foundation School in Narathiwat, keeping both tradition and [Arab] culture alive. All good Muslims are supposed to be able to read the Qur'an in Arabic.

For preserving and strengthening the use of Arabic, the Muslims of Thailand can thank their brethren in the Arab world. Since the mid-1970's, the countries of the Arabian Peninsula - especially Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar - have offered scholarships to Thai Muslims to pursue both religious and secular studies in the Middle East. Though there are only about half a dozen scholarships a year to any one country, their impact is enormous. At the Narathiwat school, over 50 of the staff are graduates of universities in the Arab world.

Historically the stronger Islam became in the region, the more its adherents identified not with the distant king of Siam but with their coreligionists in the Malay states to the south and the result was a series of uprisings. (19)

Saudi and other Arab money in Thailand

In the heart of Thailand's troubled deep south, where a Muslim separatist uprising has so far this year [2004] left more than 200 dead, is the brand new, multimillion-dollar new campus of Yala Islamic College. With more than a dozen Arab teachers from across the Middle East and a seemingly endless flow of funds from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait, the college has become the most obvious manifestation of a non-violent Arab threat to the traditionally moderate and tolerant Islamic traditions of southern Thailand (and the wider South-east Asian region).
The violent aspect of that threat was first brought home in the south in 2002, when two dozen Middle Eastern suspects were arrested for forging travel documents, visas and passports for Al-Qaeda operatives.

When you enter the college's reception, you feel like you have suddenly been transported to the Gulf. The 1,500 students there dress in Arab-style clothes and are taught a strict interpretation of shariah law in the Arabic language. The receptionist introduces himself, in perfect classical Arabic, as a graduate of Al-Azhar University in Cairo. The president, Dr Ismail Lutfi, is himself a graduate of a hardline Wahhabi institution, Riyadh's Imam Muhammad bin Saud Islamic University. Dr Lutfi, who says he is against violence, has thousands of followers installed in key Islamic posts throughout the south.

The south's largely unregistered pondoks (Islamic schools) - which offer religious education, a regular curriculum and training in Arabic and the local Yawi dialect - are meanwhile now recognised by the Thai government as breeding grounds for radical separatists. A number of the Muslim separatists killed on April 28 - when more than 100 Muslims were gunned down on their motorcycles by soldiers acting on a tip-off about a planned series of raids on army posts across the south - taught at or were students in these local Islamic schools.

More than 160 Thai Muslim students are presently enrolled in Islamic institutions in Saudi Arabia and 1,500 are studying in Egypt. Mr Vairoj Phiphitpakdee, a Muslim member of parliament for Pattani, has said that some Thai Muslims mistakenly believe Islam is just about adopting Arab customs. 'They're taken to the Middle East and they're brainwashed,' he recently told reporters.

The Saudi Arabia-based International Islamic Relief Organisation (IIRO) remains the largest donor to Islamic causes in southern Thailand. According to The Nation newspaper, during the last 10 years hardly any educational or religious project has been untouched by the IIRO, which is part of the Wahhabi-inspired Muslim World League. One shudders to think in that context of what the consequences may be of Dr Lutfi and his Middle East professors teaching the Arab-obsessed Thai Muslim students of Yala Islamic College hardcore wahhabi doctrine.

One senior Thai government official in Pattani, told me (John R. Bradley the writer of the original article) he was aware of the first signs of 'ethnic cleansing' (his words) in Narathiwat, one of the south's Muslim-majority provinces. Some Thai Buddhist families have been told to leave under the threat of violence, he added. [We now of course realise it has become worse and Buddhists are be executed in the streets.] (20)

Malaysia

From the weekly standard – by Austin Bay

I get a scholar's take on JI's plans for Malaysia. (no direct attribution. Why? He's a Muslim and, to paraphrase Mr. Kesavapany, he comes from a country where JI can get it done.)

"Jemaah Islamiyah in Malaysia. They are clever, yes. They have an education program. But their secret is no secret. It's money. Arab money. Saudi Arab money." "Can you prove that?"
"Where else but oil does it come from?" he says. "I know what I am told. With that money they promote the Arabization of our Islam in Southeast Asia. Object and you face personal violence."

Arabization is a highly nuanced term, one used repeatedly among Malaysian and Indonesian Muslims I talk to. The general drift is that it represents a movement toward an aggressive anti-Western, anti-secular, and racially tinged Islam in Southeast Asia, the racial tinge being anti-Chinese. The short version of JI's "education program" is that terrorist cash muscles out public and moderate Muslim educators in Malaysian villages. Undermining the schools "preys on a [strategic] weakness in Malaysia," the scholar says. "Their object is to undermine moderate Muslims." I ask for his definition of a moderate Muslim. "A Muslim who accepts the nation-state system," he replies. (21)

From Asianet

The Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) was formed in 1969, with the former Malaysian Prime Minister Tunku Abdulrahman Al Haj, as its first secretary general. Indonesia also became a member of OIC, despite its secular character. In turn, when the oil producing Arab states were able to tap into their wealth in the 1970s, they began sponsoring various forms of missionary movement and Wahabbi groups in the [South East Asian] region. These movements have since left a strong legacy on the social fabric of countries like Malaysia and Indonesia where the secular governments have had to struggle with the cultural encroachments of Arabization. (22)

Indonesia

Jakarta Post Aug 30 2006 - Indonesian Islam has been unique in its compatibility with democracy. It has been celebrated for its moderation in contrast to the conservative, extreme version that is practiced in the Middle East. Despite being in the majority, Muslims in Indonesia have lived happily side by side with Indonesians of all other religious beliefs.
However, that might not be the case in the future. It is already not the case in some parts of Indonesia. Now, as in many other parts of the Muslim world, Islam is under threat from the tidal wave of "Arabization" and conservatism. If we do not stop it now, this growing conservatism will result in our religion becoming a tyranny of the majority Muslims against the minority non-Muslims or even a tyranny against mainstream Muslims. (23)

Jakarta Post May 19 2006 - In fact, we [Indonesians] are moving backward in some areas. Pluralism and secularism are under attack. For some, nationalism as our founding fathers understood it is no longer relevant, because what they have in mind is what some pundits here call Talibanism or Arabization. Secularism is out. A new goal, turning Southeast Asia into a gathering of Muslim nations, is in. It is a kind of deja vu as we look back to the early 1960s, when the nation was wrestling against Westernization. (24)

Jakarta Post January 6 2006 - The rise of the conservatives can be attributed to multiple factors. One important element is that rising conservatism reflects national trends in religious and political discourse in Indonesia. This nation-wide trend is largely attributable to the dominant position given to Middle Eastern interpretations of Islam. What can be seen to be happening in Aceh, as well as other places in Indonesia, is not actually "Islamization" as it is often called, but actually "Arabization". If we give them the space, Aceh's unique experience of Islam is being subsumed by conservative elements of the Arab world. This conservative view is now even being challenged by moderate Muslims in the Middle East. (25)

Time to fight Arab conservatism and force by any means possible their retreat and it is more particularly time to do all we can to pressure the Saudi’s to keep their dark-age philosophy to themselves. If we don’t succeed we will witness a form of global imperialism that could make the past crass, misguided, culture destroying Christian aggressive disasters look positively tame.

www.caliibre.com

Refs:
http://www.angelfire.com/az/rescon/mgcbedu.html (1)
http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Arabs (2)
http://arabworld.nitle.org/texts.php?
module_id=2&reading_id=314&sequence=2 (3)
http://www.answers.com/topic/arab (4)
http://i-cias.com/e.o/arabs.htm (5)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabization (6)
http://www.aina.org/releases/arabization.htm (7)
http://www.country-studies.com/algeria/arabization.html (8)
http://www.merip.org/mer/mer222/222_zanger.html (9)
http://www.iran-heritage.org/interestgroups/history-article2.htm (10)
http://experts.about.com/e/m/mu/Muhammad.htm (11)
http://www.solbaram.org/articles/islam01.html (12)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabia (13)
http://www.habtoor.com/thinkingclearly/html/issue2501.htm (14)
http://www.habtoor.com/thinkingclearly/html/issue29a.htm (15)
http://www.habtoor.com/thinkingclearly/html/issue29a01.htm (16)
http://www.habtoor.com/thinkingclearly/html/issue42.htm (17)
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/.../1997/arab_culture/d2cultu.pdf (18)
http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/198803/from.bunga.mas.to.minarets.htm (19)
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=3985 (20)
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles
/000/000/002/278ehjov.asp?pg=2 (21)
http://www.asahi.com/english/asianet/column/eng_060722.html (22)
http://www.thejakartapost.com/Archives/ArchivesDet2.asp?FileID=20060830.E02 (23)
http://www.thejakartapost.com/Archives/ArchivesDet2.asp?FileID=20060519.E01 (24)

http://www.thejakartapost.com/Archives/ArchivesDet2.asp?FileID=20060126.F04 (25)

Islamophobia Questions – if the answers are YES the ‘phobia’ will go away!

2006-09-18T19:50:00.000+07:00

Will Muslims actively and constantly rebuke, loudly and publicly, those that undertake violent jihad and denounce the concept as being defunct and belonging to another time (much as the Christians have done with their revolting concepts of the crusades)?

Will Muslims actively return to the now practically abandoned practice of broad spectrum “ijtihad” and as a world religion start a process of enlightenment in a similar way the Christians did with their period of reformation?

Will Moslems actively seek to broaden their junior schools’ curriculum and ensure that only students, that have reached the age of reason, attend institutions that are dedicated exclusively to studying the Qur’an?

Will Muslim scholars and clerics actively endorse a program of democratization and work conscientiously and consistently in seeking the removal of dictatorial governments?

Will Muslims walk away from the concept of a theocratic state and acknowledge that civil law must always outweigh sharia law?

Will Muslims do something positive toward the radical elements within their own ranks by purging Mosques of radical clerics an hold them legally accountable for those that act on their instructions?

Will Muslims publicly rebuke governments and organisations that fund violent Islamic movements in foreign lands, such as the one that has existed in Thailand for some years?

Will Islamic religious leaders publicly denounce brutal regimes that are involved in ethnic cleansing such as Somalia and Sudan and volunteer armed forces to United Nations missions involved in attempts to install democratic governments in failed states?

Will Muslims, through a process ijtihad suppress and deny the sura and hadith that are highly offensive to non-Muslims by insisting that their followers acknowledge and accept that they refer to specific historical times and events that no longer exist and therefore render them void?

Will Muslims confirm that the expressed desire of some of the faithful for a worldwide caliphate is to be purged from their teachings (and their websites) and will Muslim leaders publicly renounce all those that support this worldview?

Will Muslims allow those that wish to leave the faith to do so without retribution?

www.caliibre.com

The top ranking god botherers are at it again!

2006-09-18T12:38:00.000+07:00

“Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.” Manuel II Palaiologos - c1391 (and now Pope Benedict XVI - 2006)

Pope Benedict XVI in his speech of September 12, 2006 quoted from a statement made during a dialogue around 1391CE between Manuel II Palaiologos and an unnamed Persian scholar. The Pope's speech was an attempt to open a discussion on the issue of “transcendence”. (2) It is also worth remembering that Manuel II's original writings were reportedly a reflection on the rise of Islam at a time when the Ottomans had conquered most of the Byzantine provinces, a situation that many may parallel to today’s apparent state of worldwide aggression. (Yes it is all about power)

Transcendence in this context is referring specifically to “the concept of divine transcendence [which] states that God is elevated above and extrinsic (outside or not belonging to) the universe that he created. In the Judeo - Christian tradition however, God is viewed as combining the apparent opposites of transcendence and immanence (permanently pervading in the universe) in that he both transcends the universe and is active in it. Traditional Christian philosophy treats God as transcendent only in the sense that he created the world; that he has perfect knowledge of all earthly things, which indeed derive from him and that he is infinite and eternal.” (3)

Islam by focusing only on God’s transcendence is [for its adherents] Islam’s ‘great strength’. Philosophically some would take the stance that it also becomes Islam’s greatest weakness because as a result of this view as a religion it can say little (or nothing) about human liberty and about how human choice affects the will of God. If ‘God’s transcendence’ is from the Islamic view irrefutable and final, how can God allow for human freedom? How can God permit human choice? It’s as though medieval Muslims imagined liberty to be a zero-sum game. If humans have it, God doesn’t. If God has it, humans don’t. It’s a philosophical problem they couldn’t resolve.

At that time in history Jewish, Christian, and Muslim writings thus divided, over the role of liberty and freedom in relations between God and man. So great is God that in the Islamic view he overpowers human liberty. This suggests a kind of determinism. What God knows and does is eternal and necessary and can’t be changed and no ‘individual will’, no knowledge of singulars or contingency, is possible to God. He doesn’t concern himself with things like us and you can’t talk about human beings as images of God. (4) A gross example if this is a ‘Palestinian’ father’s reaction to the murder of his daughter. Gaza - Hamas's ‘morality’ police shot and killed Azzami because she was seen picnicking on a beach with her fiancé and she, her fiancé and her younger sister wouldn’t stop their car on the way home to be questioned about it. The father’s statement; “it is the will of Allah”.

It would be reasonable to expect that with today’s troubled relations with the worlds religions (and liberal secular society), based on these opposing views of God and it’s/his/her relation to the world, that the Pope would go back to this period to set the basis for a much needed dialogue.

More quotes from the pope’s speech to put it all in context “on the subject of Christianity and Islam, and the ‘truth’ of both”. It is wise here to understand here that truth is merely a singular view or perspective on reality and the reality of ‘God’ is probably unfathomable, or is that just my perspective?

The speech ranges widely over the structures of faith contained in the Bible and in the Koran… “In the seventh conversation the emperor touches on the theme of the holy war. The emperor must have known that Sura (Koranic chapter) 2, 256 reads: ‘There is no compulsion in religion.’ According to the experts, this is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat. But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Koran, concerning holy war (jihad)…”

Sura 9 as an example of later Islamic doctrine has many important verses to offer concerning jihad. The sura's main subject is the revocation of the immunity granted by God and Muhammad to those tribes that had not converted to Islam prior to this revelation. After the lifting of the pre-existing immunity, the Muslims from this point must fight the unbelievers:

(9:5) - This verse, is one of the most important verses on the subject of jihad. It is usually called the "Verse of the Sword" and is said to abrogate all other verses in the Qur'an on the subject of war and peace. While its immediate subject is the pagan Arabs— a narrow application sustained by early commentators—later Muslim jurists would use the verse to proclaim a universal jihad against all non-Muslims. Sura 9 also deals extensively with social relations between believers and nonbelievers - again of decisive importance for the later development of Islam. According to 9:23–24, a Muslim should distance himself from his kin and friends if they persist in unbelief (see also 3:28, 4:139, 5:51, 57). This sura also establishes the paradigm of Muslim dominance over Jews and Christians that would dictate the social system of Islam for centuries to come. (5)

Back to the speech… “He, [Manuel II] addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence, saying: ‘Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.’

‘The emperor, having expressed himself so forcefully, goes on to explain the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. ‘God,’ he says, ‘is not pleased by blood — and not acting reasonably… is contrary to God’s nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats… To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons, or any other means of threatening a person with death… The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God’s nature. Professor Theodore Khoury (the original translator/editor) observes: For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this is self-evident.’

“However for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality. At this point, as far as understanding of God and thus the practice of religion is concerned, we are faced with an unavoidable dilemma. Is the conviction that acting unreasonably contradicts God’s nature merely a Greek idea, or is it always and intrinsically true?… John began the prologue of his Gospel with the words: ‘In the beginning was the Word.’ This is the very word used by the emperor: God acts, with logos. Logos means reason and word — reason that is creative and capable of self-communication, precisely as reason. A profound encounter of faith and reason is taking place here, between genuine enlightenment and religion… This inner rapprochement between biblical faith and Greek philosophical inquiry was an event of decisive importance not only from the standpoint of the history of religions, but also from that of world history…” (6)

A ‘modern’ secular or humanistic worldview considers and supports an approach to the situation/problem using a philosophy based on the need for the psychological growth of people who are basically well adjusted. In particular, the area now known as ‘Humanistic Psychology’ has most thoroughly incorporated this attitude of the possibility for human actualisation into its practice. A classic presentation of these ideas is embodied in the following "hierarchy of needs" that was developed by the humanistic psychologist, Abraham Maslow.

Physiological (the basic or lowest level of… food, water, sex, sleep, shelter etc)
Safety
Belonging
Self-Esteem
Self-Actualization (Maslow’s top level of existence)
Self-Transcendence (a new addition by later thinkers)

This belief or approach states that each need builds upon its more basic neighbours. So, needs for safety can be adequately met only after one has met one's physiological needs. Likewise, the wish to belong in a relation, a family, an organisation, a culture, or a society, necessarily requires that one has realised a level of safety. By adequately satisfying the demands of a level, we are more fully freed to pursue issues relating to higher levels of self-expression and communication. Self-esteem, the liking and acceptance of oneself by oneself, is a pivotal level in the enfoldment of human awareness. By believing in the basic goodness of ourselves, we can allow ourselves to grow and blossom. If we don't fundamentally accept our own spirit, then we shall have little cause to support activities that can help us. Once, the landmark of self-acceptance has been secured, a person can work to achieve interesting and meaningful goals. Such purposeful and consistent effort will, in time, be successful and result in self-actualisation, the shaping of one's life to accord with one's highest values and goals.

Humanistic Psychology substantially ends at the upper reaches of self-actualisation, a level that is assumed the summit of personal growth by most cultures. It is Transpersonal Psychology that continues this sequence by exploring what might lie beyond these socially constructed bounds. The subsequent level of self-transcendence encompasses the common mystical experiences of all the world's spiritual paths. Thus, these relatively new disciplines see the human saga as one of natural enfoldment - one which reaches from solely personal achievements of well-being and success through to transpersonal achievements of universal wisdom and compassion, spiritual insight, and enlightenment. (7)

With much of the Arab world still apparently locked in ‘basic needs’, ‘security’ and ‘belonging’ levels of Maslow’s hierarchy it is not hard to understand why the struggle for self esteem has become such a touchy area and why there is little widespread activity in the upper two levels of development. I guess the repressive regimes that govern much of the region (an the greater Muslim world), together with their parent - child relationship (rather than adult to adult) tribal based cultural norms, a long struggle is inevitable. With a fair percentage of the population either badly educated through the imposition of rote learning, plus a systematic insistence on not questioning, just follow the prophets 1400 year old teachings and all will be OK attitude, it is hard to see a way out of this mess.

A symptom of the problem from the ‘religion of peace’ and what is becoming the ‘religion of constant outrage’… yet again

Apparently cleric, Sheikh Abubukar Hassan Malin (Somalia) urged Muslims at September 15th’s Friday prayers urged the faithful to find the pontiff and punish him for insulting the Prophet Mohammed and Allah and has called for Muslims to "hunt down" and kill Pope Benedict XVI for his controversial comments about Islam; "Whoever offends our Prophet Mohammed should be killed on the spot by the nearest Muslim," – Malin 15/9/06 (8)

From Pakistan's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam… "Anyone who describes Islam as a religion as intolerant encourages violence." – huh what…!?

Muslim activists burnt an effigy of Pope Benedict XVI during a protest in Srinagar, India.

Iraq - A statement posted at mosques in Anbar province, a centre of the insurgency, warned that a previously unknown group would begin killing Iraqi Christians in three days unless the pope apologized. In Basra, a bomb exploded at the Assyrian Catholic Church on Friday evening. (9)

Palestine – Fire bombings left black scorch marks on the walls and windows of Nablus' Anglican and Greek Orthodox churches. At least five firebombs hit the Anglican Church and its door was later set ablaze. (10)

Another peaceful stance "We swear to God to send you people who adore death as much as you adore life," said the message posted in the name of the Mujahedeen Army on a Web site frequently used by militant groups. They go on… "our minds will not rest until we shake your thrones and break your crosses in your home." (11)

Is the Pope naïve and stupid or shrewd and calculating?

Who knows, however if the top Catholic god botherer is naïve and stupid should he be the pope? If he is shrewd and calculating he certainly seems to have successfully contributed to the speeding up of the timetable to more open conflict and the much vaunted “Clash of Civilizations”.

Imagine – John Lennon

“Imagine there's no Heaven, It's easy if you try, No hell below us, Above us only sky, Imagine all the people, Living for today

Imagine there's no countries, It isn't hard to do, Nothing to kill or die for, And no religion too, Imagine all the people, Living life in peace

You may say that I'm a dreamer, But I'm not the only one, I hope someday you'll join us, And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can, No need for greed or hunger, A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people, Sharing all the world

You may say that I'm a dreamer, But I'm not the only one, I hope someday you'll join us, And the world will live as one

John Lennon, definitely not in ‘Heaven’ or ‘Hell’ however obviously resident in the minds of the peaceful few left on earth.”

Perhaps its time for rational thinkers to form an armed group and take on these irresponsible fools that continue to mess up the world and threaten our children’s future. Unfortunately the concept of a ‘rational suicide bomber’ is irrational and therefore it would be a philosophically self defeating exercise so we have to find another way.

Its time to insist that the UN starts to be more active in promoting its resolutions on the 'rights of the child' and for as many as possible of us to be continually selling, telling and yelling… “Hey preacher, leave those kids alone”

www.caliibre.com

Refs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_II_Palaeologus (1)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Benedict_XVI_Islam_controversy (2)
http://mb-soft.com/believe/txc/transcen.htm (3)
http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0211/opinion/novak.html (4)
http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/10213/10213.ch01.html (5)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2360088,00.html (6)
http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~greg.c/psych.html (7)
http://www.jihadwatch.org/ (8)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/15 (9)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060916/ap_on_re_mi_ea/palestinians_churches_5 (10)
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/763199.html (11)

Sudan and Darfur - time to act

2006-09-12T18:37:00.000+07:00

The shame of Nations!

Why aren’t we all making more noise and pushing our governments and the UN to act decisively? Where are the demonstrations on behalf of the innocent children? Where has the Middle East type/level of coverage in the media been, are they asleep? Why aren’t the press more aggressively asking hard questions on the lack of humanity being shown by those in our governments that have the power to act?

The Economist reports Sept 9th

“Resoundingly silent about the fighting in Darfur, the Arab League presumably considers mass murder committed by fellow Arabs to be outside its moral remit. China is a glutton for Sudan’s oil and along with Malaysia and India, is eagerly developing the countries oil industry. Russia has a flourishing arms trade with Sudan. Both China and Russia say “in principle” they support the sending of UN peacekeepers to Darfur, yet both abstained from voting for last week’s UN resolution for fear of offending [the Trog as***le] Mr al-Bashir”. (1)

No wonder the infamous and much disliked “West” has to intervene in the world so often. When will the Arab League become something more that an embarrassing joke? When will the Arabs do something about their own (anti-world) problems and act as adults rather than immature narrow minded spoilt little rich kids. When will China’s communist party wake up to the fact that if you want to benefit from participation in the world community it comes with some heavy responsibility? Russian leadership, what can you say, with their attitude one could be forgiven in thinking that they just may still be a corrupt and immature scourge on the world? Malaysia and India one would and should expect a more responsible attitude to the world’s citizens, particularly from India a country seeking special exemptions and deals on Nuclear energy.

Quick History of Sudan

During the ancient period, the area that today is northern Sudan was known as Nubia. The ancestors of the Kemites (ancient Egyptians) are thought to have originally lived in Nubia well before the time of the First dynasty of Egypt (3100-2890 BC). The later Kushite (or Cushite) culture is also said to greatly influenced Ancient Egypt. The area of the Nile valley that lies within present day Sudan was home to three Kushite kingdoms: the first with its capital at Kerma (2400 – 1500 BCE), another that centred on Napata (1000 – 300 BCE) and, finally, that of Meroë (Meroitic) (300 BCE – 300 CE). (2&3)

The Meroitic Empire disappeared by the fourth century AD. By the sixth century a group of three Christian states had arisen in Nubia. The northernmost of these was Nobatia, south of the First Cataract of the Nile. Makuria was situated at Old Dongola, and the kingdom of Alodia was around Soba on the Blue Nile. Nobatia eventually merged into Makuria leaving two kingdoms. (2)

Islam came to Egypt in the 640s and pressed southward; around 651 the governor of Egypt raided as far south as Dongola. The Egyptians met with stiff resistance and found little wealth worth capturing. They thus ceased their offensive and a treaty known as the “baqt” was signed between the Arabs and Makuria. This treaty held for some seven hundred years. The area between the Nile and the Red Sea was a source of gold and emeralds and Arab miners gradually moved in. Despite the baqt northern Sudan became steadily Islamicized and Arabized; Makuria collapsed in the fourteenth century with Alodia disappearing somewhat later. Far less is known about the history of southern Sudan. It seems as though it was home to a variety of semi-nomadic tribes. In the 16th century one of these tribes, known as the Funj, moved north and united Nubia forming the Kingdom of Sennar. The Funj sultans quickly converted to Islam and that religion steadily became more entrenched. At the same time, the Darfur Sultanate arose in the west. Between them, the Taqali established a state in the Nuba Hills. (1)

Darfur

Darfur covers an area of some 493,180 km² (196,555 miles²), about three-quarters the size of Texas, or slightly smaller than France. It is largely an arid plateau with the Marrah Mountains (Jebel Marra), a range of volcanic peaks rising up to 3,000 m (10,100 ft), in the centre of the region. (3) Darfur is roughly in the central west of Sudan and borders Libya to the northwest, Chad in the west and the Central African Republic to the southwest.

Darfur has an estimated population of 7.4 million people and its economy is primarily based on subsistence agriculture. The main ethnic groups are the Fur (after whom the region is named), speaking a Nilo-Saharan language and the Arab Baggara. Others include the non-Arab Zaghawa, Masalit, and Midob. Many of these ethnic groups also have significant populations in neighboring Chad, particularly the Zaghawa and Baggara. Relations between Arab and non-Arab inhabitants have been tense during much of Darfur's history. It was a centre of slave trade when the Fur kingdom exported Africans from other parts of Sudan as slaves to the Arab world. Local Arab and non-Arab inhabitants have differing economic needs: the non-Arab peoples are primarily sedentary farmers, while the local Arabs are primarily nomadic herdsmen; this brought them into conflict over access to land and water. (4)

Conflict timeline

February 2003 - Two rebel groups rise up, saying government neglects the region and arms Arab militia against civilians. April 2, 2004 -Jan Egeland, UN aid chief, says "scorched-earth tactics" trigger "one of the world's worst humanitarian crises". April 8 - Government, SLA and Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) rebels agree 45-day ceasefire. May 7 2004 - UN human rights report says Sudanese troops and [Arab] militia [Janjaweed] may be guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. May 28 2004 - Government, rebels agree to African, EU ceasefire monitors. June 19 2004 – Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, orders "complete mobilisation" to disarm all armed groups in Darfur. October 15 2005 - The UN's World Health Organisation (WHO) says that a total of 70,000 are estimated to have died in the region. October 30 2004 – Lightly equipped Rwandan troops arrive in the Darfur region to join Nigerian soldiers monitoring a shaky cease-fire. November 9 2004 - Sudan signs two landmark peace deals with rebels for a ban on military flights over Darfur and covering security and humanitarian access to Darfur. March 16, 2005 - The UN withdraws all international staff in areas of western Sudan after Arab militias said they would target foreigners and UN convoys. March 31 2004 - The US abstains as the UN vote to refer war crimes suspects in Darfur to the International Criminal Court. The ICC launches its formal investigations in June. March 10, 2006 - The African Union extends its mission in Darfur until September 30 to buy time to break an impasse over the transfer of peacekeeping duties in Darfur to UN forces. (5) September 2006 president Omar al-Bashir appears to be preparing for full-scale war. As he tells the African Union to take its 7000 peacekeepers home, it appears approximately 10,000 Sudanese troops are massing for a major military campaign.

The current situation

U.N. officials (World Food Program) have spoken of a humanitarian catastrophe in Darfur if the violence does not stop. More than 350,000 Darfuris have been cut off from food aid for three months because of intensified fighting since another peace deal was signed in May. Khartoum has rejected a U.N. Security Council resolution passed last month to deploy more than 20,000 U.N. peacekeeping troops and police in Sudan's remote west. In three and a half years of fighting tens of thousands have been killed with estimates up to 300,000 so far and 2.5 million forced from their homes. (6) Accounts of beatings, rapes and other abuses of women and children are chilling.

It’s time to act - NOW

www.caliibre.com

Refs
“The Economist” Sept 9th 2006 Leaders page 11 (1)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Sudan (2)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kushite (3)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darfur (4)
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/101432A9-5D9F-
4095-8C30-757A719292F7.htm (5)
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N11228199.htm (6)

Freedom or Oppression, the rest of us v's Islam

2006-09-09T15:17:00.000+07:00

The catch cry of many Islamic spokespersons (usually men) and I guess Islamic nations, is that the current global conflict (WWIII?) is an ‘argument' between the “Imperialistic West” and the ‘downtrodden nations of Islam’. In reality this claim is a misnomer. Firstly Islam is nothing more than a continuation of a 1600 year old (or longer) Bedouin Arab imperialistic quest that over time has become supported by more recently ‘Arabised Arabs’ who are made up of some of the many peoples that have been conquered during the Islamic period.

The reason Islamists don’t use the correct terminology is because “The West” has for many, a conveniently negative emotive connotation. What they should be saying is that the disagreement is between the ‘forces of oppression’ (Islam) and the forces of freedom and enlightenment. Yes I know freedom is a fairly illusory concept however the following statistics shed some light on the ‘big picture’ and provide a ‘macro view’ of why us infidels (modern, free willed, enlightened, civilised people) dislike Islam so much.

Freedom Statistics

The top 20 Countries the numbers in order left to right, Democratic Ranking, Press Freedom Ranking, Corruption Ranking, Political Rights 1=good 7=bad, Civil Liberties 1=good 7=bad

Finland 1 1 1 1 1 Denmark 2 3 3 1 1 N. Zealand 3 8 1 1 1 Sweden 4 1 5 1 1 Switzerland 5 5 6 1 1 Norway 6 3 7 1 1 Netherlands 7 5 10 1 1 Australia 8 17 8 1 1 U.K. 9 17 10 1 1 Canada 10 13 12 1 1 Austria 11 25 9 1 1 Germany 11 12 13 1 1 Belgium 13 5 16 1 1 Ireland 14 10 16 1 1 USA 14 13 14 1 1 France 16 22 15 1 1 Portugal 17 9 21 1 1 Chile 18 32 18 1 1 Spain 19 29 20 1 1 Estonia 20 13 22 1 1

Now lets look at the Arab League plus Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Indonesia

Indonesia 77 84 123 2 3 Mauritania 81 81 ?? 6 4 Jordon 87 92 30 5 4 Oman 89 118 23 6 5 U.A.E. 90 118 25 6 6 Kuwait 91 84 37 4 5 Malaysia 94 113 31 4 5 Lebanon 99 89 71 5 4 Tunisia 100 131 35 6 5 Morocco 100 94 67 5 4 Egypt 104 107 59 6 5 Algeria 107 97 85 6 5 Pakistan 112 90 129 6 5 Afghanistan 113 107 103 5 5 Saudi A. 117 131 59 7 6 Iraq 121 116 123 6 5 Syria 124 137 59 7 7 Yemen 124 130 91 5 5 Bangladesh 132 107 42 4 4 Iran 132 131 76 6 6 Somalia 143 137 129 6 7 Sudan 146 142 149 7 7 Libya 148 146 106 7 7

These statistics at least give an overview of why Islamic states and their inherent culture are considered an abomination in the eyes of many of the world’s thinking citizens. It’s all about what adult educated people value: that is to have some say in their own wellbeing and some chance to reach, at least in part, what Maslow termed a state of “self actualisation”.

Both the communists and the fascists found that tightly controlled populations cannot perform as well as the ‘messy free thinking masses’ when it comes to getting things done whether it be a war or just running the mechanisms needed to support national/global populations. Hopefully the Islamic revolutionaries will eventually come to the same conclusions (or suffer the same fate), without too much cost to the rest of the world.

From a micro or individual perspective, I offer another reason why the thinkers of the world dislike the whole concept of Islam (not just the radicals), much in the same way they disapprove of any oppressive religion, sect, or fanatic cult.

Here are some typical Islamic instructions on how to live, which Imams, websites and TV programs go to great pains to explain

An online question on the website “www.islamtoday.net”…”Cutting our fingernails in order”, from Farid - Saudi Arabia, to Mufti Dr. Abdul-Wahhab ibn Nasir Al-Tariri (a former professor of Shari `ah at Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud University, Saudi Arabia).

“What is the ruling on clipping fingernails? How short must the fingernails be? Is the ruling the same for men and women? I heard that we should cut our fingernails in a certain order and that we should bury our fingernails. Is this true?”

Responding to the question the Mufti gives the following answer:

“In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.

Thanks for your question, which reflect[s] your desire to know about the teachings of Islam.

Being a comprehensive religion, Islam deals with all aspects of life, major and minor. A Muslim is required by Islam to adhere to the Islamic way of life in all his affairs.

Clipping fingernails is one of the five qualities dictated by the fitrah or the natural inclination of man. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) is reported to have said, “Five are the acts quite akin to fitrah: Circumcision, shaving the pubes, clipping the nails, plucking the hair under the armpits, and clipping (or shaving) the mustache” (reported in all the six authentic collections of Hadith).

We are clearly commanded by the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) in the Sunnahto clip our fingernails short. This command is directed to both men and women equally. In cutting nails, it is required to cut the excessive pieces under which dirt could gather. Therefore, the fingernails should not hang over any part of the finger’s free skin. When clipping the nails, it is part of the Sunnah to start with our right hand, since the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) preferred to start with his right hand in all things, including his manner of grooming. `A'ishah said about her husband, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), “Allah’s Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) preferred to start with his right side in all matters, in his purification, in combing his hair, and in putting on his shoes” (Al-Bukhari and Muslim). There is no preference, however, for any individual finger over another. The recommendation to bury fingernail and hair is attributed to some of the Companions of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). Some Muslim scholars state that it is permissible to dispose of the nails by throwing them in the garbage or down the drain.

The website also has suggestions on further reading links…”How to Dispose of Fallen Hair and Nails”, “Cutting Hair & Nails in State of Janabah”, “Brushing Hair or Clipping Nails at Night”, “What to Do with Body Parts That Are Removed” (1)

Now one must worry about any organisation that needs to be this dominant over those it rules. It appears the Dr. is a doctor of Islamic studies and seemingly not a physicist, medical doctor, health specialist, or even an engineer, however I could be wrong. What level of all facets of intelligence is fostered when such simple concepts need to be explained? How much contribution to the wellbeing of mankind is the questioner likely to make in his/her lifetime? How productive a citizen is someone who cannot figure out how to cut his/her own fingernails going to be?

Oh and there are prayers to be said for ablutions just to reinforce the “way to live” (dogma?) as well!

On going to the toilet… Put on shoes and cover your head with a cap etc. before going the lavatory and read the following prayer on your way: ”Allahumma inni a'udhu bika minal khubthi wal” - "God! I seek thy protection against the devils of the masculine as well as the feminine species”

On emerging from the lavatory, read this prayer: ”Alhamdu lillahi-l-ladhi adhaba 'annil adha” - “I thank the lord who relieved me of the burden and granted me ease.”(2)

Here is one more example of advice from another site with a section on “ask the Imam”.

Q. “Is it ok for a husband and wife to celebrate their wedding anniversary?”

A. “Celebrating birthdays and wedding anniversaries have no basis in Islam. They are the customs of the Kuffaar (the rest of us). Rasulullah [Sallallaahu Alayhi Wasallam] said, ‘That person who imitates a nation is from among them.’ The issue is not only about the husband and wife going out to eat on the anniversary; it is also about following the method and ways of the kuffaar, which is prohibited…and Allah Ta'ala Knows Best - Mufti Ebrahim Desai” (3)

So perhaps its time for the rest of us (the infidels) to become more active in trying first to understand the true nature of the, dare I say it, “real threat” modern civilized existence is facing and then get more involved in the process of formulating and implementing an appropriate response! Let us be honest, leaving it to the likes of the apologist Tony B. and apparently not so smart George B. is fraught with danger. This will need to be an infidel community effort and everyone has a part to play.

If you think this is all a bit over dramatic why not go to Google and type in “Ask the Mufti” and give yourself a reality check on just how dangerous and intrusive Islam as a total concept is and perhaps you may also find out why the current world problem is with Islam as a whole. You may also then come to realise that it is not just about a small group of radicals, supposedly hijacking what is claimed, (even by some ill informed ‘Western Leaders’), to be a “great religion”. Oh yes and be sure to try “Kuffaar” in Google search as well and see what the umma (Muslim community worldwide) really thinks of you.

www.caliibre.com

Refs:
http://www.worldaudit.org/democracy.htm
http://www.worldaudit.org/polrights.htm
http://www.worldaudit.org/civillibs.htm
http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?cid=
1123585750831&pagename=IslamOnline-English-Ask_Scholar
%2FFatwaE%2FfatwaEAskTheScholar (1)
http://anwary-islam.com/life/purity.htm (2)

http://islam.tc/ask-imam/view.php?q=12378 (3)

Indonesia assessed by the numbers

2006-09-07T19:46:00.000+07:00

The number 2

It has been 2 years to the day since the unsolved murder of Indonesia's well-known human rights activist, Munir Said Thalib on Sept. 7, 2004, whom the Jakarta Post says: “was assassinated [poisoned by arsenic on a Garuda Airlines flight] because of his ceaseless struggle in defending the basic rights of his fellow countrymen…” The paper goes on: “Munir's assassination was driven by a deep-rooted revenge in the hearts of those who committed gross human rights violations but were afraid of being brought to justice.” The paper also states that “the trial over Munir's death has failed to identify and punish the real mastermind[s] behind the tragedy [which] is an indication of the fragility of the prospect of human rights protection in this country.”(1)

The number 24 (or 183,000)

East Timor occupied for 24 years - JAKARTA, Jan 22, 2006 (AFP) ‘Indonesia's armed forces chief on Sunday rejected the findings of a report that alleges his country's 24-year occupation of East Timor caused the deaths of up to 183,000 people. "I am not convinced that that many (victims) were the result of what the TNI (Indonesian armed forces) and Polri (the national police) did at that time," General Endriartono Sutarto told local radio. He also denied that the military or the police intentionally caused famine in East Timor, as alleged in the more than 2,000-page report compiled by the independent Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation.’ (2)

The number 68 (or 136)

The phrase ‘Indonesia the world’s most populous Muslim country/nation’ is used in 68 of the Jakarta Post’s articles in the last year alone. I am not sure when this term became popular in the press (and even now on the BBC), however on average that would make it 136 times since Munir’s death. This is interesting as Indonesia claims it is based on the concept of “Pancasila Democracy” that professes, “a belief in the one and only God, a just and civilized humanity, the unity of Indonesia”, particularly the phrase – “unity in diversity”, a “democracy guided by the inner wisdom in the unanimity arising out of deliberations amongst representatives”, a democracy which calls for “decision-making through deliberations to reach a consensus”… and the one that must have Munir rolling in his grave, “social justice for the whole of the people of Indonesia”. It is all supposed to lead to a situation where “the democratic rights must always be exercised with a deep sense of responsibility to God according to one’s own conviction and religious belief, with respect for humanitarian values of man’s dignity and integrity and with a view to preserving and strengthening national unity and the pursuit of social justice.” (3)

The number 77

Democratic ranking out of 149 countries (7)

The number 80

Approximately 80% of orang-utan habitat has disappeared over the last 20 years. Indonesia has the world’s longest list of species threatened with extinction, which includes the orang-utan. Industrial logging, timber plantations and mining activities in these threatened habitats mean that in the last ten years, orang-utan numbers have halved. Habitat destruction has been hard on Indonesia’s other primates – only 300 - 400 Javan gibbons are thought to be left as well as other mammals such as the remaining species of tigers with 400-500 remaining individuals are confined to poorly protected national parks in Sumatra. Both the Sumatran and Javan rhinoceros are critically endangered species. (4)

The number 84

Press freedom ranking out of 149 countries (7)

The number 115

A 115-page Human Rights Watch (Jan 2006) report, titled “Condemned Communities: Forced Evictions in Jakarta, describes the government’s excessive use of force to clear out urban slums. It draws on numerous evictees’ accounts of government security forces beating or mistreating them before destroying their homes and possessions. Many residents say they were given so little warning before their homes were razed that they did not have enough time to collect their belongings. Others describe how security forces opened fire on communities and set buildings alight while people were still inside.” (5)

The number 123

The corruption ranking out of 149 countries (7)

The number 135

With its reform drive lagging behind expectations, Indonesia remains one of the most difficult places in the world to do business, and it may be getting worse, the latest report from the World Bank shows. The continuing obstacles relegated Indonesia to 135th of 175 countries surveyed by the World Bank and its financial arm, the International Financial Corporation (IFC), in their Doing Business 2007 report. Last year, it ranked 131st among 155 nations. (6)

Never forget Manir an Indonesian hero

www.caliibre.com

Refs:
1. http://www.thejakartapost.com/detaileditorial.asp?fileid=20060907.E03&irec=2
2. http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/RMOI-6LB3X5?OpenDocument
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pancasila_Indonesia
4. http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/MultimediaFiles/Live/FullReport/5733.pdf#search=
'Indonesian

5. http://hrw.org/reports/2006/indonesia0906/13.htm#_Toc144456388
6. http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailheadlines.asp?fileid=20060907.@01&irec=0
7. http://www.globalinsight.com/

Equity and Justice for all, in Wacky Indonesia

2006-09-06T19:24:00.000+07:00

Get those evil foreigners

“The Indonesian appeals court sentenced Australians Scott Rush, 20, Tan Duc Than Nguyen, 23, Si Yi Chen, 21 and Matthew Norman, 19, to death, Indonesian officials said Wednesday. They join two other Australians from the same trafficking ring awaiting a firing squad on death row. A district court originally sentenced the four to life in prison for trying to take more than 8 kilograms of heroin from Indonesia's resort island of Bali to their homeland last year.” Jakarta Post 6th Sept 2006

Get those evil women

‘Last week a national gathering of activists from women's organizations ended with a demand to end the abuse of women in the name of religion. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who did not show up at the opening of the gathering, has also failed to note that none of the country's laws and regulations should violate the universal human rights conventions, which Indonesia has ratified.’ “Some women may be forgiven for thinking they were better off under Soeharto, whose regime was never known to have self-appointed moral police going around cutting up women's jeans, as some men did in Aceh because the women violated "Islamic clothing" and "dressed like men". ”Lone voices have questioned why it is women who are being targeted through curfews and rules on behaviour; what about those who continue to be free to plunder public money?” Jakarta Post 6th Sept 2006

Particularly get those evil foreign women

“Schappelle Corby received a two-month reduction in her 20-year term for smuggling 4.2 kilograms of marijuana into Bali's international airport.” Jakarta Post August 18, 2006

Don’t hurt the local god loving men, too much

“Abdul Aziz, the first person to be sentenced for involvement in last October's bombings in Bali, received an eight-year jail term Tuesday for aiding terrorist mastermind Noordin M. Top. At least 20 people were killed and 151 injured in the attacks, popularly known as "Bali bombings 2" to distinguish them from the October 2002 blasts. The victims were dining out at three restaurants and cafes in Central Kuta and Jimbaran Bay when the suicide bombers struck. "God is great," Aziz replied when asked for comment on the verdict.” Jakarta Post 6th Sept 2006

Go very very easy on the wealthy locals

Also in today’s Jakarta Post it was reported that it looks like the wealthy youngest son of the former president Soeharto may walk free next month from a murder conviction (a Judge was the victim), following his latest sentence remission granted on Independence Day. So it will be about four years served out of a sentence of fifteen. Apparently he’s been “a good boy in Jail”. Jakarta Post 6th Sept 2006

Yes oh dear… according to the Jakarta Post on August 18, former minister and head of the State Logistics Agency Rahardi Ramelan, who was sentenced to two years in a Rp 4.6 billion (about US$505,939) graft case, received a reduction of two months and 10 days.

Oh and what about this… Adiguna Sutowo, sentenced to seven years imprisonment in June 2005 for killing a nightclub employee, was granted a three-month reduction. For the record Adiguna Sutowo, is a high profile member of the Jakarta business elite and son of former general Ibnu Sutowo. Oh yes his daddy Ibnu Sutowo was the head of the state oil and gas giant Pertamina at the time of a US$10 billion corruption scandal in 1975. (Post August 18 2006)

Conclusion

On sentencing it appears both Heroin and even 4.2 kilos of happy grass are worth more than a judges life. A nightclub waiter (a uni student I’m told) is worth less than a judge and the dope, however the shining light is that they are both worth more than US$505,939.00. However 20 dead Bali partygoers (and/or those that were serving them) are worth less than a judge, the dope, the happy grass or if you take the original sentence… huh… never mind you get the picture… oh… and a Allah U Akbar to you to Mr Aziz, you grubby little pr**k.

www.caliibre.com

Refs:
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailheadlines.asp?fileid=20060906.A05&irec=4
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detaillgen.asp?fileid=20060906160842&irec=0
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailheadlines.asp?fileid=20060906.A08&irec=7
http://www.thejakartapost.com/Archives/ArchivesDet2.asp?FileID=20060818.A08
http://66.94.231.168/search/cache?ei=UTF-8&fr=slv1-fp&p=Adiguna+Sutowo&u=www.asianfoodworker.net
/indonesia/050105hilton.htm&w=adiguna+sutowo&d
=CtI9nyQ8NSJ7&icp=1&.intl=au

The Princess and the Islamic Pea

2006-08-27T18:21:00.000+07:00

First a quick recap of the original 1835, Hans Christian Andersen story, “The Princess and the Pea”

A prince wants to marry a “real princess”. He travels all over the world but cannot find a proven “real one”. Comes home “sad”, however one stormy night, suddenly a knocking is heard, the king lets in a wet bedraggled girl who is claiming to be a real princess.

The queen is sceptical, says nought, goes to bedroom, shoves a pea on the bed base then slings on twenty mattresses and then twenty eider downs. The princess bunks down for the night and in the morning she is asked how she had slept. “Oh, very badly!” says she. “I have scarcely closed my eyes all night. Heaven only knows what was in the bed, but I was lying on something hard, so that I am black and blue all over my body. It’s horrible!” Now they knew that she was a real princess because she had felt the pea right through the twenty mattresses and the twenty eider downs. The Queens conclusion was that nobody but a real princess could be as sensitive as that.

So the prince took her for his wife. (Foolish man? She sounds a bit delicate and high maintenance to me)

How the story was told to me

I must have had a vindictive moralising teacher because as I remember the story… a spoilt princess was too stupid and lazy to lift her single mattress up when she felt a lump in her bed (the very same pea), so she keeps getting the servants to add mattresses and eider downs to cover the problem, however after twenty of each she can still feel the pea.

The moral of the story as I was told it was, ‘don’t try to cover your problems up with a bunch of soft comforters because the pea will still be felt and that best thing to do was to get off your backside and get rid of the pea’. Solve the problem don’t cover it up.

So how are we solving the pea problem today?

A mattress

‘Britain needs a "mature" immigration debate that recognises the challenges as well as the benefits in different parts of the country, the communities secretary, Ruth Kelly, will argue this week [Aug 2006]. At Thursday's launch of the new Commission for Integration and Cohesion, which will report to her, Ms Kelly will recognise that the August 10 terror alert heightened tensions in some areas. She wants the commission to consider tough questions, such as a request by Muslim groups for Islamic festivals to become bank holidays.’

A second mattress

From the US… ‘The Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, asked the Guilford County Republican Party (a political party), to remove a link to a Web site that it says misrepresents the Islamic faith. GCRP complied and issued an apology. Shouldn’t this be a judicial matter?

A third mattress

Back to UK’s Ms Kelly… ‘She will argue that more has to be done to articulate and understand the benefits of immigration, while addressing concerns that tensions and divisions currently outweigh those benefits. "Integration and cohesion are not states but processes. They need to be worked at, built on and nurtured."’

A fourth mattress

Ms. Kelly again… "Alongside the debate we need action nationally but just as importantly in local communities themselves to build united communities and root out all forms of extremism." Again as with Blair she seems here to believe the problem is with a small group rather than the total communities flawed philosophy.

A fifth mattress

George Alagiah, the Sri Lankan-born BBC newsreader, warns that Britain has followed a policy of "institutional tolerance for diversity" (as opposed to a conscious effort to integrate newcomers). Will this stance now change, probably not, will Britain still let them be and placate them wherever possible in a vain attempt not to disrupt the comfort levels of the other inhabitants of Britain.

A sixth

Ms Kelly argues "There is more that holds us together than pulls us apart" and that there is a "battle for hearts and minds" that needs concerted action at all levels from the government downwards.

A seventh

The author of the book “Islam for Dummies”, retired professor Malcolm Clark, when asked if he agreed "with President Bush that Islam is a peaceful religion that has been 'hijacked' by extremists?" He replied: "Generally, yes, but 'hijacked by fanatics' suggests the fault lies completely with that group. Western and American actions have created a climate ... for that hijacking to occur. Once again a western “intellectual explains why Islam is not the problem, we are. By the way this book was (is?) required reading for US soldiers going to Iraq.

An eight

Tony Blair keeps stating in speech after speech that its only radical elements in the Muslim community that are a problem.

A ninth

Under its terms of reference, the ‘Commission on Integration and Cohesion’ has been asked to look at "issues that raise tensions between different groups in different areas, and that lead to segregation and conflict" and suggest "how local community and political leadership can push further against perceived barriers to cohesion and integration".

A tenth

Europe and Britain’s propensity for "political correctness" at the cost of stating what is real.

Eleventh

Britain’s Ruth Kelly again… (as she declared on BBC World) will still maintain the status quo in Britain and will shy away from the to call by many to stop allowing the opening of faith based schools.
Twelfth

An example of a soft cover from Indonesia who constantly remind us that they are ‘the most populous Muslim nation in the world’. “The interfaith working group (along with the forums) will not focus on handling religious conflicts, but will deal mostly with social problems, such as poor health services and poverty."

Thirteenth

In an astonishing move on 12 April 2005, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) moved from promoting respect for human rights to promoting "respect for all religions and their value systems". On Tuesday 12 April 2005, the UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) passed Human Rights Resolution 2005/3 entitled, "Combating Defamation of Religions". Islam On Line (IOL) reported it this way: "The United Nations Commission on Human Rights adopted on Tuesday, April 12, a resolution calling for combating defamation campaigns against Islam and Muslims in the West."

Fourteenth

“Western churches are betraying Christian minorities in Muslim countries by trying to appease Islam, according to an international expert on Islam. Patrick Sookhdeo said Christian leaders rushed to call Islam a religion of peace, but did not speak out against the persecution of Christians, such as the death of 3 million in Sudan.”

Fifteenth

Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller… "murder is also forbidden by the Koran… Islam is also a religion of peace, mercy and forgiveness. That is why it is my opinion, but also the opinion of many Muslims, this [the fatwa that called for killing of those famous cartoonists] is un-Islamic,"

Sixteenth

India BJP-led Indian govt appeases Muslims with subsidies to Haj pilgrims. “Bajrang Dal’s” (the youth wing of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad - World Hindu Council), national convenor Surendra Jain said, "Over Rs 1.48 billion is spent by the government on the Haj subsidy, whereas not a single penny is spent on Hindu pilgrimages."

Seventeenth

“Annan believes that the United Nations can fix the misunderstandings between Western and Muslim societies through the Alliance of Civilizations (AOC) - a UN-sponsored forum intended to promote inter-cultural dialogue.” Kofi Annan proclaimed at a seminar held last June at UN headquarters, entitled Confronting Islamophobia: Education for Tolerance and Understanding, that “Islam’s tenets are frequently distorted and taken out of context, with particular acts or practices being taken to represent or to symbolize a rich and complex faith.” ‘When when one examines Annan’s words and actions he sidesteps important issues’.

Eighteen

The world media’s complicity and bias and its total disregard for finding out the facts before publishing anti West or anti Israeli propaganda and staged atrocities, in a blatant attempt to portray ‘poor Muslims’ as the ‘victims’ of unfettered and unconscionable infidel crusading aggression, sold to the western public as a radical PR ploy to throw guilt on those that don’t agree with Islam’s crass outlook and tactics.

See here http://www.zombietime.com/fraud/ambulance/

Worse http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2006/08/corruption-of-media.html

And finally the “green helmet guy (creep) can be found here…

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=22063_AP_Stands_Behind_Green_Helmet_Guy&only

Nineteen

President Bush, like most politicians (and some intellectuals) is approaching the broad spectrum of Muslim’s and their outrageous opinions with a policy of appeasement by declaring Islam a "great religion". He has even actively sought their "cooperation" and elected some as "coalition partners” “Such measures have rewarded Muslims for waging physical and spiritual war against the west. "Condemn America," they have learned, "and American leaders will praise your ideals and meet your demands." “Attack America via terrorist proxy, terrorist states and movements have been taught, "and America will neither blame you nor destroy you, but redouble its efforts to buy your love."

Twentieth

“In the Netherlands the national flag is now banned on most schools. If a student wears the national flag of his own country he will be suspended or expelled from school. The reason for this is that this provokes the immigrants (the muslims) and therefore it is considered discrimination if you wear your country's flag in your own country. Even people who have a bumper sticker whith the flag on their car are harassed and called a fascist by the Muslims. Most schools also ban certain clothing like the Lonsdale brand and combat boots with white or red laces. This is also considered a sign of racism. There are of course no restrictions for the immigrants on clothing.

Twenty first

France's leading candidate for the presidency, Segolene Royal, described US President George W. Bush's "axis of evil" as simplistic and the invasion of Iraq as a mistake. Royal added that "the main factor in destabilising the world is poverty - it's the gaps opening up, the humiliation of those who are rejected and who are pushed to violence or who allow the downtrodden to be manipulated." (Talk about a simplistic view and a cop-out on reality). She should read her countryman Geert Hofstede’s research on cultural motivation factors.

Twenty second

“Spencer, director of Jihad Watch and a HUMAN EVENTS columnist… “political correctness, which “stifles public discourse,” combined with a general unwillingness among public officials to recognize the fundamental teachings of the Islam as a source for acts of terror throughout the Western world for distorting the public’s perception of the War on Terror.”

Twenty third

A personal story… a Singaporean Catholic friend complained to me how she felt annoyed that if she double parked outside a Church on Sundays she would receive a parking ticket, however if the local Muslims triple, quadruple parked outside a Mosque during Friday prayers no tickets seemed to be issued. Don’t stir the pot ignore the problem, a look the other way eider down perhaps.

And so it goes and I will leave you to find the rest of the mattresses or eider downs or however you want to classify other softening cover-ups you may come accross.

So what is the pea that we, our ‘politically correct’ speaking politicians and particularly the apologists in our community, all try so desperately to ignore, or worse… deny? What is it we don’t want to deal with under the mattress…?

The troublesome Islamic Pea…

“Islamic theology divides the world into two spheres locked in perpetual combat, dar al-Islam (House of Islam - where Islamic law predominates), and dar al-harb (House of War - the rest of the world). It is incumbent on dar al-Islam to fight and conquer dar al-harb and permanently assimilate it. Muslims in Western nations are called to subvert the secular regimes in which they now live in accordance with Allah's command.”

A short summery of the full story (a total pea description), with a few more reality checks, is here:

http://www.whatthewestneedstoknow.com/about_the_project.asp

www.caliibre.com

Refs:
http://hca.gilead.org.il/princess.html

http://society.guardian.co.uk/asylumseekers/story/0,,1855553,00.html
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailheadlines.asp?fileid=20060825.@01&irec=0
http://fjordman.blogspot.com/2005/12/un-is-appeasing-muslims-again.html
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/11/02/1067708069396.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4732016.stm
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=6492
http://www.rediff.com/news/2001/mar/01vhp.htm
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=21814
http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=11771&news_iv_ctrl=1021
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/single.php?post=1170507
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060820/wl_afp/francepoliticsusroyal
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/007491.php

Religion and the Death Penalty

2006-08-25T13:41:00.000+07:00

A couple of ‘Religious’ titbits from yesterday’s Jakarta Post

Religious leaders disagree on Indonesia's embrace of the death penalty, with one saying it is allowed by God and another reaching the opposite conclusion. "Life and death are in the hands of God, the creator of life. No institution has the right to kill others for whatever reason," Catholic priest Mudji Sutrisno told The Jakarta Post on the sidelines of the first Indonesian Religious Leaders Congress here Wednesday.

I like his conclusion, however I think his ‘faithful reasoning’ is a bit ‘out there’. The next guy though, he is a truly wonderful example of the worst our so called ‘civilization’ produces.

“Former religious affairs minister Tolchah Hasan said Islam recognized the death penalty. "We have no problem with capital punishment," he said. "But it must go through due legal process first. We can't just kill anybody," he said.”

Don’t you just love the “We can’t just kill anybody” bit of comfort at the end.

Well if you have read some of my previous posts you will know my feelings on ‘the crimes’ of the religious amongst us, however I think on this evidence the Catholics (I guess because of the reformation) have at least reached a slightly higher level of humanity than the Muslims.

How about the American religious conservative whacko element?

“The resolution approved at the SBC's (Southern Baptist Conference) year 2000 assembly says, in part, that: "God authorized capital punishment for murder after the Noahic Flood, validating its legitimacy in human society...[messengers (delegates of the SBC)] support the fair and equitable use of capital punishment by civil magistrates as a legitimate form of punishment for those guilty of murder or treasonous acts that result in death."

“The American National Association of Evangelicals has passed resolutions supporting the death penalty”.

A Hindu View

“…the [Hindu] faith basically revolves around non-violence and no revenge, as well as not hurting any living organs… ” [killing for food] even that has been prohibited. So, from that perspective, Hindus can safely assume that the Hindu religion opposes death penalty in a very fundamental way.”

A Buddhist Perspective

“An abolitionist stance on capital punishment finds strong support in Buddhist thought and history. Compassion fosters a deep respect for the dignity of all forms of life. The lives of convicted criminal defendants do have value. Society should strive to rehabilitate all prisoners to enable them to awaken to their inherent potential for goodness and spiritual growth. Capital punishment is anathema to rehabilitation. One obviously cannot rehabilitate a dead inmate. Furthermore, retribution, which would arguably be the strongest reason for retaining the death penalty, is not in keeping with the compassionate spirit of Buddhism.”

www.caliibre.com

ref:
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailheadlines
http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-PHIL/damin2.htm
http://www.religioustolerance.org/execut7.htm#sbc
http://atheism.about.com/b/a/135351.htm

Violence Against Women and the Role of Religion

2006-08-06T17:20:00.000+07:00

Introduction

Much of this post uses quotes from the article “Violence Against Women and the Role of Religion by Rev. Dr. Marie Fortune and Rabbi Cindy G. Enger - March 2005”. The full version can be found at the Internet reference that is listed below. In their article they also provide a number of suggestions on how religious teachings can (or should) be used to overcome the prevailing states of male dominance over women. Additionally they succinctly point out the role that the use of limited and/or selected interpretations of religious teachings have when they are used by males in their quest to subjugate women.

Overview

‘Through texts, traditions, teachings and doctrine, religious communities and institutions convey cultural norms, a belief system and its inherent values to their members. In addition, community members often have direct support or counselling relationships with religious leaders who may provide guidance or instruction. Religious texts and teachings can be (and often are) misused to excuse or condone abusive behaviour against others and particularly against women. According to Fortune and G. Enger… ‘No woman should ever be forced to choose between safety and her religious community or tradition. She should be able to access the resources of both community-based advocacy and shelter and faith-based support and counsel’. A noble sentiment, which I agree with and hopefully a proposition to which all civilized people would subscribe.

Christianity as a tool of abuse

“Both the Hebrew Bible and Christian Scriptures contain story after story of violence against women: e.g. Dinah (Genesis 34), Tamar (2 Samuel 13), the Levite's concubine (Judges 19), Jephthah's daughter (Judges 11), Vashti (Esther 1) and Suzannah (Daniel 13) to mention but a few. Later Christian texts also condone male violence against women and the domination of women. For example, “the right of chastisement” was the enforcer of women's subordination in marriage. In the "Rules of Marriage" compiled by Friar Cherubino in the 15th century (Bussert, 1986) we find the careful instruction to a husband to first reprimand his wife; "And if this still doesn't work… take up a stick and beat her soundly… for it is better to punish the body and correct the soul than to damage the soul and spare the body" (p. 13).”

‘Unfortunately, this doctrine has been viewed as consistent with scriptural passages interpreted to confirm male dominance over women: "Wives be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, the body of which he is the Saviour. Just as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives ought to be, in everything, to their husbands" (Ephesians 5.22-24 NRSV). Either by its silence or its instruction, the church has too often communicated to battered women that they should stay in abusive relationships, try to be better wives, and "forgive and forget." To those males inflicting the battering, it has communicated that their efforts to control their wives or girlfriends are justified because women are to be subject to men in all things. They have been permitted to "discipline" their wives and their children all for the "good of the family." Christian history is filled with church leaders that have justified the abuse of women by men. Church fathers like Martin Luther for example unapologetically describe their own physical violence towards their wives (Smith, 1911).’

‘The Christian scriptural justifications for women remaining in abusive relationships (subordination in marriage, e.g. Ephesians 5:20; prohibition of divorce, e.g. Malachi 2:13-16) and the selective use of a text (‘prooftexting’), usually out of context, to support one's position) is a common ploy by those who seek to simply justify their actions. It is not difficult to prooftext a man's prerogative to dominate and control a woman within patriarchal western religious traditions.’

Judaism as a tool of abuse

‘Shalom bayit’ (peace in the home) is an important Jewish value; yet the this fundamental concept has been misused by some who place on women the sole responsibility for maintaining peace in the home and even has been used to pressure women to remain in or return to homes in which they have been the victims of abuse. In addition the "myth of the perfect Jewish family," in which abuse as well as other problems have been covered up and seen as sources of shame often leaves women vulnerable and oppressed when the home, rather than being a place of peace, is more a place in which violence is being perpetrated.’

“According to ‘halakhic law’ (Jewish law), a marriage can conventionally be terminated in two ways: the death of a spouse, or the issuing of a get (divorce). A husband can, in principle, refuse to give a get indefinitely, and the woman cannot remarry or have children. In addition, childless widows must obtain a ritual release from their deceased husband's brother (levirate marriage) in order to re-marry”. Additionally it is the case that… “Those wanting a non-Orthodox religious ceremony simply have no choice in Israel." (religioustolerance.org)

The perceived superiority of males in Jewish society is so culturally entrenched that a Jewish male’s prayer or “one of the morning blessings made by an Orthodox Jewish male is: ‘Blessed are you Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has not made me a woman.’”

Today orthodox Jewish women are still excluded from the praying community and seated behind a screen and generally speaking traditional Jewish views maintain that women are unclean during menstruation and that the religious life of Jewish women should be centred in the home.

Islam as a tool of abuse

“Within Islam, we also find texts and interpretations of texts that have been used by abusive men to justify their behaviour. According to Muslim scholar and activist Sharifa Alkhateeb (1999): The most abused verse is ayah 34 of Surah four: "Men are the protectors and maintainers of women because Allah gave more to the one than the other and because they support them from their means. Islamic teachings also state… “Concerning women whose rebellious disloyalty (nusbooz) you fear, admonish them, then refuse to share their beds, then hit them; but if they become obedient, do not seek means of annoyance against them. For Allah is Most High, Great". “Alkhateeb (1999) argues that these passages instruct Muslim men to financially and physically protect women (given their greater physical strength) and instructs Muslim women to guard their fidelity in obedience to Allah. Then Alkhateeb (1999) concludes: The wording of this verse emphasizes the woman's obedience to Allah's desires and not to those of another human being, but those who misinterpret this verse would assign men the duty of being eternal surveillance police over their wives. In short, this verse has been used as a tool of control and abuse, which in reality is completely opposed to the Islamic foundation of marriage and family. In Islam, the ‘full teachings’ emphasise/require kindness, politeness, consideration, gentleness, respect and general goodness to women.”

Indonesia – “One of the most notorious qanun (“law” in Arabic) is No. 11/2002 on the implementation of Islamic law in the areas of faith, worship and dissemination of Islamic teachings. It has been used to punish women who do not wear headscarves in public.” Jakarta Post 02/08/06

Indonesia - “Women's movements in Indonesia are facing a serious challenge from fundamentalists, who have tactically outmanoeuvred them. Campaigning for the pornography bill, which frames women as the source of the problem, fundamentalists have labelled the entire discourse on women's movements as immoral and even irreligious, as they emphasize their own morality and religious piety. The fundamentalists end up holding women's movements responsible for the situation they say creates the need for a pornography bill.” Jakarta Post 25/07/06

An adult (rather than parent/child) oriented philosophy…

No human being has ultimate authority over another, man or women, particularly on religious grounds. All relationships therefore should remain an ongoing choice of the individual. This view however will be hard to swallow for those that think they have a god given, or government institutionalised right to control another’s destiny and quality of life. The sad fact is that many of the current (and past) unjust practices towards women represent ignorance or lack of any real understanding of the overall teachings of a particular religion.

“Although Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all state as a core value the preservation of marriage and the family, an underlying purpose behind the application of texts and teachings on marriage and family often has been the preservation of male control of women and children within a patriarchal system. At times, this has come at the expense of women's safety. Thus we have seen centuries of ‘religion in service to patriarchy’ rather than serving as a challenge to the dominant social norms which have perpetuated violence against women.”

“Tragically, a critical look at the history of much of our collective religious teaching makes clear that religious institutions have explicitly or implicitly shaped the context of values which have tolerated violence against women. Indeed, examples of violence against and the silencing of women appear in many places in authoritative texts of our religious traditions.” Some argue that much of the injustice towards women is cultural rather than religious however as cultural researcher Geert Hofstede explains: “for individuals seeking understanding of the behavioural problems of individuals and what might be done to overcome those problems it is paramount to clearly understand (and accept) the deeply ingrained ideas, beliefs, and attitudes of each country and culture. For these facets of individuals/societies are not based just on culture alone, but also on religion. Religion is a belief system that cannot be challenged or changed with any form of logic, education, or training.” In other words religion is a non-rational set of beliefs and it is also an integral part of culture. Therefore as I see it, religion is always going to be at least part (a major part) of the root causes of the difficulties faced by women in patriarchal societies.

A selection of nasty statistics on Harmful Practices towards women (from Amnesty International’s website, see references below)

”Virtually every culture in the world contains forms of violence against women that are nearly invisible because they are seen as "normal" or "custom". These forms of violence include forced marriage, genital mutilation and culturally imposed standards of beauty that can also lead women to mutilate or starve themselves and to damage their health. Female genital mutilation (FGM) is prevalent in a number of countries in Africa and is characteristic for both Muslim and Christian communities. So-called "honour killings" are practised mostly in the Middle East and Asia.”

Around the world - More than 135 million girls and women have undergone FGM and an additional 2 million girls and women are at risk each year (6,000 every day).

Africa - In more than 28 countries, FGM is practised.

Middle East and North Africa - In the Middle East FGM is practised in Egypt (97% of married women), Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen. Iraq - Human rights groups estimate that 4,000 women have fallen victim to the law that exempts men who killed their female relatives from persecution.

Asia and the Pacific - FGM has been reported in Asian counties such as India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Sri Lanka as well as among immigrant communities in Australia. Afghanistan - Forced marriage, especially of girls, is still widespread. Human rights abuses committed against women during the Taliban regime continue under the new government at high levels. Women are still being attacked, abducted and imprisoned without due process and for not complying with Taliban-style edicts on dress and behaviour. These attacks occur with tacit complicity from armed groups. India – (Ah yes lets not forget the Hindu’s - From Tulasi Ramayana - Sri Ramacharitamanasa, Aranya Kanda 43-44 – ‘Lust, anger, greed, pride etc., constitute the most powerful army of Ignorance. But among them all the fiercest and the most troublesome is that incarnation of Maya called woman.” From The MahabharataAnusasana Parva, Section LIX Translated by Sri Kisari Mohan Ganguli Bhishma: “Women have one eternal duty in this world, viz., dependence upon and obedient service to their husbands, and as such, this one duty constitutes their only end. The husband is the wife’s Highest Deity”. From the Mahabharata Santi Parva, Section CXLIV translated by Sri Kisari Mohan Ganguli – “Since the marriage union takes place in the presence of fire; the husband is the wife’s highest deity. She is no wife with whom her lord is not content. In the case of women, if their lords be gratified with them all the deities also become so. That wife with whom her husband is not pleased becomes consumed into ashes,”) The Amnesty report goes on… There are close to 15,000 dowry deaths estimated per year. Mostly they are kitchen fires designed to look like accidents. Also in India; ‘In the Devadasi system young girls are pledged to temples (to a god or a goddess) for life at an early age by their parents and become temple prostitutes.’ Pakistan - Every year around 1,000 women are killed in the name of so-called "honour". Also 83% of rural men and 75% of rural women consider that the usual punishment for women proven guilty of “zina” or adultery should be death, while only 58% of rural men and 57% of rural women think that men should be punished with death for adultery.

Europe and Central Asia - So-called "honour killings" are reported in Turkey, as well as amongst immigrant communities in countries, such as Germany, France and the United Kingdom.

The state failing victims of violence against women (same source)

Violence against women (VAW) goes largely unreported. There are various reasons from country to country, which prevent women from reporting incidents of violence. Most common among these are: fear of retribution, lack of economic means, emotional dependence, and concern for children. Difficult or no access to redress is another common problem - few countries have special training for the police, judicial and medical staff to deal with rape cases. Lack or inadequacy of legislation; impunity for government officials who perpetrate VAW. In some cases, such as forced abortion and sterilization, governments may condone the practice, or turn a blind eye and fail to investigate properly such cases.

Around the world - Around 20-70% of abused women never told another person about the abuse they suffered until being interviewed for the study that this statistic has been taken from.
Africa - South Africa - The conviction rate for rape remains low at an average of 7%. A third of the estimated number or rapes were reported in 2003. It is estimated that only 3.5% of rapes are reported to the police.

Middle East and North Africa - Egypt - 47% of physically abused women never told anyone and 44% complained to their family. No one reported being assaulted to the police and only 3% confided in friends.

Asia and the Pacific - Bangladesh - Only 10% of perpetrators of acid attacks are ever brought to trial, as estimated by the Bangladesh National Women Lawyers Association and the Bangladeshi Acid Survivor’s Foundation. Pakistan – only 5% of rape and so-called "honour crimes" are reported.

Europe and Central Asia - Slovakia - In 2003 Amnesty International took up the cases of a number of Roma women who were sterilized against their will. It urged the government to reopen the investigation into allegations of forced sterilization and to ensure that it is carried out impartially, thoroughly and effectively.

Violence with impunity Discriminatory, Absent or flawed Laws (same source)

So-called "Honour" defences (partial or complete) are found in the Penal Codes of Peru, Bangladesh, Argentina, Ecuador, Egypt, Guatemala, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, the West Bank and Venezuela.
Africa - At least 23 African countries have legal provisions in place that discriminate against women. Less than 10% of the rape and sexual assault legislation in African countries is specific, more than 70% is unspecific and around 20% of the countries have no (or unknown) provisions. Under the Maliki school of thought (one of the four schools of Fiqh or religious law within Sunni Islam) dominating the interpretation of the Sharia penal codes in 12 northern states in Nigeria (and some other countries), which have introduced them since 1999, pregnancy is considered sufficient evidence to condemn a woman for behaviour termed as zina (extramarital or premarital sex). Zina carries a mandatory death sentence if the accused is married, but 100 lashes if the accused is not married. The oath of the man denying having had sexual intercourse with the woman is often considered sufficient proof of innocence unless four independent and reputable [male] eyewitnesses declare his involvement in the act of involuntary intercourse.” So under Shariah law if you report a rape and are married you may find yourself being stoned to death for the crime of Zina.

Middle East and North Africa - At least 75% of the countries in the region have laws in place that discriminate against women. Almost 60% of the countries in the region have customary regulations in place that provide women with an inferior status to men. In almost 70% of the countries, there are no provisions against sexual harassment. Only around 75% of the states in the region introduced legislation against rape and sexual assault, all of them unspecific. None of the Arab states considers marital rape as a crime by law. Iran - According to Article 635 of Book 5 of the Law on Islamic Punishments, Offences Against Public Decency and Morals, women who do not wear the prescribed Islamic dress in public are sentenced to imprisonment between 10 days and two months or fined. Israel - Under the Marriage and Divorce Law, marriages and divorces are to be performed in accordance with Jewish religious law, which stipulates that a Jewish woman is not allowed to initiate a divorce without the consent of the husband. Kuwait - Women do not have the right to vote for members of parliament according to Voting Law No.35 of 1962. Syria - The Penal Code (Article 548) exempts from punishment the killer of a wife or sister who has caught them in illegitimate sexual acts or in a "suspicious" state. Yemen The Personal Status Act No. 20 of 1992 states women are not allowed to leave the conjugal home without their husband’s permission.

Asia and the Pacific - Around 80% of the countries in the region have no (or unknown) legislation against sexual harassment. More than 40% of countries in the region have no (or unknown) rape and sexual assault legislation. Almost 50% of all states in the region have no (or unknown) legislation addressing domestic violence. 11 countries in the region had specific legislation against domestic violence planned, drafted or reviewed in 2003. India - Rape within marriage is not a criminal offence according to the Indian Penal Code. Malaysia - Marital rape is not punishable according to the Malaysian Penal Code. Pakistan - In giving evidence at court, Article 17 of the Law of Evidence of 1984 as well as Section 8 of the Offences of Zina Ordinance of 1979 values the evidence given by male witnesses more than the evidence given by women.

Europe and Central Asia - Many countries in the region have not outlawed marital rape as a crime. Almost 90% of the states have no provisions against FGM, while only three countries in the region (Norway, Sweden and the UK) have specific legislation against it.

Just as the literal/revolutionist Christians and the non compromising Moslems believe their holy books are the actual word of god, orthodox Jews believe that the Torah and its pertaining laws are divine and transmitted by God to Moses who then wrote it down and that they cannot be changed by a human being. With the Christian conservatives such as the ‘religious right’ in America seemingly in the ascendency, the growth of hard line conservative views in a number of Islamic countries and orthodox Jews seemingly gaining sway in Israel, what hope for women in the future?

Conclusion

No wonder women need to mobilize themselves against the patriarchal systems of the world. So why don’t they become more active within their own societies. Well intimidation is one reason I guess and the ill treatment of dissenters and feminists in closed societies is well documented; lets not forget the plight of poor Joan of Arc. There is perhaps another reason and it’s linked to the question… Do fish know they are wet? If our world view has been limited by a culture that condones the deprivation of women’s rights, its going to be hard for us to see things as they could (should) be and accept a counter view as a legitimate alternative to what is ground into us a god’s ordained truth. Only those air breathing ground dwellers among us that are able to drown in water can see that it is wet. Explaining the concept of wetness to a fish will be a difficult if not impossible task, however we must try.

What a grubby backward world it is!

www.caliibre.com

Refs:
http://www.vawnet.org/DomesticViolence/Research/VAWnetDocs/AR_VAWReligion.php
(Violence Against Women and the Role of Religion by Rev. Dr. Marie Fortune and Rabbi Cindy G. Enger March 2005)
http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGACT770362004
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maliki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zina_%28sex%29
http://www.skeptictank.org/hs/mormwom.htm
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailweekly.asp?fileid=20060802.@03
http://www.thejakartapost.com/Archives/ArchivesDet2.asp?FileID=20060725.E03
http://www.religioustolerance.org/rt_israel.htm
http://www.hinduism.co.za/women.htm#From%20Tulasi%20Ramayana
http://www.geert-hofstede.com/hofstede_arab_world.shtml

A Failure of Leadership

2006-07-31T17:21:00.000+07:00

Watching the appalling scenes of dead children being pulled from the rubble of buildings as a result of the Hezbollah (southern-Lebanese) - Israeli conflict most more enlightened (and civilized) individuals must wonder what the leaders of Lebanon parties have going on in their perhaps underdeveloped, anti modern-world brains. Watching all the posturing I am reminded of an old saying that goes something along the lines that ‘the people always (only) get the politicians (leaders) they deserve’. For that matter what are the people that allow these anti-social agents doing to curb the development and spread of their ‘Dark Age’ tribal agendas? Why aren’t they out in the streets as they were when they wanted to remove Syria from their soil?

Two leaders: one guilty of crimes against humanity and the other of criminal neglect!

Hezbollah is led by a less than savoury character named Hassan Nasrallah whose most recent contribution to the Middle East (and the world) has been to start the conflict and to ensure that it continues, in spite of the growing number innocents that he sacrifices. This attitude of let them die was forshadowed when according to news reports, ‘Nasrallah on May 23rd appeared on Al-Manar TV to explain that "our nation's willingness to sacrifice their blood, souls, children, fathers, and families" is an advantage over the Jews "who guard their lives." Well he has certainly allowed that to happen. It is worth noting R. H. Schultz Jr. & Andrea J. Drew in their book “Insurgents Terrorists and Militias” explain that in ‘clan warfare’ the combatants are fighting for honour, glory, revenge, vendetta or vengeance and that the sacrifice of innocents (acts such beheadings) are an acceptable part of conflict. This leader has aptly demonstrated this fact and as the Robert Caplan review of the book in the WSJ of July 28th says; “the danger of the 21st century is states whose leaders may simply like to fight rather than negotiate” This Hezbollah leader by his words and actions obviously proves this point.

How about Fuoad Siniora, the Lebanese prime minister, what a disappointment this guy is, just stands back and does nothing, then when he thinks the hot war soaked breeze of calamity is blowing his way praises Hezbollah for shedding their blood for Lebanon. This is a man so devoid of commitment to his people and the rest of the world that he ignored the January 28, 2005 United Nations Security Council Resolution 1583 that called on Lenanon to assert full control over its border with Israel. Now after the outrage over Qana the press report that Siniora emphasized that Lebanon won't take part in negotiations between Israel and Hizbullah "until the Israeli war machine stops spilling the blood of innocents." Among other things, the Lebanese government has supposedly ‘committed itself to the deployment of its army across all of Lebanon including the south and the applying of a law according to which only the Lebanese army can carry weapons across the whole of the country’. Why wasn’t this law enforced before now? His latest word according to the Wall Street Journal of July 31st is… “There is no place this sad morning for any discussion other than an immediate and unconditional cease fire, as well as an international investigation into the Israeli massacres in Lebanon now”.

What a crock of crap, now is not only the time to talk, it is very much the time for the Lebanese army to take control of the country’s security as they should have been directed to do by their ineffectual leader over a year ago.

Dear Mr Siniora for the sake of your citizens and the rest of the civilized world… and particularly for the children of your country please do the following:

Take control of your nation, enact (and/or enforce) a law that forbids anyone other than the national military from carrying weapons and use the same military to secure your borders to ensure Syria and Iran cannot covertly slip arms into your country. While you’re at it disband and outlaw Hezbollah in Lebanon, publicly acknowledge the right of Israel to exist and encourage your populace to come to grips with the fact that Israel is neighbour that is there to stay. If you then get thrown out of office we all unhappily watch the demise of your country that will likely result. If the foolishness of its Lebanon’s general population under the guidance of its ‘Dark Age’ power brokers and clansmen is the way things must be in the rest of your country as well as the south then one must question your future as a civilized nation.

www.caliibre.com

Refs:
http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=8&x_nameinnews=158&x_article=1158
(MEMRI: Al-Manar TV on May 23, 2006.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council_Resolution_1583
The Wall Street Journal (Asia) July 28-30 & July 31

'Crimes' of Lebanon

2006-07-27T11:32:00.000+07:00

Some time ago whilst I was living in Thailand the local English daily newspaper and other local media bemoaned the fact that passengers on a bus did nothing while a group of young men in the back of the bus, in the middle of the afternoon, committed the rape of a young schoolgirl. Obviously the rape was a crime however so was the action, or rather the inaction of the other passengers. Their stance… “its none of my business”. The ‘non-involved’ passengers were aware of what was going on and committed the crime of “doing nothing and remaining selfishly detached” and in my view should have been charged with ‘criminal neglect’ of a young person in need of help.

Much of the Lebanese public and the Lebanese Government are suffering as a result of this same criminal neglect. Hizbollah is a terrorist organisation and is listed as such by many countries. The Lebanese Government and the rest of the world admits that the ‘National Government’ does not hold authority in southern Lebanon, Hizbollah does. The government and therefore the people it governs are to a great measure responsible for the actions of Hizbollah, as they have chosen not to pressure the group to dissolve or at least give up its arms. The southern Shiite population, many of whom actively support the fighters on constant news reports, cannot now cry foul when the Israelis seek to defend themselves.

As for the rest of the world and particularly those that comment on news reports in a somewhat biased and very anti Israel manner, what are they thinking? Why the outrage? The simple fact is that they (we all) are driven by a self-centred fear that the war may escalate and in some way touch our comfortable lives. What really pisses me off is that these few thousand grubby people (Hizbollah) can command so much of the world’s attention and resources. There are for more outrageous things happening in the world we should focus on and we should just let Israel get on and do the necessary. As an example, what is happening to the hundreds of thousands of refuges suffering in Darfur at the minute? Why aren’t the world and its news organisations focussing on the Congo where according to allafrica.com and I quote a July 2006 report, “the conflict and violence that has consumed the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for nearly a decade has killed more people every six months than were killed by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Estimates place the total deaths at four million, although some experts say the figure is far higher. In a report released today in London, UNICEF said that as victims, children have defined this often forgotten, but world’s deadliest, humanitarian crisis in the heart of Africa. The report goes on…”As a direct or indirect result of conflict, 1,200 people die every day in DRC and more than half of those are children.”

Shame on us all for our selfish crime of neglect of those most in need and lets hope the Israelis are at least able to decimate one small group of nasty fanatics.

Oh and by the way, on Kofi Annan and his outrage and his terse approach to the realities of the danger of being an ineffective unarmed UN soldier in the middle of a battle zone, he seems to be overseeing an ineffective toothless force yet again. Remember and again I quote (Wikipedia)… “In his book Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda, ex-General Roméo Dallaire who was force commander of the UNAMIR claims that Annan has been overly passive in his response to the 1994 Tutsi genocide in Rwanda. Gen. Dallaire explicitly stated that the then Undersecretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations held back UN troops from intervening to settle the conflict and from providing more logistic and material support. Annan would have, as an instance, abstained from giving any kind of answer to his repeated faxes asking him to gain access to a weapons depository, something that could have helped to the defense of the Tutsis.” How many (non oil rich) Africans died?

I believe this man should be ejected from the UN.

www.caliibre.com

refs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kofi_Annan#Early_career
http://allafrica.com/stories/200607260965.html

An incomplete list of Islamic (supposedly a 'religion of peace') Terrorist Organisations and what they all really seek!

2006-07-22T13:29:00.000+07:00

Abu Nidal Organization (ANO) (Fatah - Revolutionary Council), Abu Sayyaf Group, Aden-Abyan Islamic Army (Yemen), Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Ansar al-Islam, Armed Islamic Group (GIA), Asbat al-Ansar, Gama’a al-Islamiyya (Islamic Group), HAMAS (Islamic Resistance Movement), Harakat ul-Mujahidin (HUM), Hizbollah (Party of God), Islamic Jihad Group, Islamic Movement of Central Asia, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), Jaish-e-Mohammed (JEM) (Army of Mohammed), Janjaweed (Sudan), Jemaah Islamiya organization (JI), Jihad Rite - Australia (linked with Al Qaeda. Founded in 2001), al-Jihad (Egyptian Islamic Jihad), Lashkar-e Tayyiba (LT) (Army of the Righteous), Lashkar i Jhangvi, Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (GICM), Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK), National Islamic Front (aj-Jabhah al-Islamiyah al-Qawmiyah) controls Sudan, Palestine Liberation Front (PLF), Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLF), PFLP-General Command (PFLP-GC), al-Qa’ida, Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC), Taliban (Afghanistan), Tanzim Qa'idat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn (QJBR) (al-Qaida in Iraq) (formerly Jama'at al-Tawhid wa'al-Jihad, JTJ, al-Zarqawi Network)

The current major focuss group… a bit from Wikipedia…

“Hizballah was ‘inspired by the success of the Iranian Revolution’ and was formed primarily to combat Israeli occupation following the 1982 Lebanon War. The United States and Israel claim that Hezballah receives financial and political assistance, as well as weapons and training, from Iran and Syria. Syria and Iran admit supporting Hezballah, but deny supplying it with weapons. Along with the Amal movement, Hezbollah is the main political party and military organization representing the Shia community, Lebanon's largest religious bloc.Founded with the aid of Iran and funded by it, Hezbollah follows the distinct Shia Islamic ideology developed by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, leader of the Islamic Revolution in Iran.”

However this group and all the others above are more likely to be about, as "islamic-world.net/papers/parentmanual" put it...

‘It is your sacred duty to ensure your child grows up to be a good and right human being (Muslim). The oneness (tawhid) of Allah is also expressed in the unity of Islamic life. Raising your children to be good and right human beings is part of the necessary Islamization of world society. Only in a fully Islamic world will the conditions exist where children will naturally develop into the good and right humans beings desired by Allah. …we must do battle with the influences of the present wrong world. We are greatly blessed by Allah to be Muslims at this particular time in world history. The unique social and historical conditions, combined with new the knowledge and technology now available, make it not only possible but highly likely that within a generation or so we will live in that long unfulfilled dream of all Muslims, a truly Islamic world.’

All power to the Israelis in their current struggle!

www.caliibre.com

Refs:
http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/fs/37191.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorist_organisations#Muslim
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hezbollah#Origins http://islamic-world.net/papers/parentmanual.doc

Prayer and why some need it, a first 'quick look' at human nature

2006-05-14T18:18:00.000+07:00

I was watching the ABC news coverage of the rescue of the two Australian miners when a reporter approached a hooded woman praying on her knees at the mines fence. As the TV crew approached she would not show her face and screamed out ‘go away it’s our prayers they need not your pictures’. Nutter I thought obviously losing it a bit. A couple of days later on CNN I see a large African American filmed praying in the street for petrol prices to come down. This ‘god botherer’ is going a bit far I thought. As I live in a Muslim country five times a day I hear the faithful called to prayer (by a not so melodious voice) over a very loud p.a. system. What’s all this praying about I thought, whom does it help, what’s the motivation behind it?

Motivation principals and introduction

All individuals are motivated and knowing what motivates individuals (and why they may change behaviours due to their motivations) can be quite a complicated matter. Motivation can be defined as: “The emotional forces, wants, needs, urges or drive within us that influence our behaviour” or ‘a willingness to exert high levels of effort conditioned by the efforts ability to satisfy some individual need’.

Needs, Wants, Urges Defined

Needs, wants, urges (lets group them and call them “cravings”) ‘are internal states that make certain outcomes’ or results appear attractive. ‘When a craving is not satisfied tension is created within us which in turn stimulates an urge or drive causing us to seek a solution or attain a goal in an attempt to satisfy the craving and thus reduce our tension’. A vivid example of how this works is the craving smokers experience particularly when they are trying to quit.

Basic Maslow and the “Hierarchy of Needs”

Abraham Maslow felt that the basic human needs were arranged in a hierarchical order. He based his theory on healthy, creative people who used all their talents, potential, and capabilities. He defined two major groups of human needs: basic - including physiological, such as food, water, sex and sleep and psychological such as affection, security, and self-esteem. The basic needs are also called ‘deficiency needs’ because if an individual does not meet them, then that person will strive to make up the deficiency. The higher psychological needs are called ‘growth needs’. These include such things as justice, ‘goodness’, order, unity, glamour, status, beauty and self-fulfilment. Deficiency needs Maslow argued take priority over growth needs. People who lack food or water cannot attend to justice or beauty.

Maslow’s Needs Hierarchy
Self–actualisation (top of his pyramid of needs)
Growth, Achieving one’s potential, self-fulfilment
Self Esteem
Self Respect, Status, Recognition, Autonomy, Achievement
Social
Belonging, Social Activities, Love, Affection, Acceptance, Friendship
Safety
Security, Protection from danger both physical and emotional
Physiological (base of the pyramid of needs)
Hunger, Thirst, Sleep, Shelter, Sex and other bodily needs

Maslow proposed that due to the immediacy of the need for such things as food and water that they are primary source and direction of a person's goal. A need higher in the hierarchy will only become a motive of behaviour if the needs below it have been satisfied. He therefore proposes that each level must be fully satisfied before a person can strive to reach the next level. Maslow also proposed that lower level needs where satisfied externally and those on higher levels internally.

Motivation Principles

All human motivation is basically selfish, i.e. people do things for their own reasons not for our or another’s reasons.

All people are motivated and will continually move either toward or away from propositions

You cannot motivate other people because all motivation comes from within i.e. personal cravings.

People’s motivation is constantly changing in response to their ever-changing personal priorities

Religious organisation inspire or “utilize others motivation”, to gather their adherents by finding out what individuals want (salvation?) and why they want it (fear of their own mortality?) and then go about convincing them (the helpless) that they are the best or only chance of getting it.

So why the prayers

Firstly prayer is a ritual and the value of ritual was once explained to me as something we can do in times of stress to help us cope in situations that we have little or no control over. Ritual in its simplest for can be demonstrated by the old “I’ll make a cup of tea” by the aunty at a funeral. It is the carrying out of a reaffirming well learned set of behaviours that show we can still function and at least retain some level of self-control that motivates us.

The writer of the website “rantsoflogic” expands the explanation of the need for prayer in the following paragraph (abridged and edited)…

‘Prayer acts like a release valve. It's like talking to a close friend who never interrupts and is more than willing to listen to us ramble on and on about our problems without batting a eye or looking at their watch and saying "I've really got to go". Even though there may be no one there, prayer has a beneficial effect. He goes on… ‘The same effects can be accomplished through activities such as meditating, talking to a close friend or a therapist, writing in a journal, listening to soothing music in a nice warm bath, taking a walk, visualizing a peaceful place, exercising, or even having sex. These are all methods of slowing down and getting in contact with ourself, focusing on ourself for a change and releasing unwanted pent-up stress so we can view our situation with a calmer, more logical mind. Vocalizing our fears, even to the bedroom walls, helps to lessen the vice-like grip that keeps us wound up. We are, in effect [when praying], shining light on the hulking things lurking in the shadows and changing them into less harmful beings or even into figments of our overwrought imagination. When praying ‘we may think we're talking to an all-loving deity, and if that makes us feel comfortable, so be it; this process helps you to reaffirm our sense of self and to recognize the fact that you are only human and cannot take on the worries of the entire world. In prayer, ‘ we acknowledge our weaknesses and actively confront our fears and apprehensions in a safe environment without fear of judgement or ridicule.’

So if the writer is correct and I think he/she is, prayer is the selfish act of satisfying one of our basic motivations and will be most likely be geared around where we are on Maslow’s hierarchy at the time we are praying.

Gandhi explains that prayer is a means of freeing us form excessive attachment to the material world (paraphrased):

‘[When] the sordid everyday world is too much with us the practice of complete withdrawal of the mind from all outward things, even though it might be only for a few minutes everyday, will be found to be of infinite use. Silent communion will help us to experience an undisturbed peace in the midst of turmoil, to curb anger and cultivate patience.’

Again the act of praying is undertaken for self-serving reasons.

Back to our lady at the fence and praying for others…

Duke University studies - MANTRA II study of 2005: Duke University reported on their third double blind study into remote healing in The Lancet magazine -- the leading British medical journal -- for 2005-AUG. The study involved 748 patients with heart problems. They were divided into four groups:

One were assigned people to pray for them

One received MIT (music, imagery and touch) therapy

One received both distance prayer and MIT therapy

One received no additional therapy

There was no significant difference among the four groups in terms of clinical outcomes.

www.caliibre.com

Refs:
Collins Cobuild English Dictionary – Harper Collins Publishers, 1995
The Pocket Oxford Dictionary (Fourth Edition- revised) –
F.G. & H.W. Fowler, Oxford University Press, 1946
A Theory of Human Motivation - A. H. Maslow (1943)
Originally Published in Psychological Review, 50, 370-396.
http://therantsoflogic.homestead.com/prayer.html
http://bahai-library.com/books/gandhi/node27.html
http://www.religioustolerance.org/medical6.htm