THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
[Richard Dawkins] tells us that
scientists used to be religious in the old days because of
"social and judicial pressure" (without seeing
that this, if true, might make us as sceptical of claims
of absolute truth made by scientists as of those made by
theologians).
—Charles
Moore
Kevin
Michael Grace, 7.53 am, 5 October 2006►
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
The second reason why, as
things stand, Islam will not be defeated is that the
strengths of the world community of Muslims are being
underestimated, and the nature of Islam misunderstood. It
is neither a “religion of peace” nor a “religion
hijacked” or “perverted” by “the few.” Instead,
its moral intransigence and revived ardours, its jihadist
ethic and the refusal of most diaspora Muslims to “share
a common set of values” with non-Muslims are all one,
and justified by the Koran itself.
Islam is not even a religion in
the conventional sense of the term. It is a transnational
political and ethical movement that believes that it holds
the solution to mankind’s problems. It therefore holds
that it is in mankind’s own interests to be subdued
under Islam’s rule. Such belief therefore makes an
absurdity of the project to “democratize” Muslim
nations in the West’s interests, an inversion that Islam
cannot accept and, in its own terms, rightly so. It
renders naive, too, the distinction between the military
and political wings of Islamic movements; and makes Donald
Rumsfeld’s assertion in June 2005 that the insurgents in
Iraq “don’t have vision, they’re losers” merely
foolish. In this war, if there is a war, the boot is on
the other foot...
The fifth disablement is to be
found in the confusion of “progressives” about the
Islamic advance. With their political and moral bearings
lost since the defeat of the “socialist project,” many
on the Left have only the fag-end of anti-colonial
positions on which to take their stand. To attribute the
West’s problems to our colonial past contains some
truth. But it is again to misunderstand the inner strength
of Islam’s revival, which is owed not to victimhood but
to advancing confidence in its own belief system.
Moreover, to Islam’s further
advantage, it has led most of today’s “progressives”
to say little, or even to keep silent, about what would
once have been regarded as the reactionary aspects of
Islam: its oppressive hostility to dissent, its
maltreatment of women, its supremacist hatred of selected
out-groups such as Jews and gays, and its readiness to
incite and to use extremes of violence against them. Mein
Kampf circulates in Arab countries under the title Jihadi...
The seventh reason lies in the
moral poverty of the West’s, and especially America’s,
own value system. Doctrines of market freedom, free choice
and competition—or “freedom ’n’ liberty”—are
no match for the ethics of Islam and Sharia, like them or
not. Yet in the “battle for hearts and minds” the US
First Cavalry Division saw fit to set up “Operation Adam
Smith” in Iraq to teach marketing skills, among other
things, to local entrepreneurs. There can be no victory
here. Or, as Sheikh Mohammed al-Tabatabi told thousands of
worshippers in Baghdad in May 2003: “The West calls for
freedom and liberty. Islam rejects such liberty. True
liberty is obedience to Allah”...
—David Selbourne, "Can
The West Defeat The Islamist Threat? Here Are Ten Reasons
Why Not," London Times, 9
September 2006 (and see here)
Kevin
Michael Grace, 5.56 am, 4 October 2006►
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
Modern nationalism, from
Giuseppe Mazzini to George Bush, turns respectable love of
country into an unacceptable ideology of pseudo-religious
character...American nationalism is the contemporary
world’s clearest and most dangerous example of this
brand of ideological pseudo-religion...It is a worldwide
menace both to other countries’s legitimate patriotic
aspirations to independence and cultural integrity as well
as to the interests of true religion...
Nationalism in the United
States is expressed in a political philosophy, one which
once was referred to as "Americanism," but which
now is more popularly known globally as
"Pluralism." This illegitimate nationalist
philosophy claims that America and the American system
have created a new, unique and infallible mechanism for
guaranteeing freedom and happiness for all groups and
individuals in every society whatsoever and ensuring their
peaceful, democratic cooperation together. Divinization
and unquestioning acceptance of this ideology and
pseudo-religion is demanded of all Americans as proof of
loyalty to their nation. It is taught and exalted through
the political ceremonies conducted on all public
occasions. One need only read the speeches given at such
moments, by George Bush and others, to understand the
sacral character of these strange liturgies, so hostile to
the spirit of a true American patriotism.
Americanism and Pluralism view
the United States and its way of life as a force in world
history with a mission more universal and redemptive than
that of the Incarnation. They see this global mission as
one that is blessed by the God who first led the Puritans
to the New World to build a "City on a Hill" for
the edification of all of mankind. But, given the peculiar
historical development of American society, they also
understand this task to be one demanded by the
"obvious, common sense laws of nature" preached
by Enlightenment secularists who seduced those who had
lost their supernatural faith in the New World and needed
to replace it with fanatical commitment to a new political
ideology.
What this means, therefore, is
that each and every nation, culture and individual is
commanded to support all that masquerades as patriotism in
the United States in the name of pleasing both God and
Nature. The only permissible "patriotism"
anywhere on this planet is worship of the nationalist
ideology and pseudo-religion of Americanism and Pluralism.
Those who would seriously dare to oppose the global
acceptance of such an idol in the name of their own
independence and cultural integrity must be considered
enemies of God and Nature. Further still, in the present
environment, they must considered to be
"terrorists." For who but a
"terrorist" would physically resist the most
blessed and infallible gift of God and Reason for the
fulfillment of human happiness that history has ever
known?
—John
C Rao
Kevin
Michael Grace, 6.52 am, 2 October 2006►
