Update: grim news of terror attacks in New Orleans and probably Las Vegas. We can be glad at least that casualties were not even higher. According to Raymond Arroyo, police found two explosive devices near the cathedral in the French Quarter and safely detonated them.
If it weren't a Sunday, this would be the feast of St. Stephen, so perhaps an apt day to post this.
Virtually every major decision and law promulgated by the Islamic State adheres to what it calls, in its press and pronouncements, and on its billboards, license plates, stationery, and coins, “the Prophetic methodology,” which means following the prophecy and example of Muhammad, in punctilious detail. Muslims can reject the Islamic State; nearly all do. But pretending that it isn’t actually a religious, millenarian group, with theology that must be understood to be combatted, has already led the United States to underestimate it and back foolish schemes to counter it. We’ll need to get acquainted with the Islamic State’s intellectual genealogy if we are to react in a way that will not strengthen it, but instead help it self-immolate in its own excessive zeal.
"I am referring here to the religious clerics. … It's inconceivable that the thinking that we hold most sacred should cause the entire umma (Islamic world) to be a source of anxiety, danger, killing and destruction for the rest of the world. Impossible!
"That thinking — I am not saying 'religion' but 'thinking' — that corpus of texts and ideas that we have sacralized over the centuries, to the point that departing from them has become almost impossible, is antagonizing the entire world. It's antagonizing the entire world! ... All this that I am telling you, you cannot feel it if you remain trapped within this mindset. You need to step outside of yourselves to be able to observe it and reflect on it from a more enlightened perspective.
"I say and repeat again that we are in need of a religious revolution. You, imams, are responsible before Allah. The entire world, I say it again, the entire world is waiting for your next move … because this umma is being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost — and it is being lost by our own hands."
Paris now.
In all its splendor.
#JeSuisCharlie #CharlieHebdo pic.twitter.com/7qdEVluNeO
— Sara Assaf (@SaraAssaf) January 7, 2015
The media on the whole are not covering themselves in glory. AP deletes its Mohammed photos. USA TODAY apparently loses its mind. Ezra Klein recommends civilizational suicide ("pay no attention to the ideology behind these murders.")
Bad news. I write you in a situation of violence in Mosul that is very critical and even apocalyptic. Most of the inhabitants of the city have already abandoned their houses and fled into the villages and are sleeping in the open without anything to eat or drink. Many thousands of armed men from the Islamic Groups of Da’ash have attacked the city of Mosul for the last two days. They have assassinated adults and children. The bodies have been left in the streets and in the houses by the hundreds, without pity. The regular forces and the army have also fled the city, along with the governor. In the mosques, they cry “Allah Akbar, long live the Islamic State.” Qaraqosh is overflowing with refugees of all kinds, without food or lodging. The check points and the Kurdish forces are blocking innumerable refugees from entering Kurdistan. What we are living and what we have seen over the last two days is horrible and catastrophic. The priory of Mar Behnam and other churches fell into the hands of the rebels this morning. . . . and now they have come here and entered Qaraqosh five minutes ago, and we are now surrounded and threatened with death. . . . pray for us. I’m sorry that I can’t continue . . . They are not far from our convent. . . .Don’t reply. . . .
I take this opportunity to reiterate my profound respect and esteem for the Muslim community and my appreciation for the leadership of His Majesty the King in promoting a better understanding of the virtues taught by Islam and a climate of serene coexistence between the faithful of the different religions.That strikes just the right note, it seems to me. It avoids religious indifferentism (hey, we're all great religions!) but it would be dishonest and ungenerous not to acknowledge and admire certain virtues in moderate Islam. (Just as an aside...do Mohammed & Nietzsche basically share the objection to Christianity? Namely that it makes men weak? Do Islam and the will to power share an intellectual starting point? Just tossing that out there as an aside...),
Religious freedom is in fact a fundamental human right and I cannot fail to express my hope that it will be upheld throughout the Middle East and the entire world. The right to religious freedom “includes on the individual and collective levels the freedom to follow one’s conscience in religious matters and, at the same time, freedom of worship… [it also includes] the freedom to choose the religion which one judges to be true and to manifest one’s beliefs in public” (Ecclesia in Medio Oriente, 26). Christians consider themselves, and indeed are, full citizens, and as such they seek, together with their Muslim fellow citizens, to make their own particular contribution to the society in which they live.Hammer it home, Holy Father -- and Lord, protect him.
Don't take anything for granted. I don't. I enjoy every single moment of my American life.Curtsy: Brutally Honest
Just walking down the street by myself without being accused of being a whore is a bliss for me.
Just chatting with my next-door male neighbor without being accused of adultery is a bliss for me.
Having a cup of coffee by myself is a bliss. Please, please don't anything for granted. Please defend this beautiful country.
Seems we can retire that question, though I continue to be confused about why it's so difficult for us to settle on an anglicization of names translated from other alphabets. At the very least can't we agree that it's not right to spell things so as to make them unpronounceable in English?A Brief History of Muammar Mo’ammar Moammar Moamer Mu’ammar Mu’amar Muamar Qaddafi Gadhafi Kaddafi Qadhafi El Kadhafi Gadafi al-Qadafi El Kazzafi al-Gaddafi Al Qathafi Al Qathafi el-Gadhafi El Kadhafi al-Qadhafi al-Qadhdhafi Qadafi Gaddafi Qadhdhafi Khaddafi al-Khaddafi Ghaddafy al-Kadafi Ghaddafi Quathafi Gheddafi Al-Kaddafi Ghadafi Kaddafi Khadafy Qudhafi al-Qaddafi, AKA Mulazim Awwal Mu’ammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Qadhafi.
In the 1980s, the Arabs were promised their version of “get-rich” capitalism starting with Egypt’s infitah (liberalisation) strategy. In a decade all Arab states moved towards the market economy. But Arab capitalism turned out to be a subterfuge for plunder by a few. Its iconic leader, the Tunisian despot Zine Al Abedine bin Ali, was more Al Capone than Adam Smith.We saw the pictures of Christians defending Muslims as they prayed and Muslims attending the Christian Mass during the demonstrations.
Nationalism, socialism, capitalism and Islamism, all with an Arab prefix, proved to be nothing but different masks for despotic rule. They all failed, and there is no echo of them anywhere in the unfolding revolt. Today the main slogan is: “Freedom, freedom now.” It is the first time in decades that large numbers of Arabs have gathered together without burning the American and Israeli flags or shouting: “Death to the Infidel.”
The grand opportunist like a thief in the night and in broad daylight bullied his way to address a million Egyptians, urging them to “Protect the revolution and don’t you dare let anyone steal it from you.” Except for him, of course, promising that soon he “will pray on the Jerusalem Al-Aqsa (Temple Mount)” not as a pilgrimage since visiting it is a “shame” and “forbidden by Sharia” so long as Israel exists.And then there's this. Apparently they are chanting, "To Jerusalem we go, martyrs in the millions."
