Monday
18Sep2006
This is What a Religion of Peace Looks Like
Monday, September 18, 2006 at 07:19PM Bottom Line Up Front: Sister Leonella Sgorbati shows Muslims what a real religion of peace looks like.
The difference between radical Islam and radical Christianity is love, humility and forgiveness. This dichotomy was epitomized in the events of the last week when the Pope made a rather insightful reference to the false prophet Mohammed, quoting 14th century emperor Manuel II Paleologus, who criticized Mohammed's "command to spread by the sword the faith he preached". Muslims hyper-sensitive to criticism of their prophet don't hesitate, on the other hand, to threaten the world's premier Christian leader with death. In fact, it goes further than that. Whether one believes the Pope was right or wrong in his statement, certainly killing innocent religious workers who devote their lives to serving the poor or infirm goes beyond the scope of what one would consider "good religion".
That said, rioting Muslims vow to "conquer Rome" and kill Christians in revenge for the Pope/emperor's remarks. "Honor" is a staple of the Islamofascist diet, and evidently killing an innocent Catholic nun in Somalia who dedicated her life to helping the sick is par for the course for extremists who condone "honor killings".
How did this poor nun, Sister Leonella Sgorbati, who was gunned down by Islamofascists outside of the hospital where she worked, die? FORGIVING HER KILLERS. Her fellow sisters said that as she realized she was dying, Sister Sgorbati said, "I forgive; I forgive." Surely this woman is a saint. This is a vivid picture of the differences between the faiths. If it is true that pure, peaceful Islam is being hijacked by extreme Islamofascism, Christians everywhere patiently await the setting straight of that misunderstanding and the emergence of a truly peaceful Islamic religion that will coexist with the rest of the world.
Trackback URL:
http://amyproctor.squarespace.com/blog/trackback/687792
http://amyproctor.squarespace.com/blog/trackback/687792
View Printer Friendly Version
Email Article to Friend
Reader Comments (17)
May she rest in peace in the Father's arms.
Would you stop using inaccurate catchwords invented by your slick PR leaders in Washington to rally paranoid hatred for your enemy? "Islamofascism" may have a cute ring to it, but the term is technically vacuous. Fascism is a clearly defined political movement with which Muslim extremists share very little in common. Any 'evil' connotation that fascism grants to Islamic terrorists through the use of this term is borrowed from the evil of Hitler, not the evil they have earned through their own actions. By labelling Muslim extremists "Islamofascists," you elevate them to a political force and status they do not deserve while insulting those who have actually lived through the Nazi regime and those who risked everything to destroy it. For those of us familiar with history and fact, the term makes us cringe not so much for the political stunt that it is but for its abuse of the English language. Contrary to what our weak, desperate and foundering leaders and pundits in Washington would have you believe, the evil of modern-day terrorism is nothing compared to the evil of Hitler, and until the voices of the thousands of dead and wounded from terrorist attacks and the voices of the hundreds of thousands (mostly civilian) dead and wounded from our profit- motivated military response to it can speak out with an equal volume against the voices of the 77 million lost in the conflagration that was World War II, it will stay that way.
"Her fellow sisters said that as she realized she was dying, Sister Sgorbati said, "I forgive; I forgive." Surely this woman is a saint. This is a vivid picture of the differences between the faiths."
No, it's a vivid picture of the difference between which people of vastly different levels of spiritual advancement interpret their faiths. Ghandi did the same thing.
-DJ Skyede
I examined the meshing of terms here:
http://amyproctor.squarespace.com/blog/2006/9/13/the-liberal-islamofacist-phobia.html
In part....
"Let's define "fascism". According to Webster, "fascism" is:
a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
AND/OR
a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control <early instances of army fascism and brutality –
That's the "fascist" part. Enter "Islamo". If the enemy we're fighting isn't a religious movement or regime that exalts its religion above the individual and that stands for a centralized theocracy headed by a dictatorial leader, then we don't really know our enemy. Or at least Russ Feingold doesn't.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki visited the US in July of 2006 and gave a speech to the Congress. In part he said:
I know that some of you here question whether Iraq is part of the war on terror. Let me be very clear: This is a battle between true Islam, for which a person's liberty and rights constitute essential cornerstones, and terrorism, which wraps itself in a fake Islamic cloak; in reality, waging a war on Islam and Muslims and values.
The truth is that terrorism has no religion. Our faith says that who kills an innocent, as if they have killed all mankind.
That's pretty clear from the "good Muslim" side of the aisle. Should they be called "freedom fighters" or just plain "terrorists"? What's really behind the reluctance to say "Islamofascist"? It's pretty simple; George W. Bush came up with the term."
*******
Actually it was introduced by the French writer Maxine Rodinson (1915-2004) to describe the Iranian Revolution of 1978.
-DJ Skyede
Yes, this is the correct definition of Fascism.
"AND/OR
a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control <early instances of army fascism and brutality"
I cannot accept this as a valid standalone definition of Fascism. If such were the case, every tyrant since Genghis Khan could be classified as fascist.
Key elements of the correct definition of Fascism held up against modern day Islamic Terrorism:
"a political philosophy, movement, or regime" - Islamic terrorism can be considered a movement as well as a political philosophy, although it is not a regime like the Nazis, who satisified all three definitions.
"that exalts nation and often race above the individual"- Terrorist states like the Taliban are not particularly nationalistic. You will not hear a terrorist say "You must be willing to sacrifice your life for Iran" or "You must kill to preserve the Afghani way of life." That's more or less something Americans say about their own armed forces. If Islamic terrorists have any Nazi-esque 'Fatherland' (Homeland?) to protect, it is their sovereign lands which we are currently occupying anyway. Their motivation is preserving what they see as a threat to their religious beliefs and their culture. They are not genetic or racial supremacists, and do not use as a central idea that the world would be better off with certain races completely eliminated. This was absolutely central to the Nazi ideology.
"that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader" - In no way can Islamic terrorism be seen to be even beginning to catalyze into something as unified and dangerous as this. Once we get to this stage, then I will be willing to re-evaluate the term 'Islamofascism' as it applies to Islamic terrorists.
"severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition." Communists do the same thing, so by itself, this really doesn't cut to the heart of what Fascism is. Basically, fascism is a political system where a centralized autocratic government of a state headed by a dictatorial leader justifies expansive military action based on nationalist protection with an emphasis on racial superiority. Modern day Islamic terrorism has a long way to go before it can meet this definition... if it ever does. Just because terrorists and Nazis use terror as a means for political gain does not make the two equivalent. You really can't even have fascism until you have a state first.
The term is more effective as a unifying emotional neologism or political epithet for consumption by the citizens on the home front than it is as an historical and political term which accurately portrays the nature and constitution of the enemy.
-DJ Skyede
However, bin Laden has stated that al-Qaeda's goal is to establish a religious Caliphate across the Middle East. If such a caliphate were headed by a group of clerics or a single leader, it's unclear whether there would be much difference in the brutality of the two. Therefore, I suppose bin Laden and al-Qaeda leaders, and perhaps to some extent the Taliban, could pseudo-accurately be described as "Islamofascists" because they foresee through their actions the formation of a fascist, or very near-fascist, Islamic state (it is not hard to see such a Caliphate becoming genetically or racially biased very quickly, and the nationalist element would probably develop later using the religious concept of Allah as its cover). But does this mean that the majority of terrorists are acting through this vision? I doubt it. I think most of them are dirt-poor, uneducated and brainwashed, some of them conscripted, for mainly short-term secular and profit-motivated ends that are shrouded in the cloak of religion. More importantly, does this mean that al Qaeda currently poses the same threat to the world as the Nazis did at the outset of American involvement in World War II, as Dick Cheney asserts? The only chance of al-Qaeda exercising an equal potential for such massive destruction in the foreseeable future would be through the acquisition of a nuclear weapon. And even then, it would be a singular attack, not a broad military operation that permanently seizes land territory and subjugates whole swaths of peoples, as the Nazis had accomplished with most of Europe by that time.
-DJ Skyede
-Paul