And just to be especially clear what we are talking about here is Islamism, it is not Islam. It is a political ideology that utilizes religious principles to achieve its despotism. Under this everybody will suffer including Muslims. It is nothing about anti-Imperialism or cycles of violence, it is everything about control and dominance. They seek to dominate the world, to kill those that stand in their way so that their apocalypse can be brought about. U2Kitten has posted before on this and was maligned substantially because of the lack of qualification. I will clarify here, please do not make baseless accusations of racism or cultural insensitiveness - I as most people here believe that every person has equal potential at birth and it is the human spirit which drives humanity to better things, I am an atheist but I do not subscribe to moral relitivism or postmodernism, my beliefs are no more valid or better than anybody elses; unless of course their beliefs or ideology harms others.
I want to make it abundantly clear to everybody that the problem is not Muslims, it is not about people worshipping a relgion. It is about a group within a religion that will kill for power, that subscribe to an apocalyptic death cult that scraps the religious portion of Islam and is just hatred. Everything in the great religions of the world, tollerance - love - peace. They are all there in Christianity, Islam, Buddhism. But Islamism, as a political ideology and cult lacks this, it is not a religion, it is a poltical ideology - like fascism of communism it seeks to control people and crush individuality. I will use the term Islamofascism, this is a strong term but I will use it because it is apt. It is a system that melds state to industry, brings in authoritarianism and robs indidual liberty - it shares more in common with Fascism than it does Islam as a religion.
So we are clear,
Islam = Relgion
Islamism = Political Ideology where all imperitives of the state become governed by ultraconservative religious adherance. Think of Saudi Arabia, Iran and Afghanistan under the Taliban.
Islamism is a form of religious fascism, it must be seperated from Islam. Exposed for what it is and discredited thorougly, too many people have suffered and continue to suffer because of political Islam (which is Islamism). Everybody must understand what we are up against. I have no problem with people worshipping, religious freedom and tollerance are a good thing but make no mistake, I am intollerant of intollerance and Islamism is single greatest theat to individuality in the 21st Century.
I am bending over backwards here to press this point, Islam as a religion - not the problem. Islamism as an ideology and the societies that tollerate/support it, substantial problem. It is a very fine line at some points, because Islam is so much a part of the society in the Arab/Muslim world and ultimately the political and social become entwined. It gets very nasty and sometimes specific statements such as mocking the PC line "Islam is a religion of peace" may be said, I will point this out because whenever a cleric who preaches violence turns around to tell the press "Islam is a religion of peace" it is hypocracy, one of the greatest forms of dishonesty. You cannot honestly believe somebody who one minute calls for the extermination of the Jews by the hand of Allah then turn around and tell the world he is preaching peace - it simply isn't so.
If we stay silent and let people suffer because of this we share some responsibility. As long as we allow evil men, people who will kill those who question them, to hide behind political correctness we are doing a disservice to the real moderate Muslims. Every time we tollerate one more extremist voice it is one more moderate drowned out in a sea of hatred. Do the right thing for humanity and support liberty - we all deserve better in this world because its the only life we get.
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