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Monday, April 25, 2011

The Royal Wedding

A consequence  of the Industrial Revolution was that in the 18th, 19th and early 20th Century a huge number of urban poor flooded into western cities creating a desperately poor underclass, disconnected from ‘the group’ (more about that later). Many of these urban poor raised families and they blissfully fooled the world that they were ever married. Who could afford a ceremony, especially then?

In the period preceding the 20th Century, Jew and Christian would fall in love and instead of risking a pogrom the happy couple would move from village to village, until they found one that knew not uncle shmendrik but was nevertheless willing to attest to the Jewish antecedents of the bride (or groom). No conversion, no jumping though hoops and no Aryan bloodlines to investigate. This was community in action.  The two would arrive with nothing, were welcomed as equals, they were wedded by the community and everyone celebrated the bringing together of the happy couple.

Today we take out a mortgage in order to marry but the ideal behind the ceremony has been lost and it has been replaced by what for most of us is trauma, or meaningless and certainly costly celebration.

A million years ago in humanities collective past the individual had less chance of surviving than the group.  In time of famine or conflict the group was no less dangerous because it could turn on the individual. The family unit provided the security missing from the group and later, the tribe was bound initially by extended familial ties.  Towards the end of our ancient history, shared culture was meant to provide an umbrella that linked those disconnected tribes. Only later would religion add an additional layer of meaning to the family. Like an abusive and dysfunctional family the relationship between us and our god (s) deteriorated because instead of offering protection it became an instrument for controlling us. There is a good reason that we adopted terms that personalised the godhead as a father (or mother) figure.  Holy or otherwise it now held authoritative sway over the ‘family’.

In medieval times the monarch had the right to take every maiden to his bed before her wedding night. Ancient barbarism celebrated by the powerful against the weak, it was an act of rape but essentially, of domination. It negated the nation, the tribe and the family and it was a return to prehistory. Modern marriage should represent a reaffirmation of significance and of representative equality. We should therefore be asking why, in 2011, we have idolatry and a primitive spectacle of royalty joined by public marriage?

In times gone by, marriage between powerful families were intended to bind potential enemies, creating a partnership of blood and if that didn’t work, hostages.

The Public spectacle of obscene wealth and power publicly joined is a tainted legacy of obsequious submission and deference to class.  In 1981 when Prince Charles married Lady Diana before a world audience UK plc spent £30 million on the spectacle (at least double that amount in today’s money) and we paid for it with our taxes. Of course we are told that it was good for UK business but then, as now, it benefits very few of us.  A recent poll stated that 79% of the UK population is indifferent to the upcoming wedding of William Windsor to Kate Middleton. Every day, the Left wing BBC and its acolyte gaggle of journalists and photographers entertain us with items of news and programming that celebrates royalty; it commemorates the institution of aristocracy and therefore encourages division by class. We are willingly, being played for loyal children and the master’s serfs. While the BBC and its fawning brothers and sisters should be ideologically calling for an end to this obscene self-perpetuating tradition they instead kowtow and dutifully salivate before those at the pinnacle of British society.  We are told that two thousand million human beings will raise their glasses and toast the happy couple.

We have allowed our press to show its contempt for our humanity. We have willingly or unwillingly become participants in an international orgy of commercial exploitation and privileged self-promotion.  This is not a celebration of our shared humanity; it is a reaffirmation of primordial power and privilege and we should all be ashamed.

Sunday, April 17, 2011

The Koran & Peace on Earth

[Sura 5.51] O you who believe! Do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends; they are friends of each other; and whoever amongst you takes them for a friend, then surely he is one of them; surely Allah does not guide the unjust people.

Antisemitism has been a central construct of Islamic theological teaching since Islam’s creation as a religion 1,400 years ago. It is human to react but the choices we make define us as individuals, as a group and as a nation.

Syncretism is defined as attempting to combine the teachings and beliefs of different religions or philosophies. China throughout its long history has reacted to external and internal threat by absorbing what was useful to it and rejecting what was not.

Islam states that everything good is Islamic and conversely, nothing bad is (Islamic).  Islam is theologically and culturally colonialist.  As an argument for conquest it is very neat and tidy. And like the soul, as arguments go, it is wholly un-provable.  The narrative goes like this:

Islam has always existed. The best ideas were always Islamic.  Therefore all the great religious ideas in history were Islamic. Mohammed was the final figure in this pantheon of human development. There is no one after him.

The denouement of this exquisite theory is that everything past and present is the patrimony of the Islamic faithful.  In simple terms, the conquistador sees, he takes. This is Islam. Peace and brotherhood are conditional and finite.

Bin Laden’s Feb. 1998 Fatwa opens with the Koranic reference, Sura (Chapter) 9:5 “Fight and slay the pagans wherever ye find them, seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war)”

Bin Laden’s fatwa explicitly calls on all Muslims to “kill the Americans and their allies, civilians and military”.  It also includes Koranic Justification from Sura 8:39: “And fight with them until there is no more ‘persecution’ and religion should be only for Allah”.  It may be claimed that Bin Laden and other Islamic Nazis take quotes from the Koran out of context but only a fool would deny the inflammatory nature of such Koranic quotes. And then we have the Hadith and there is no misinterpreting so many narratives on the words and deeds of Mohammed, slavishly adhered to by fundamentalists globally. Their intention then as now was and is surely to unite Mohammed’s people and enforce by conquest their domination over a fractured world.  You may call it imperialism or even something less provocative; however those who call for the West’s Moslem’s to follow the Korans precepts are inciting sedition.  They are calling for the subversion of Western civilization.  Ahmadinejad has certainly celebrated this by his belief in a messiah whose coming is contingent upon disorder, chaos and worldwide disaster as the coming of the 12th Imam allegedly demands.  One can hardly say, with an ideology based on chaos that betrayal is not in the arsenal of fundamentalist Islam as practiced in Western Society. 

In its purest, fundamentalist form Islam is absolutist; unmoved by mercy, pity or tenderness. Morally impoverished, it celebrated 911, the Madrid, Bali and London Bombings and handed out sweets in rejoicing when a three month old Jewish baby was beheaded.  That is not Islam at the crossroads.  A faith whose inspiration is a book replete with messages that extol domination and conquest can and does justify every act of bestiality known to humanity and then theologically blames it on its victims.

The Hadiths are narrative interpretations of the words and deeds of Mohammed. They are taken as important tools for both understanding the Koran and therefore for interpreting Islamic Law. The Hadiths contain foul and hateful quotes but perhaps the most famous is the one that is most quoted by Islamists of all ranks and unsurprisingly is in Hamas’s online charter for all to see: “The Day of Judgment would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: Muslim, (or servant of Allah), there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him (or her).” (Suhih Muslim 41:6985)

The Gaza Flotilla that launched from Turkey on 31st May 2010 contained 6 ships. Only one had no aid on board (although most of the aid on the other ships, if time specific (such as medicines), was expired and therefore worthless.  On their ‘no aid’ ship of hate (the Mavi Marmara) the activists cried out: “heiber heiber al-Yahud Jish Mohammad sa-yaud”—the Muslim call for the destruction of Jews. And for the sake of those having a hard time with the text, Nordin Sirin (one of the leaders of IHH, the Islamist organization that launched the ship and a Jihadi activist) also published it in a Turkish article titled: “God is Great, This is the Time to Destroy Israel.”  (This is quoted from an article by journalist Ben-Dror Yemini in the Israeli Ma’ariv Newspaper on March 18, 2011).  We can assume that the Global press as well as the misnamed western peace activists knew what they were getting involved in when they boarded this ship. Therefore, and for the record, these western activists are more than simple fellow-travelers of Arab/Islamic hegemony; they are complicit in actively inciting genocide. How convenient that the BBC and Guardian amongst others in the west refused to discuss this point in any of their many propaganda pieces for Western consumption.

To understand that the Left is complicit in this war (and not just against Israel) is the only way that we will defeat this offensive against our civilization. Moderation is not an aspect of the beast and any theology based on global conquest is evil. They will engage western racists, left and right, to drink from their poisoned well of prejudice.

Muslims throughout their history viewed Jews as objects of ridicule and not fear.  Jews had been conquered easily, and Islam ruled over them for 1,400 years - at least until the State of Israel came into existence. Christian Antisemitism only became an unwelcome adaptation because the Jews fought back. One cannot enslave an entire people for 1,400 years and accept their freedom with overnight magnanimity or grace. So conspiracy and fear have become part of the Muslim narrative of hate.   And a return to a toxic relationship foundered on inequality, superstition and slavery is a return to barbarism.

In the twenty-first century the fascists of the Left mouthing the Palestinian narrative as if it were God’s word undermines not just the Zionist State of Israel but human civilisation. Jews had and they have the same right to self determination that the Arab Muslim world exercised in the twentieth century.

Jews have often been accused of disloyalty, this negative allegation rather than positive concept of dual loyalty.  But disloyalty arises from the world of ideas only when faith has a hegemonic world view.  Islam is hegemonic, Judaism is not.

The faith of Mohamed, Marx and Hitler are the same.  They demand unconditional obedience to an ideology of absolutism. The conviction that there can only be “one way” leads to the natural conclusion that the rejection of such a view is a rejection of the totality of the ideology.  Under such conditions genocide is inevitable.

There is a reason that the Islamic faithful insist we do not study their faith before we convert to it. Islamic self-belief is based on cultural, religious and personal renunciation. I should not have to question to what extent my neighbor practices dissimulation in their everyday lives. I do not need to disguise or hide my feelings. I am not taught that I am better than my Muslim, Christian, and Buddhist, Sikh or Hindu neighbours. I am not taught that the beliefs of others are wrong, foolish and misplaced and no one has the right to inform me that mine is superseded by a far superior model.

Judaism does not nor do I believe that it has ever believed that there was only “one way”.  The Seven Noahide commandments stand in mute witness to the pluralistic nature of Judaism.  This generosity and celebration of multi-culturalism has however made us a persecuted people.

Israeli religious tolerance has enabled evil men such as the head of the northern branch of Israel's Islamic Movement, Sheikh Ra'ad Salah, to deny any rights to Jews in their own land; deny Jews the legitimacy of their own historical dialogue, their own civilization and their own faith.   Talking to these people is without benefit.  Show trials however would not be without benefit.  Sedition and treason in time of war are crimes not just against the state but against the people.  Their trial should be on public TV, radio and the Internet and their obnoxious and obdurate theological views should be rubbed into the faces of Israel’s enemies.  This is the only way to defeat them.

The opposing argument that tolerance is taught and that negative attributes rarely present a racial character is not born out by human history. People are only ever conditionally tolerant. It is why Islam failed the test of Greek Self-determination in 1821, it is why it failed the test of Armenian independence in the 1890’s and again in 1915 and it is why it continues to fail the test of Jewish independence today.  These atrocities, acts of ethnic cleansing, attempted ethnic cleansing and genocide are part of the Islamic response to any demand for equality.

The renunciation of Islam’s vision for a global empire can only come about when it is theologically defeated. Every success, no matter how tainted in death and destruction, is in Islam, an act of affirmation.  Islam has rarely, if only accidentally been a religion of Peace and Love. In the 21st Century it certainly is not.

Islam must have a reformation for the world to be safe from it.  For the world to survive the first monotheistic faith must become the third missionary faith.  Today’s Muslims call upon their shared history with the Christian world to divide and rule over all of us whatever we may or may not believe.  They experience no shame in publishing and distributing every tract of lies and contempt the imagination can produce. Only when they are unable to justify either their actions or their theology will their thoughts change from conquest and murder to shared living and co-existence.  But missionary faiths need to hate to justify conquest. Their history is an evil past unashamed in the present time. A new player who stands outside that virtue-less circle will force everyone to confront their record and the missionary of old will be unable to justify his or her history.  And yes, it will also return to Jews everywhere a positive narrative about them-selves and about Israel. Renewal and re-dedication is needed in order to re-energize this fight against injustice.

Monday, April 4, 2011

Book Burning and More Death

On the first of April 2011 a pastor and a bigot called Terry Jones, ‘tried’ the Koran, condemned its contents and allegedly burned a copy.

We know from history that it is acceptable to desecrate and destroy non Muslim artefacts and non Muslim holy books; to the murderer of Jews, Christians, Hindus and Buddhists is accorded a place in heaven with 72 virgins (according to one bizarre fairy tail).  But even threatening to burn a copy of the Koran causes riots in the peaceful Muslim world.  In Afghanistan up to 20 UN workers were attacked by a mob and murdered – some were allegedly beheaded (although the UN denied this) and others were simply butchered.

Let us be clear about this. A book is a book.  And the two missionary faiths have historically made it a habit to burn the ‘holy’ books of other faiths because the physical act demonstrably reinforces the proof of the book burners’ superior power. For this same reason, Muslims have been murdering both Muslims and non-Muslims alike since Muhammad and his tribesmen by bloody ethnic cleansing bulldozed their way to power 1,400 years ago. The theological narrative that justifies this cruel barbarism is to this day in use across the Muslim world. It has been a successful model for conquest since Mohammed’s founding of the Islamic faith. But it does not make it right.

It is sanctified by far too many Islamic rulings for us to not pay attention.  I repeat - book burning is an act of intellectual thuggery but no more than that. The people, who committed this atrocity in Afghanistan, if they are not fundamentally evil, did commit an act that places them outside of civilized society.  No amount of cultural relativism can ever justify this. These people are barbarians; they are ethically sick human beings and we should despise them with every fiber of our being.  Again, I will repeat it.  A book is a book, it is not flesh and blood and it does not deserve our veneration. It is what is in a book that counts and nothing that incites the faithful towards violence can ever be described as sacred. The monotheistic faiths were created as a denial of idolatry.  Those who kill for a book worship an idol.  They deserve our disgust and not perhaps, because of their faith but because of a version of their faith that legitimizes violence and murder. They stand outside of the realm of civilization. And they enjoy it.

We are all of us equal, irrespective of our beliefs.  Those that kill for their faith do so as proof of their spurious superiority. It proves nothing but that they are twisted and evil human beings.