to question the unexplained wrongs
beliefs blinded by aeons of
superstitions
prejudices
and religions

Faith of the Heart

a song written by Diane Warren
originally performed by Rod Stewart for the soundtrack of the 1998 film Patch Adams
also the opening soundtrack for “Enterprise” – the Star Trek prequel

sung here by Russel Watson.

It’s been a long road
Getting from there to here
It’s been a long time
But my time is finally near

And I can feel the change in the wind right now
Nothing’s in my way
And they’re not gonna hold me down no more
No they’re not gonna hold me down

‘Cause I’ve got faith of the heart
I’m going where my heart will take me
I’ve got faith to believe
I can do anything
I’ve got strength of the soul
And no one’s gonna bend or break me
I can reach any star
I’ve got faith, I’ve got faith, faith of the heart

It’s been a long night
Trying to find my way
Been through the darkness
Now I’ve finally have my day

And I will see my dream come alive at last
I will touch the sky
And they’re not gonna hold me down no more
No they’re not gonna change my mind

I’ve known the wind so cold, and seen the darkest days.
But now the winds I feel, are only winds of change.
I’ve been through the fire and I’ve been through the rain.
But I’ll be fine.

It’s been a long road.

the dust has settled,
so has the shock, the anger, the grief – and the emotional voices

let us go back to what did happen
on a weekday morning at 08:40 at a busy roundabout in Lahore Pakistan
12/14 individual – fired automatic weapons – launched grenades
and escaped ON FOOT, unhurt and remains undetected

I read Chris Broads narration of events:

Broad fury at Pakistan security

Source: ESPN Star | Wednesday 4th March 2009

Broad, who expressed fears for his security before the start of the tour, said at a press conference: “I am angry at the Pakistani security forces.” He added: “We were promised high level security and in our hour of need that security vanished and they left us to be sitting ducks.“

Broad continued: “I had an inkling before the Test match leg of the tour that something might happen. “I raised my concerns with the ICC before the tour started and they passed on those concerns to the Pakistan Cricket Board and they assured me through email that all security would be taken care of, presidential-style security. And clearly that didn’t happen.

“When we were in the van we weren’t aware of what was going on outside. But afterwards when you watch the TV pictures you can clearly see the white van we were in, in the middle of a roundabout and not a sign of a policeman anywhere.”

and I also read these reports – duplicated on multiple websites

‘Anonymous call led police to change route of SL team’s bus’

Source: TOI | 4 Mar 2009, 1313 hrs IST, PTI

LAHORE: A last minute call by an unidentified person led the city police to change the route of the bus taking the Sri Lankan cricket team to Gaddafi stadium here, a Pakistan media report said on Wednesday.

An unknown caller asked police escorting the Sri Lankan team to use the Gulberg route leading to the stadium instead of travelling along Ferozpur road as had been decided earlier, The News daily quoted interior ministry sources as saying. Police followed the caller’s instructions without ascertaining his identity, the report said. This led to the police falling into a “trap”, the sources said.

I do not believe any policeman regardless of how dumb or stupid he maybe
would change routes unless he knew the authority of the caller

the best form of protection would have been for the two teams to travel together
the ultimate human shields
so where were the
Pakistani players!

Younis says Pakistan team lucky to escape attack

Source: reuters UK | Tue Mar 3, 2009 2:32pm GMT

LAHORE (Reuters) – Pakistan captain Younis Khan said his team were lucky to escape the attack on Sri Lanka’s team bus Tuesday.

“Thank God we decided to leave our hotel five minutes after the Sri Lankans” Younis told a news conference. “We are a young team and God forbid if both buses had been moving together it could have been catastrophic.”

in the last minute the route was changed
in the last minute the Pakistan team decided to travel separately

just luck?

Pakistan team avoid attack thanks to late change of plan

Source: Guardian UK | Tuesday 3 March 2009 13.09 GMT

Pakistan’s cricketers came within a whisker of being caught up in the terrorist attack in Lahore this morning and owed their near-miss to a last-minute change of plan, according to the team’s coach. Intikhab Alam said that the captain, Younis Khan, decided not to leave for the stadium at the same time as the Sri Lankans as they had previously.

According to Alam, both teams usually departed together at about 8:40am, but that did not happen this morning. “The Sri Lankans decided to leave five minutes early today and our captain had decided we would go separately,” he said.

I find that very hard to believe.

This was a pre-planned and well executed ambush.
The timing had to right,
the target too had to be precise – the Pakistani players could not be touched.

The Pakistan team must have been held back by someone who knew -
so sending the Sri lankans alone into the ambush – they had been the intended target.

What the killers did not account for,
the grenades missing the bus or rolling under unexploded,
the driver of the bus would be alive and be able to drive the bus to safety.

Terrorists turn guns on cricket in Pakistan, a nation at war with itself

Source: Times Online | March 4, 2009

Pakistani officials have already suggested that the attack bore the hall-marks of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the militant group believed responsible for the siege of tourist hotels in Mumbai.

CCTV footage showed the gunmen, like the Mumbai attackers, working in pairs, armed with assault rifles and grenades in backpacks. But they also carried rocket-propelled grenade launchers, a weapon of choice in the Afghan and Pakistan tribal areas. Their escape, melting into the Pakistani city least hospitable to Islamist extremism, will raise fresh and disturbing questions about their links to the security and intelligence services.

Lashkar-e-Taiba is one of several militant groups created by Pakistan’s powerful Inter Services Intelligence to battle Indian rule in Kashmir.

The attacks on Mumbai and Lahore are classic “fedayin” assaults – suicidal rather suicide – taught in Lashkar’s training camps by ISI officers. What Pakistan experienced in Lahore was the backlash, deepening the sense of crisis confronting the flailing civilian Government.

If I take you back to Chris Broad’s remark that,

“we were in the middle of a roundabout and not a sign of a policeman anywhere.”

does it all seem coincidental?
not to me, it does not.

on a weekday morning at 08:40 at a busy roundabout in Lahore Pakistan
12/14 individual – fired automatic weapons – launched grenades
and escaped ON FOOT, unhurt and remains undetected

there was no presidential-style security
forget military guards or armed convoys
there is no report that the terrorists had been fired back upon,
no bodies,
no DNAs,
any possibility that they could be IDENTIFIED, DEAD OR ALIVE, like in Mumbai – had been excluded

Referee in deadly Pakistan ambush says police fled

Source: Associated Press | By RIZWAN ALI – 04 March 2009

On Wednesday, new video from a surveillance camera broadcast on local TV showed several attackers apparently escaping along a deserted side street on motorcycles while carrying weapons. Three were also shown walking down the middle of the street, apparently in no hurry, indicating they did not believe police were in the area or hunting them down.

“They were not under pressure … nobody was firing at them,” said team captain Mahela Jayawardene said.

Someone in Pakistan Military or the ISI
I clarify NOT the President or elected government -
but the pro-Taliban element in their military knew or authorised this attack.

I truly feel sorry
for the policemen, and their friends and family,
who gave their lives for the Sri Lankan players – for they were the intended collateral loss

cricketterrorismpakistan

first it was the Foreign Secretary David Milliband’s gutless statements on Kashmir.
now it is Home Secretary Jacqui Smith

as the nations economy worsens,
and the evidence of their disastrous handling of the economy continues to surface
the more they have to rely on the muslim votebank to get themselves back into power
selling the rights and freedom of everyone else…

Dutch party chief barred from UK

Financial Times | Published: February 11 2009 00:45
By Michael Steen in Amsterdam

Britain has taken the unusual step of banning a Dutch member of parliament from entering the country due to his stridently anti-Islamic views, prompting the Dutch government to protest. Geert Wilders, who heads the anti-immigration Party for Freedom, had been due to travel to London on Thursday for a screening of his film, Fitna, organised by Lord Pearson of Rannoch, a eurosceptic peer. The film criticises Islam, one of Mr Wilders’ main targets.

The Dutch foreign ministry said it “deeply regretted the decision by the British government to deny Party for Freedom leader Wilders entry to the country”. Mr Wilders told Dutch television he had received a letter from the British Embassy in The Hague informing him of a decision by Jacqui Smith, Home Secretary, to bar him for public security reasons.

To be clear, his film Fitna is to be screened in the Palace of Westminster.

Dutch MP Geert Wilders deported after flying to Britain to show anti-Islamic film

Telegraph UK | Last Updated: 6:19AM GMT 13 Feb 2009
By Christopher Hope, John Bingham and Bruno Waterfield

Geert Wilders had been invited to Westminster to show his 17-minute film Fitna, which criticises the Koran as a “fascist book”, by a member of the House of Lords.

But on Tuesday Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary refused Mr Wilders entry because his opinions “would threaten community security and therefore public security” in the UK. Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen said Holland would press for a reversal of the travel ban.

Earlier on the flight, Mr Wilders had launched a savage attack on the Government. He said: “They (the British Government) are the biggest bunch of cowards in Europe. “I’m coming because I am invited by one of your members of parliament. I’m not provocative. I am an elected political representative. I am a democrat. I use my freedom of speech. I am using all the democratic means I have.”

Mr Wilders had been due to attend a screening of Fitna, organised by Ukip peer Lord Pearson, in the Lords. Lord Pearson said the screening would go ahead yesterday “with or without Mr Wilders”. In a joint statement, he and cross-bench peer Baroness Cox said they were “promoting freedom of speech” and accused the Government of “appeasing” militant Islam.

They added: “Geert Wilders’ Fitna film, available on the web, is not a threat to anyone. It merely suggests how the Koran has been used by militant Islamists to promote and justify their violence. “They react in fury and menace to our intention to show the film and have boasted that their threats of aggressive demonstrations prevented its previous showing in the Mother of Parliaments.”

… and so the pandering for muslim votes in Britain will continue.
biggest bunch of cowards in Europe – I totally agree.

as for the non-sloppy-thinking sanctimonious readers,
the next election in britain has to be completed by 3rd June 2010

british general electionmuslim+votebank

previous articles in the british mp series:
british mp’s support for islamic terrorism

would you live in an Islamic Caliphate,
the global state that will be ruled under the Sharia Law?
the one Islamic Caliphate, that every muslims desires, yes, everyone of them,
for it is dictated by their religion.

Islam is a religion of peace, it is argued by the muslims.

then there also are many non-muslims voices,
loud in their ignorance who only would like to be seen as “liberals”
while for many unfortunates, born and living in the wrong world region, it will be all too late.

an allegation from the Indian Ahmadiyya community

Ahmadi children arrested on false charges in Pakistan

In persecution.org | Punjab News Online
Maqbool Ahmad Wednesday, 11 February 2009

QUADIAN: Ahmadiyya Muslim community in India spokesman Mohammad Nasim Khan said in a press release that five members of its community residing in Chak 172/TDA, District Layyah, Pakistan have been arrested and charged under Section 295-C of the Pakistani Penal Code. In a grave blow to any standards of decency, four of the accused are children studying at the English language ‘Superior Academy’ private school. Under the terms of Section 295-C any person found guilty is subject to either the death penalty or life imprisonment.

The four accused children are Muhammad Irfan, Tahir Imran, Tahir Mahmood and Naseeb Ahmad. There are conflicting reports regarding the exact age of the children however according to both the ‘AHRC’ and ‘The Daily Times’ their ages range between 14 and 16. Mr Mubashar Ahmad, aged 50, has also been arrested under section 295-C.

All five were taken into custody on 28 January 2009 by virtue of a police raid on each of their homes. After four hours in custody each of the accused was charged under the terms of section 295-C on the completely false grounds that they had written the name of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) on the walls of a toilet at the Jamia Gulzar-e-Medina Mosque.

The Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat urges the immediate release of the five persons imprisoned and for all charges to be dropped. In a country which seeks to promote an image of tolerance to the Western world, it speaks volumes that peace loving children have been charged with an offence that sanctions the death penalty as a sentence.

this is one of the many news feeds on this event

Presumed guilty five Ahmadis arrested in Punjab for blasphemy

Qaiser Felix – in Asia News 02/13/2009 17:47

Lahore (AsiaNews) – Five Ahmadi in Punjab’s Layyah district have been arrested on charges of blasphemy. No evidence has been presented, nor has any witness come forth. They were just detain on a “presumption of guilt,” this according to Asma Jahangir, chairperson of Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) and United Nations Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion. For this reason she has called on the government to take prompt measures to prevent abuses of the law.

For Islamic fundamentalists the Ahmadis are a heretical sect that cannot claim to be Muslim because they do not recognise Muhammad as the final prophet. Because of this they have suffered persecution in Pakistan but also in Bangladesh and Indonesia.

This particular incident began when five Ahmadi students, who had been duly authorised to pray in the local mosque, were told not to come back to the holy place. With such a threat hanging over their heads, the five men were accused ten days later of scribbling offensive graffiti on the walls of the mosque’s bathroom. According to the official complaint filed against them, since they were the only non-Muslims in the mosque, “only they could be responsible for the offence.”

the eternal price of not being muslims in an Islamic republic – to be “guilty by presumption”.

but does the world care about the Ahmadis?

2005.

Pakistan: Killing of Ahmadis continues amid impunity

AI Index: ASA 33/028/2005 (Public) | News Service No: 271
Public Statement – Amnesty International: 11 October 2005

Police investigations of previous targeted killings of Ahmadis in Pakistan have been slow or have not taken place at all. In many cases the perpetrators have not been brought to justice. Amnesty International believes that the government’s consistent failure to investigate attacks and killings of members of religious minorities fails to discourage further human rights abuses against such groups. The right to freedom of religion, as laid down in the Pakistani constitution and in international human rights law, must be made a reality for all religious minorities in Pakistan.

Over the years Amnesty International has been informed of numerous targeted killings of Ahmadis, usually carried out with impunity. In some cases, the targeted Ahmadis themselves were subjected to criminal charges. In one incident in October 2000, eight Ahmadis were murdered in the village of Ghatialian, Sialkot district, in an incident similar to that of 7 October 2005.

In October 2000 gunmen opened fire on Ahmadis while they were gathered at a mosque for worship. Five Ahmadis who witnessed the attack and reported the incident to the police, along with 21 other Ahmadis, were arrested and many of them are still serving life sentences for what Amnesty International believes to be false charges. None of the gunmen were ever arrested or brought to justice.

A report by the Amnesty International
of the mockery of Human Rights of religious minorities in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

2007

And then there was from the Human Rights Watch:

Pakistan: Pandering to Extremists Fuels Persecution of Ahmadis

Government Must Repeal ‘Blasphemy Law’ and End Persecution of Religious Minority
Human Rights Watch | May 5, 2007

The Pakistani government should stop pandering to Islamist extremist groups that foment harassment and violence against the minority Ahmadiyya religious community, Human Rights Watch said today.

Human Rights Watch called on the government of President General Pervez Musharraf to repeal laws that discriminate against religious minorities such as the Ahmadis, including the penal statute that makes capital punishment mandatory for “blasphemy.”

The persecution of the Ahmadiyya community is wholly legalized, even encouraged, by the Pakistani government. Pakistan’s penal code explicitly discriminates against religious minorities and targets Ahmadis in particular by prohibiting them from “indirectly or directly posing as a Muslim.” Ahmadis are prohibited from declaring or propagating their faith publicly, building mosques, or making the call for Muslim prayer.

Pakistan’s “Blasphemy Law,” as Section 295-C of the Penal Code is known, makes the death penalty mandatory for blasphemy. Under this law, the Ahmadi belief in the prophethood of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad is considered blasphemous insofar as it “defiles the name of Prophet Muhammad.”

This is February 2009

where is the voice of the “moderate muslims”?

SITUATION IN DISTRICT LAYYAH WORSENS

In persecution.org | Punjab News Online
Maqbool Ahmad Wednesday, 10 February 2009

Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamat spokesman Mohammad Nasim Khan said in a press release today that the Human Rights situation of its members in District Layyah, Pakistan is worsening. The five Ahmadis, who include four children, arrested on 28 January 2009 remain in police custody. They are not being allowed to meet with any persons, in direct contravention to the provisions laid forth in Article 37 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child to which Pakistan is party.

In a further worrying move the local Mullahs have announced that a large scale rally will be held at Chak TDA/172 in opposition to the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat. It is more than likely that this event will be used to incite hatred against the Jamaat and to urge people to act against Ahmadis. The organisers of this event are inviting people from nearby cities such as Dera Isamael Khan and Muzafergarh to take part in this rally. The local authorities and police are seriously concerned about the event which they fear they will be unable to control.

Ahmadi Muslims throughout the world are urged to write to their local media and officials in protest of what is happening in District Layyah. The International Community is once again urged to take immediate action.

where are the loud mouth noseycows?

ahmadiyyaspakistanislamic caliphate

Previous articles in this series:
in an islamic caliphate: would you live in one
in an islamic caliphate: what rights the Zarminas?

i stumbled back on this song from the

flower power days
when some had the courage to stand up and say no more to violence
when to bring change needed courage and sacrifice
not the sanctimonious voices

younger generation – john sebastian at woodstock

why must every generation think they’re folks are square
and no matter where they’re heads are, they know mom’s aint there.
cause’ I swore when I was small, that I’d remember when
i knew what’s wrong with them that I was smaller then

determined to remember all the cardinal rules
like sunshowers are legal grounds for skipping school
i know I have forgotten maybe one or two
and I hope that I recall them all before the baby’s due
and I’ll know he’ll have a question or two

like hey pop can I go ride my zoom
it goes twohundred miles an hour, suspended on balloons
and can I put a droplet of this new stuff on my tongue
and imagine frothing dragons, while you sit and wreck your lungs
and I must be permissive understanding of the younger generation

and then I know that all I’ve learned my kid assumes
and all my deepest worries must be his cartoons
and still I’ll try to tell him all the things I’ve done
relating to what he can do when he becomes a man
and still he’ll stick his fingers in the fan

and hey pop my girlfriend’s only three
she’s got her own bitty phone
and she is taking lsd
and now that we’re best friends she want’s to give a taste of me
but whats the matter daddy how come you’re looking mean
can it be that you can’t live up to your dreams

40 years and more has gone by, do we even care
what kind of a world we leave behind for the future generations
a world where they still will have to fight for their equal rights, if any at all

not one we can be proud of

[flowerpower: 1967 photograph of George Edgerly Harris III by Bernie Boston]

yes, I write against a religion that
denies the equality and the fundamental rights of every human individual,
denies the freedom to practise any religion other than its own

my views on such religion on this blogs have been criticised

it has also brought criticism of my personal self
a few week ago I was asked by someone calling herself noseycow

If you are a physician, how do you reconcile your intense hatred of any Muslim with your oathe to give each INDIVIDUAL patient your best care?

This is how, noseycows

An incident known to only three individuals; unreported untold –
till now.

I had finished my rotation of senior housejobs and had entered the postgraduate surgical residency. Of the many speciality I had worked through in my rotation, I had come to like paediatric surgery the most.

A speciality not sought after by the young surgical aspirants in the 80s. As with many others, the department was underfunded and understaffed. Led by a consultant dedicated to his work, but not supported by the management. Since starting my residency, I had volunteered many of my off duty hours to work in his wards, scrub up with him in the theatre; for no reason other than it gave a meaning to my life at the time.

I was no longer on the paediatric surgery rota, when one night on my way back from a callout to one of my own patients I was stopped by a wardboy with a callbook. There were no pagers in our hospital in those days. Doctors were called for emergencies by handwritten messages in a ‘call book’, the ‘wardboys’ were sent out to find the doctors in their usual hideouts. The outcome of the emergencies relying how quickly the wardboys could track down the doctors.

That night there was an emergency in the paediatric surgical ward. The houseman needed help, he was too scared to call the consultant at home. He had sent out the ‘callbook’ to me in desperation. Not realising I was no longer in paediatrics and the list on the wall was long outdated.

It was well after midnight. but I have never refused a call.
I went up to the ward. There was an infant, a girl with intestinal obstruction in a state of shock. She was desperately ill, but we had no intensive care units in the hospital.

The houseman was new, on a rotation from the paediatric department. His instructions from his seniors the evening before was to try and resuscitate the child. An emergency operation had been booked for the next morning, provided the child survived the night and was accepted for theatre by the anaesthetists.

And if blood for transfusion could be made available.
Getting blood for transfusion was always the responsibility of the patients’ ‘party’. The parents, the friends, the relatives or the children; whoever would be around for the doctor to hand over the sample and the requisition slip. This little girl only had her parents.

We were the only hospital in the city with a nationalised bloodbank. But they had run out of stocks of her bloodgroup as they claimed. The option left was for the parents to donate themselves or to buy units from one of the many privatised bloodbanks.

The young parents were very poor, from a rural district of Bengal they knew no one in the city. They had somehow scraped the railfare to come to the city hospital. To buy even a single unit of blood was beyond their means. In those days I was no richer and even had I wanted to, I could not offer them any money.

Would they donate themselves?
No, the mother thought it would kill them.
No, the father said it would be against their religion.
They were muslims, they could not be forced to donate nor would they ‘buy’ blood for transfusion.
Their religion came first; they decided to accept the inevitable, they had three other children and the child who was still alive was given up for dead.

The child was the same bloodgroup as I. But I was intensely needlephobic.
The young girl was indeed doomed. Besides it would be a bad precedence if a doctor was to donate his own blood for the treatment of patients.

I do not know what made me go down to the bloodbank and convince the medical officer to be gentle with the needle. One unit of my blood was enough for three baby transfusions. It was not uncommon for rare blood groups to become “lost in transit”, I myself brought them up to the ward with me so it would not go missing and so that no one would know except that houseman of course. I had sworn him to secrecy.

We started transfusing the first unit and still had two more for the theatre. It was almost dawn when I went off to bed. I was too tired to think of the ifs and whys of what I had done.

I was in theatre the next morning with my own unit. My professor called me to say the consultant in the paediatric theatre wanted to see me and I was excused from the rest of our theatre list. My heart sank. I knew it had to do with the incidents of the night. On my way over I thought of various excuses to justify myself.

When I reached, the consultant simply said he had a very sick child he was going to operate on, would I scrub up with him. In relief I agreed. We discussed only the possibilities and prognosis as we scrubbed.

Yes, it was that same little girl.
She had survived the night. And another unit of transfusion had been started.

We prepped and draped the tiny figure in silence. The consultant surprised us all by asking me to swap sides, informed the anaesthetists that I would be the surgeon and for the very first time, handed me the knife.

It was a small gut volvulus, a segment of the intestine was strangulated as was anticipated. I resected it out and anastomosed the healthy ends. Everytime I looked up I saw the blood transfusion trickling in. Only I in that room knew it was my blood.

We did get her safely back to the ward.
As we left the operating theatre, the consultant stopped and shook my hands and thanked me for what I had done the night before. He had known, the house officer had felt compelled to inform him. We never discussed it again.

Whenever I could, I went up to check on the girls progress. I was just another doctor doing a round. One day her bed was empty. She had been discharged home.

I do not know what kind of a life I helped her return to.
I do not know if that little girl survived to even reach her teens.

What I learnt for myself that night was being the doctor we are often the last person who can make that difference between a patient’s life and death. As long as there is a heartbeat, as long as there is an output, it is our responsibility to do everything we can to save that life.

That is how we do it.
That is how I do it, regardless of the race, colour, religion, nationality of my patients.
I have accepted the responsibility, and I am prepared to go beyond the call of duty, everytime.

She would be 24 years old this year.

(I was born to hindu brahmin parents)

i have had the misfortune of being visited by one,
who has tried his/her pathetic best to use a play of words to divert from the point I make

as is a norm on this site,
I bring my response to that comment onto the mainpage,
so that it does not get obscured within the binary…

@ duncanr

you are being fastidious about my usage of the words “election year” because you obviously do not have any other arguments against what I have written.

To make it clear, so it sinks into your “non-sloppy” sanctimonious thinking:
a British PM can call an election at anytime of his term.
Under the provisions of the Septennial Act 1715 as amended by the Parliament Act 1911, the next United Kingdom general election must be held on or before Thursday 3 June 2010 – so Gordon Brown HAS TO call that election within the next 16 months – by 3rd June 2010 to be exact.

It is of no consequence whether 2009 has yet not been declared as “the election year” to the public – David Milliband, an individual with high ambitions of his own political future, himself must know when the election will be held – and when he needs to start “pandering” to the muslim votebanks.

Even with your fastidious diversionary argument – you cannot rule out a call for an election AT ANY TIME WITHIN THE NEXT SIXTEEN MONTHS. And if an election does take place before midnight, 31st December 2009 – consider your butt well and truly kicked.

My perspectives are clear – biased? perhaps.
what you are trying is a clever way of avoiding to declare that muslim perspectives too are deeply biased.

You may call yourself an aethist, I expected you would,
that is the another clever/cheap way of avoiding to declare what religion you were born into.
Declaring yourself an aethist does not exclude any bias in your thinking
it is THE PERFECT WAY of concealing a bias based on religion.

Besides NO ONE born into Islam can ever be an aethist.
Is it not, under the Islamic law (sharia), the male apostate must be put to death unless he suffers from a mental disorder or converted under duress and a female apostate must be either executed, or imprisoned until she reverts to Islam.

I stand my ground,
with an election that HAS TO be declared at ANYTIME and CONCLUDED before 3rd JUNE 2010, it is now ESSENTIAL FOR BRITISH MPs TO PANDER TO MUSLIM VOTERS.

Milliband does not dare talk of Israel giving independence to Palestine - he may be a moron, but has just enough neurones to realise that will be the end of his political career. the easy option was to score cheap points by talking Kashmir.

It is ironic,
in the name of democracy, the world has to suffer MPs pandering to a religion to get their votes
when that religion itself does not believe in democracy.

Sloppy thinking? My readers will judge that.
But it has more value than what you dish out day after day on your own website.
It takes a lot more than your diversionary attempts under the pretence of being “fastidious” to try and disprove or discredit what I write.

I do not publish cowardly diversionary arguments here.
Any further arguments that YOU may have – dish them out on your site.

this individual serves his non-sloppy thoughts at a mad tea party
please visit: a display of intelligence as you may never have perceived before

and why not,
Pakistan is far from home,
if the Pakistanis are killing Indians in India, its no problem for the Brits.

David Miliband comments on Kashmir welcomed by ‘terrorist’ group

By Dean Nelson in New Delhi – Last Updated: 12:46PM GMT 18 Jan 2009

The radical Muslim group linked to the Mumbai attacks has welcomed Foreign Secretary David Miliband’s call for India and Pakistan to resolve their dispute over Kashmir.

Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), which is said to have been behind the terror assault in which more than 170 people died, has backed comments he made last week during a trip to the region.

In an article ahead of his visit to India last week, the foreign secretary said the ‘war on terror’ had been mistaken and that individual groups like LeT should be targeted and brought to justice. But solving the Kashmir issue would deny LeT its ‘call to arms’ and free Pakistan to fight al-Qaeda and Taliban militants in its tribal areas.

“Although I understand the current difficulties, resolution of the dispute over Kashmir would help deny extremists in the region one of their main calls to arms, and allow Pakistani authorities to focus more effectively on tackling the threat on their western borders,” he said.

The statement will cause further discomfort for Mr Miliband after India reacted angrily to his ‘interference’ in the issue and senior politicians branded his trip a ‘disaster’.

besides it is the election year,
and his party has to start pandering to the muslim voters in Britain.

is this individual fit to be a foreign secretary?

he has no knowledge of history
he has no knowledge of what constitutes terrorism
he has no knowledge of the cause and progress of the conflict in Kashmir

does this moron know that the Instrument of Accession
by which India came to control the princely state Jammu and Kashmir
which includes Jammu, Kashmir, Northern Areas, Ladakh and Aksai Chin was accepted
by Governor General of India, Lord Mountbatten, a British?

can he answer why in 1947 the Pakistani Army invaded Kashmir?
why Pakistan, in blatant disregard of UN orders continue to occupy Kashmir since 1948?

can he answer why Pakistan has waged wars on India
the latest being in Kargil 1999, masterminded by the ally of the west, criminal Musharraf?

Pakistan has no legal rights on Kashmir,
they have dug their greedy evil claws into the land that has never been their’s

Pakistan has for 60 years fought proxy wars through the “islamic militants”
by “terrorising” Kashmir and India.

what this moron has called for is to give into Pakistani terrorism,

and the reason why?

solving the Kashmir issue would deny LeT its ‘call to arms’ and free Pakistan to fight al-Qaeda and Taliban militants in its tribal areas.

exactly what Pakistan has been blackmailing the world they would do, since the mumbai killings

this is simply for his, for the British and the West’s selfish convenience

George Bush and Tony Blair has so glaringly proved they may be world leaders of the first world west, but when it comes to brains, even the goldfish packs more neuronal power in their pinhead calvaria than these ‘educated’ idiots

these cowards are too worried of keeping their muslim vote banks intact, that they will remain
in a perpetual faked denial that Pakistan the state is not involved in terrorism in India

I have come to recognise this as the “simple white christian married mother of three” syndrome

the loud mouths with little knowledge,
and scant regards for those who are being terrorised by muslims far away from home

is he going to say
the same to the jews in Israel?
tell the Americans to pull out of Saudi Arabia?
did his Britain give into the Irish call for an independent Irish State?
was it not his party and government that invaded Iraq for their own convenience?

oh, no. this is about India,
and why should a British MP give a toss for the welfare of a third world state?

this is about double standards, a familiar stench in the west.
till 9/11s and 7/7s hits their own people

foot in mouth Mr Milliband?
let me help you place it in the only appropriate spot of your anatomy

would you live in an Islamic Caliphate,
the global state that will be ruled under the Sharia Law?
the one Islamic Caliphate, that every muslims desires, yes, everyone of them,
for it is dictated by their religion.

The image is a link to a video clip
It has left me with speechless anger since I first saw it on Channel 4.
Do not open if you get upset by violence – this is extremely disturbing.

Public Execution of an Afghan Woman (Zarmeena) by Taliban

Kabul Ghazi Sports Stadium, Nov.16,1999

Movie clips from a video film by RAWA which was aired by Channel 4 (UK)

Every time I see this, I can only think of the state of the woman’s mind when left tied and helpless on the ground, blindfolded, knowing there was to be a bullet through her head.

Look at the spurt of dust where the bullet hits the ground.
A chilling reminder it is not a movie, this is real.

Her crime?
Read the original RAWA text,
RAWA: Revolutionary Association of Women from Afghanistan

ZARMINA’S STORY

The Mirror , June 20, 2002 | From Anton Antonowicz In Kabul

MILLIONS of people have watched this woman die. Yet none saw her face.

Only a handful of people know the real story which led to 35-year-old Zarmina being executed on the penalty spot in Kabul’s Olympic Stadium in Afghanistan.

The image of this mother of five children being driven to her death in a Toyota pick-up for the crime of killing her husband shocked the world. This anonymous woman being dragged across the pitch in front of 30,000 spectators and being made to kneel before the goalposts until the tall, thin Taliban rifleman blew out her brains.

The scene was recorded with a hidden video camera and smuggled into Pakistan by the brave women of RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of Women from Afghanistan. Later, it marked the opening scenes of Beneath the Veil, Channel 4’s award-winning documentary of life inside Afghanistan under the fanatical Taliban.

Here was the truth of life in a nation wracked by 23 years of war yet largely ignored until that day. When the Mirror first published photographs of Zarmina’s death in June last year we were inundated by calls and letters from readers. Few knew of real life under the regime which came to power in 1996.

September 11 changed all that.

But one, simple question remained unanswered.
One which obsessed me from the moment I first saw that secret footage in spring last year. If the claim that Zarmina had murdered her husband was true, what was the desperation, knowing the Taliban’s brutality, which ultimately led her to her death? And what, if anything, did it tell us about the life of women under the fanatics’ yoke?

These were the questions which took me to Afghanistan. To a secret rendezvous. To a filthy prison. To a cemetery. To houses where doors slammed in my face. Where men with guns threatened to kill me if I continued asking questions.

FINALLY, last Friday, a thin airmail letter arrived on my desk, post-marked April 6.

It contained three pages of green biro notes ripped from a school exercise book, confirming details which myself and colleague Tom Newton Dunn discovered during two separate Afghan assignments. It also held a tiny photograph, the size of a thumbnail, from a police file – the face of Zarmina, the woman beneath the veil.

The letter came from a young “fixer” I hired in Kabul. It followed a meeting I had arranged with a woman police inspector who had promised that somehow she would ensure Zarmina’s real story was told. Rana Sayeed works at the central police station in Kabul. It was sheer chance that we first found her on a rain-lashed day in late February standing at the entrance to the women’s jail.

Rana, a mother in her late 40s, appeared different from most Afghan women. She did not wear a burka. Her manner was loud and confident. She spoke of her training as a detective and told how she was sent to Moscow by Afghanistan’s former Soviet puppet regime.

Rana said she had been a police officer for some 20 years. “Even the Taliban needed some women to apply law and order,” she said, suddenly lowering and shaking her head. “Even the Taliban…” She took us across the mud-caked compound into the charred basement of the police HQ.

The room held two desks and one old typewriter. The air was still heavy with the stench of smoke from hundreds of fires the Taliban started in Kabul before they fled. She asked us to wait until her boss gave her clearance. When eventually the newly-appointed chief of Kabul’s police told her to give us every assistance, she began.

“At last Zarmina’s story can be told,” she said. “It is the story of one woman. But it is also the story of Afghan women under the Taliban, under brutes who turned our country into a zoo and our women into dogs. “I thought Zarmina would die when they brought her here. They beat her for two days with steel cables until she confessed.

“But she was a tough one. As she lay on the floor of the cell, she pointed to her one-year-old twins – the girl Silsila and the boy Jawad – and said she would fight for life, fight as the mother of these babies.

“There were other children. Zarmina had a son Hawad, who was 11, and two beautiful daughters Shaista, 14, and Najeba just 16. “It was her love for all of them which drove her to do what she did. The tragedy is that it made life a thousand times worse for them.”

Zarmina, from northern Kabul, was married at 16. It was an arranged union but blossomed into love. She was an attractive, feisty woman. Her Pashtun husband, Alauddin Khwazak, from the village of Paghman an hour’s drive away, was a policeman who also owned a small general store.

It was a marriage which flowered in the face of war and seemed at first to survive the violence in Kabul. But almost imperceptibly, perhaps inevitably, the relationship began to fall apart. Relentless bloodshed changed everyone. And it destroyed Zarmina’s husband. The bombings, mass rapes, and murders brutalised Khwazak’s mind, infecting it with an insidious poison.

A NEIGHBOUR told me: “He had been a mild man but slowly he turned into a monster. Perhaps, as a policeman, he had seen too much. “He’d rage. He became violent. He was mad with jealousy, convinced that Zarmina was seeing other men. It was rubbish. But his head was wrapped in madness.”

When the Taliban took control of Kabul in September, 1996, they effectively handed Khwazak a licence for that madness. For these fundamentalist “students” from the south, Kabul was Satan’s playground. A place where women were allowed to wear miniskirts and attend high school and university. A world of sin.

Women had no rights in Taliban Afghanistan. They existed only to obey. They were drones to bear children, cook and satisfy men. They were lashed for their high heels, had their fingertips amputated for revealing varnish and and were stoned to death for prostitution. Two women charged with adultery were hanged from a crane. A boy of 10 was given a gun to shoot his father’s killer and a girl of seven whipped for wearing white shoes.

Girls were forbidden to attend school and summary justice wrapped in a medieval robe was the creed. Ruthless in pursuit of purity and perfect proof that no crime is too awful if justified by religious belief. Khwazak’s moods matched the new doctrine. His brother, a dour and unforgiving man, hailed the Taliban’s fundamentalism and fed his sibling’s fevered brain.

Rana said: “Khwazak beat his wife every night. He abused her and her elder daughters. I don’t know if there was sexual abuse, but it was something Zarmina could no longer bear. So she plotted with Najeba to kill him. And finally they did it.”

The murder was carried out early one summer night five years ago. Some say Zarmina put opium in Khwazak’s food. Rana says she laced his meal with sleeping pills. As he fell into a drugged sleep Zarmina woke her daughter. Rana said: “She told me that there, at the final moment, she couldn’t do it.”

It was Najeba who took the 10lb mason’s hammer and killed her father with one blow to the head. Rana said: “They ran from the house screaming that robbers had broken in and attacked Khwazak. They said the men were ’shadows in the night’. “Some believed them, others weren’t so sure. Zarmina’s brother-in-law was the first to accuse and called the Taliban.

“They never found the hammer, but they got their confession. That was all that mattered.

“Zarmina said she was the murderer. That she acted alone. She stuck to that story all the time she was tortured. It was only two years later when she knew me well that she admitted the truth. And I wasn’t going to tell anyone.”

ZARMINA was taken to the central jail and held there with her twins for nearly three years. Sometimes her mother would come with food. But she condemned her daughter for bringing shame on all of them and said she hated her. She told Zarmina other women in jail would kill her. Yet it was those prisoners who helped keep her and her children alive.

Rana went on: “They’d give them scraps. I gave her a few blankets. Somehow she stayed alive.
“She was a brave woman and fought desperately against her fears. She told the Taliban she was a mother and that what she’d done was for her children.”

Rana said: “She asked what would happen to her children without a mother? She pleaded with them to lash her and let her go to tend her precious kids. “She had dreams in which her husband appeared. Then she said she knew she would die.”

Zarmina’s elder girls and son were given to her brother-in-law, according to tradition. He was Taliban and demanded blood law refusing to let her escape death. Then, two months before the execution, he told Zarmina’s mother he had sold Najeba and Shaista into sex slavery.

“That nearly killed Zarmina,” said Rana. “Everything she’d done was for her children. Now it had taken her girls to a living hell. “The brother-in-law even made sure she knew the price, 600,000 Pakistani rupees for Najeba and 300,000 for Shaista. Sold to a man from Khost.”

Khost, seven hours south east of Kabul on the Pakistani border, is a name which echoes loud. The city was a Taliban stronghold. The place where al-Qaeda had its main training camp and the tunnels from which Osama bin Laden issued his fatwa to kill Americans and their allies.

“Zarmina beat herself, smashed her head against the jail wall,” said Rana. “Of course her daughters were sold to Taliban, but who? To Afghans? To fanatics? To bin Laden? She knew she’d never see them again.”

Then, on November 15, 1999, the radio announced there would be an execution in two days time. Zarmina knew nothing of this. She had spent nearly three years in jail and knew there would be punishment. But still she convinced herself they would not kill a mother.

EVEN when the guards came for her she said she expected to face 100 lashes, but no more. She put on three dresses – two borrowed – underneath her burka, hoping they would soften the blows. Rana said: “I was ordered to accompany her with two women police officers. “We climbed into the pick-up with her and prayed together. I couldn’t stand it. I left before the truck entered the stadium.

‘And I’ll tell you that after what happened next, those two colleagues never worked again. One had a nervous breakdown. The other is plagued by nightmares to this day.” As the stadium crowd settled, an announcer described what was to happen: “Zarmina, daughter of Ghulam Hasnat, is to be executed for killing her husband with a hammer.”

He falsely said the murder happened “five months ago”. But the truth would not have fitted the Taliban creed of swift justice. The reality was that her execution was delayed until a premium price was haggled and paid for her virgin daughters.

The video takes over. It first shows the Toyota twice circling the pitch, the driver parading his passenger before the spectators. Zarmina, flanked by her two female escorts, sees little. Surgeons in masks stand to one side, ready for amputations which will follow the main event.

The next clip shows the two women guards escorting Zarmina to the goal area. She is told to sit. For the first time, the crowd of men, women and children falls silent. Slowly a tall Taliban steps forward. Zarmina tries to crawl away. What is not shown is the first shot.

The executioner’s hands are shaking. The cries from the crowd to spare Zarmina unnerve him. Officials refuse all pleas for clemency. They claimed there were too many in the crowd who wanted to see death.

The first shot creases Zarmina’s hair telling her at last what her fate would be. Her precious children brought for the spectacle can only stand and stare. Zarmina cries out. She says she cannot sit or kneel without falling. “Someone take my arms,” she pleads.

Her last request went unanswered. The gunman aimed his Kalashnikov again. And Zarmina was dead from a single 7.62mm bullet. The executioner turned away, blood law sated. He was Zarmina’s brother-in-law. The man who sold her precious girls. The man who, Rana is sure, escaped to Pakistan with so many others. A man with money in his pocket.

ZARMINA’S body was taken to the Wazir Akbar Khan hospital. Her body lay unclaimed in the mortuary for 20 days. Her mother, Shah Sultan, refused any responsibility, telling Rana: “She brought shame. She deserved what she got. She is not even a memory to me.”

Zarmina was buried in an unmarked grave 300 yards from her unforgiving mother’s home. Rana took me to the cemetery in Khair Khana, in District 11, north Kabul. She stayed in the car while I tried to find the grave. She said it was safer that way. That locals might object to her being in the company of foreign men. The gravediggers denied any knowledge of the executed woman. One man produced a gun and told myself and photographer Phil Spencer we had no business there.

Then a young fellow, perhaps 20 and dressed in a red blazer, drew up on his bike. “I know what you are looking for,” he said. “Everyone knows about Zarmina. They don’t want trouble. They don’t want reminding. But they are ashamed of what happened to that woman and her girls.”

People know when a wrong has been done. But there was palpable fear that Afghanistan’s turmoil would once again overwhelm them. That the Taliban were all around. That they would return and exact vengeance upon anyone who might now question their actions.

The cyclist ignored those fears. He led us through the cemetery. A stark moonscape of a place. So little colour. So much misery. So many newly dead. Just scores of the thousands who died young in an incessant war. My guide pointed out a mound with two stones facing each other flat on. The positioning meant it was a woman’s grave.

But there was nothing else to determine whose it was. Just the anger of the gunman and other armed men nearby, the embarrassed faces of the gravediggers and the cyclist pointing and saying “This is Zarmina”.

He refused my offer of money, saying “It is time Zarmina’s story was told.” And of course there are so many of these stories to be told. “There were so many nightmares here,” Rana said as we drove to The Herat, Kabul’s best restaurant. The place is little better than a greasy spoon. But Rana would not enter.

“It’s OK. You go, you sit. Just ask them to bring me some food in the car.” That is how it still is in Afghanistan. The Taliban and their al-Qaeda allies may be put to rout but still women’s rights are hardly a footnote on the agenda. WE speak to a beggar woman by the restaurant door. She has three children all under five. Her husband is dead. She tells me life should be better now. She receives about 50p a day.

She says all this through her burka. A Pushtun barges through the crowd, bends over her and strikes her head. “Get lost, you whore-bitch!” he shouts. And the woman scrambles away with her children. I ask Bashir, our “fixer”, why he did that. Was he related to the woman? “No. He’s just a Taliban type. Any woman is ripe for a beating. They don’t need an excuse.”

We ate with Rana in the car. She said: “I remember another stadium execution where the man had 10 bullets in his body. His victim’s family took turns to shoot him. “I remember a woman the Taliban accused of having a walkie-talkie. There were 16 of them beating her with cable wires until she pissed blood. All the time they made sure her head and face were covered so they should not be tempted by her looks.

“I tell you I thank God for September 11. Not for the innocent deaths. But, without that day, we’d still be treated like animals. “The whole place was run by Pakistanis and Arabs. No one dared say anything against them.

“It was the same the day Zarmina died. Everyone knew she did not deserve to die. But nobody said anything. Nobody dared.” Now some do dare to speak. Rana and Zarmina’s neighbours tell me the twins, now six, and their brother Hawad,16, have been cast adrift.

Unwanted by their fleeing uncle. Unacknowledged by their grandmother. They beg, they rag-pick at the local dumps. But nothing has been seen of Najeba and Shaista. Five children all lost because of a mother’s desperation to give them a better life. “Yes,” Rana repeated, “Zarmina’s story must be told.” So, with that photograph arriving on my desk last week, it has been told. It cannot be the whole truth but from what we have found and checked, it is nothing but the truth.

The story of a woman beneath veils of violence, madness and terrible sadness. A woman so many saw die. But never knew how she had lived.

Now to wait for the hypocrites to queue up to say this is western propaganda, it is not.

This is Taliban.
This is the Taliban, that Pervez Musharraf vowed to save.
This is Islam unfettered and unchecked,
like it had been for centuries, where no one enforces an individuals’ human rights.
This is the Shariya Law that a proud fundamentalist here said
would be beneficial for humanity, for the whole world.

islamic caliphateshariya lawtalibans

from the party that will do or say anything to keep their muslim vote bank intact.
the voice of the pseudosecularist, negationist-in-chief, the Indian National Congress,

Term ‘Islamic terrorism’ wrong : Pranab

Press Trust of India | Kolkata, Dec 29 (PTI)

Describing as “unacceptable” the term ‘Islamic terrorism’, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee today said a “disinformation campaign” has been launched to vitiate the atmosphere and asked the people to protest it.

“Not only is this expression Islamic terrorism unacceptable, there should be protest against it. Islam has nothing to do with terrorism. The patriotism of Muslims is no less than others in the country,” Mukherjee told a programme to mark 200 years of the Bengali translation of the Quran here.

He said deliberate attempts were being made to vitiate the atmosphere but Islam, which preached love and communal harmony, was against terrorism. “Terrorism is against humanity.” He said universal brotherhood was the basis of Islam which attracted people all over the world to it.

Mukherjee said that after 9/11, people in Europe and US coined the phrase ‘Islamic terrorism’ and tried to project it was a conflict between Islamic and Christian civilisations. Challenging those who described Islam as a religion of fundamentalists, Mukherjee asked them to show which part of the Holy Book encouraged fundamentalism. PTI

through the hypocrisy of a Pranab Mukherjee

Minister for External Affairs of India
Constituency: Jangipur in West Bengal
one of the 12 constituencies (out of entire 543 Parliamentary seats) with a Muslims majority.

and what was he doing when he made the statement?
he was attending a programme to mark a bengali translation of Quran,
it does not take two brain cells to recognise who his audience were.

not to create an universal brotherhood you moron,
but to terrorise the world to accept the islamic caliphate, the ummah wahida
this is what an Islamic scholar and thinker Maulana Wahiduddin Khan himself has admitted
“Muslims have gained nothing from terrorism”

you moron,
it is not only a conflict between Islam and Christians,
it is a conflict between Islam and Jews and Hindus and every other religion.

If India was their target,
why did the 10 spawns of evil that came over on 26/11 kill innocent Jews?

does this moron at all know who are or why they are the Taliban’s
does this moron know what is the ultimate aim of the AlQaeda?
does this moron know what religion are the Lashkar-e-Taiba
those that trained the 10 killers that landed on mumbai?

muslims practice religious tolerance?
is this moron aware that muslims do not accept the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?
that they set out their own version in cairo 1990 – a declaration that does not guarantee EQUAL RIGHTS, but merely EQUAL DIGNITY
above all does not give a guarantee of FREEDOM OF RELIGION?
does this moron need a bigger proof of religious intolerance?

does this moron know the concept of Islamic Ummah or the Caliphate?
to have the entire world under the sharia law?
would this moron himself convert to Islam?
or live life of a ‘dhimmi’ – a second class citizen and forced to pay a ‘jizya’ tax?

does this moron think Ajmal Amir Kasab is a hindu? a christian? a jew?
or was Md Atta? or Mr Osama bin Laden or Abu Musab al-Zarqawi?

do they learn to hate and to kill in a catholic school or the madrassa?
did they kill in the name of Christ? or Buddha? or the 33 crore hindu gods and goddeses?

above all, does this moron know of the existence of the verses of Islamic laws of Jihad?
- that directs jihad against the rejecters (non – believers) of “truth after it has become evident to them”

for a minister to challenge that islam is a religion of fundamentalist, beggars belief.

come to my website you shameless hypocrite,
I have a verbal diarrhoea from a muslim fundamentalist that says it is.
proud to be a muslim fundamentalist, shat he.

islamic terrorism: a fundamentalist finds justification

3. I am proud to be a Muslim fundamentalist
I am a fundamentalist Muslim who, by the grace of Allah, knows, follows and strives to practise the fundamentals of Islam. A true Muslim does not shy away from being a fundamentalist. I am proud to be a fundamentalist Muslim because, I know that the fundamentals of Islam are beneficial to humanity and the whole world.

to accept and perpetuate the propaganda that Islam is a religion of peace
to appease his muslim vote bank, stinks of disgusting hypocrisy

it is an insult to every soul that died to the “cause for Islam” for centuries.

it is a national disgrace that the Minister for Foreign Affairs can so blatantly support
and broadcast the very propaganda that the “moderate muslims” would like to hide behind today.

with ministers like this,
India might as well lay down out the redcarpet to the next wave of terrorists
till someone in his own family gets a bullet through the head,
ONLY THEN he will confirm what he really believes.

Mr Mukherjee, and a nation that elects him,
deserves to be terrorised.

my previous article was based on facts
none of my points are fiction
the events of Mumbai is no tolkein fantasy
the chain of events has no definition other than terrorism

the one terrorist caught alive and has confirmed his nationality,
he has given details of his training, the orders he was given and the way he executed it

The hard facts are,
173 people were killed and 308 injured by 10 Pakistani muslims

these are no extras in a film set, they are very real,
killers doped with cocaine and sent to kill innocent indians, british and jews.

regardless of the rights and wrongs it is cannot be disputed that no other religion is in anyway linked to THIS meaningless act of violence but Islam.

I am yet to come across a “moderate muslim” who has accepted these facts of this attack.
not one will hold up their hand and have the honesty to accept the truth.
or admit that it was committed in the name of Islam.

it has been finger pointings elswheres
excuses, after excuses and theories and anecdotes.
this is the primary reason why there will never be an end to terrorist killings by muslims.

This is a response to the comment left on my last post.

A comment by Naj,

While i am fully aware of how fanatics may interpret Quran to promote violence, I disagree with you that Islam IS the root cause of violence. Jihad is the political umbrella which is abused by the war mongers … war mongers, irrespective of religion, capitalize on IDIOCY of those whom they can brainwash …

A few years ago, Indians of one cult brought down an Air India flight carrying Indians of another cult … a few years ago, I saw a documentary by Anand Patwardhan, I don’t remember the film but it was footage from an Indian Nationalist rally, where the speaker was preaching Indian Supremacy, and how they couldn’t wait to take revenge in the “white” men who had subjugated them for so long … he was praising the nuclear achievements and technological advancements of India, professing “revenge” …

Such idiocracy is NOT particular to Muslims … it is universal and it is motivated by shadowy figures who stand to gain in a very material and tangible way from the intangible faith of the idiots …

My article is based on the global concept that Islamic terrorism is a reality.

I first clarify that
1.I did not say Islam is the root cause of all violence, I have said that if it is Islamic terrorism then the root cause of it can only be Islam, NOT poverty.
2. the idiots I refer to in my article are the GW Bushes and G Browns of this world who have created a frankenstein next door to us.

I do not judge the rights and wrongs of any religious extremism, what disgusts me is the lack of honesty to take responsibility. When the Khalistanis brought down the Air India flight, they did not give any fairytale excuses, they honestly admitted their separatist ideology to create Khalistan. If an Indian nationalist is preaching Indian Supremacy – at least he is honest in admitting his supremacist beliefs.

When a muslim or a muslim organisation carries out killings and themselves admits it to be in the name of Islam, I do not see how the rest of the muslim world say it wasn’t? It is this denial from the so called “moderate muslims” that perpetuates these terrorist beliefs and activities.

sorry Naj, i disagree,
the easily identifiable “fanatics” are never the problem,
the real problem is the dishonesty, hypocrisy and gutless cowardice of the “moderates” who persistently deny the existence of verses in Quran that does direct the killing of non-believers.

I do not agree that any muslim can be brainwashed to believe something that is not written in the pages of the Quran. It is a fact that there is the directive for jihad, to kill non-believers in the Quran; I do not see why muslims the world over does not admit it.

and to claim that poverty is the cause of Islamic terrorism, is an absolute myth.

Mr Osama bin Laden

Let us discuss one person whose name has become synonymous with Islamic terrorist movements. Mr Osama bin Laden.

I challenge anyone to convince me that

1. it was poverty that led Mr bin Laden to form a terrorist organisation. on the contrary it is his own $$$ billions he has used to create terror.

2. Mr bin Laden is of subnormal intelligence or literacy to have been brainwashed.
What ever he has achieved, he has achieved because of his firm convictions of the teachings of the Quran.

3. Mr Bin Laden has any need for war mongering.
He has been honest about his ideology, building an islamic caliphate, the ultimate aim of al Qaeda. and his proposed form of struggle for this ultimate aim the global jihad.

I have no problems with anyone initiating his global jihad as long it is honestly admitted that it is in the cause of Islam for the objectives of the movement is clear and others who do not believe in it can take appropriate steps to protect their own rights.

I have written many times, I would trust the words of the extremists, of the Talibans – for they are not scared to say what their aims are and which passages of Quran they follow in their holy fight. I do not trust the “moderate” muslims who will only find excuses.

So please discuss in specific reference to events of 26/11,
Mumbai was not just words – it has led to 173 deaths of civilians.

Can you explain why Pakistan, even after being shown clear proof of terror arising within her boundaries, is so hostile towards accepting the evidence?
If this attack was indeed war mongering by selfish individuals / organisation – why do they not accept the evidence and prove it was the motive of “shadowy figures” for material gain?

The extreme reluctance to accept the evidence and act on it, it signifies only one possibility,
the Pakistani military or its intelligence is/was involved as alleged –
that is state sponsered terrorism on an international scale.

to fight Mr Bin Laden’s mujahideen is not the problem,
the problem was to have the backstabbing pakistani military of Musharraf as an ally in the war.

if “moderate muslims” accepts that islamic terrorism exist,
then please do not cloud the issues with excuses and misleading rhetorics.

if “moderate muslims” believes in and says they too are in the global “war against terror”
then please do not mislead as to who the real enemies are or what their ideals are.

if “moderate muslims” across the globe expects the world to condemn
the invasion of muslim sovereign soil by US or any other nation, then at least be prepared to acknowledge the atrocity of muslims on another sovereign state, you cannot have it both ways.

if “moderate muslims”
deny the very existence of verses of Islamic Laws of Jihad in the Quran,
deny the very existence of Islam based terrorism, then that is a very different discussion,
please do not waste my time debating it here.

a Pakistani has been caught alive
like a rat he has been squealing his guts out,
giving his life’s details – confirmed by his father and corraborated by his villagers

yet pakistan refuses to believe, even after the truth has been made evident to them

Pak rejects proofs of 26/11 attacks shared by Britain, US

Published on Sun, Dec 28, 2008 at 22:01
Islamabad: Pakistan has dismissed evidence on the Mumbai attacks shared by the US and Britain.

The evidence included information given by India and corroborated through other sources. It included Ajmal Kasab’s confession, transcripts of mobile telephone intercepts, and also the logs of recorded conversations.

The US and Britian have given to Pakistan “clinching evidence” of involvement ofelements within the country in the Mumbai terror attacks but has been dismayed over Pakistan’s pussyfooting and not doing enough. Intercepts of satellite and mobile conversations between the attackers in Mumbai and the Pakistan-based elements guiding them, were handed over to Islamabad by the two countries.

However, Islamabad says this will not stand up in court.

this is beyond what will stand up in court and what will not,
this is a clear proof of international terrorism originating from Pakistan

what do the leaders of the rich west do to show they are “fighting the causes of terror”?

Britain promises more anti-terror aid to Pakistan

Associated Press: Published on Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 10:23
Brown said Britain promised Pakistan counter-terrorism equipment for detecting bombs and explosives at airports. Britain also pledged $9 million to lure youths away from extremist activities by offering them educational materials and programs.

when will these oafs learn
that giving Pakistan more dollars will create more terror

one 7/7 in London
one 9/11 in New York were lesson not hard enough
every cent poured in will be used to create more terror on the non-muslim world
every cent poured into that cess-pit will come back as AK-47s, and bombs and death

GW Bush sunk $10 billion into Musharraf’s pakistan
now G Brown promises to put £9 million more into Zardari’s
there are millions of human individuals starving “peacefully” – who would benefit from it

the root cause of Islamic terror? it is NOT poverty idiots,
it is not poverty that “lures” these youths to become international criminals
for there are muslim youths of western origin who travel to pakistan to learn how to kill

the root cause of Islamic terror? it is the cause of Islam
it is the writings in Quran that is being preached in pakistan
it is the nations and its military’s obsession to possess Kashmir
it is the covert orders of their military presidents through the evil ISI that
encourages their mullahs and madrassas to preach spreading islam through terror

this frankenstein was created by Britain
and has been nurtured for their own nefarius needs by the CIA and US
the innocents of Mumbai and elsewhere on earth that are now suffering for it

the world cannot fight terror if at every opportunity countries like US and GB helps feed it

Pakistan is blackmailing the world with their N-weapons
nukes they could manufacture only by stealing, blackmarketing and illegal n-proliferation

confiscate their nukes,
stop pouring in the millions and billions -
let the “moderate” muslims really starve – only then they will stand up against their evil military

those who wants to live and kill for a stoneage religion
should also live in the stoneage

Quran directs jihad
against the rejecters of truth after it has become evident to them
Pakistan fits the description perfectly, it is time the long suffering world called for a
jihad against Pakistan

Pakistanislamterrorismjihad

would you live in an Islamic Caliphate,
the global state that will be ruled under the Sharia Law?
the one Islamic Caliphate, that every muslims desires, yes, everyone of them,
for it is dictated by their religion.

Islamic Caliphate

a Caliphate, is the only form of governance that has full approval of traditional Islamic theology. the political leadership of the Muslim ummah in classical and medieval Islamic history and juristic theory. The Caliph, head of state’s position is based on the notion of a successor to the Islamic prophet Muhammad’s political authority.

The stark example on BBC today.

Taleban ‘will kill school girls’

BBC World South Asia || Friday, 26 December 2008
Taleban militants in the Swat valley in north-west Pakistan have threatened to kill girls who attend school.

A local Taleban commander ordered parents to stop sending their daughters to school by 15 January. In comments broadcast on an illegal radio station, he threatened to blow up schools which enrolled female students.

This year alone, Taleban militants have destroyed more than 130 schools in the Swat valley. They want to bring in Islamic sharia law in the region. Militant attacks on schools in the region have deprived more than 17,000 students of education.

These schools are not Islamic religious institutions and the students are taught courses based on the government syllabus.

To kill in the name of religion?
then are Talibans not muslims?

Talibans

the name confirms them as Students of Islamic Knowledge Movement
an Islamic fundamentalist politico-religious movement initiated and perpetuated by the madrassa students in the Helmand and Kandahar region of Afghanistan.

Madrassas

what is the ‘madrassa’ -
is it not an Arabic word for any type of school, college or university?

is it not that students in madrassas memorises the entire Quran?
then is it not, every action of the students of madrassa have the endorsement in the words of Quran?

and is it not –
that the restrictions imposed on every individuals fundamental human rights
the killings of school girls in Afghanistan who wish to learn
in schools like every other child of this world
- are also being endorsed in the fundamentals of the Quran.

This comment by a Sajjad of IP 116.72.188.176
the self proclaimed muslim fundamentalist on my site.

3. I am proud to be a Muslim fundamentalist
I am a fundamentalist Muslim who, by the grace of Allah, knows, follows and strives to practise the fundamentals of Islam. A true Muslim does not shy away from being a fundamentalist. I am proud to be a fundamentalist Muslim because, I know that the fundamentals of Islam are beneficial to humanity and the whole world.

There is not a single fundamental of Islam that causes harm or is against the interests of the human race as a whole.

oh yeah?
tell that to the parents of every school girl who gets killed, Mr Sajjad.

islam caliphate

no, I do not rest my case.
this is the first of a series documenting events
from around the world TODAY of life and human rights as is under the Islamic Shariya Law.

for those who lives in the romanticism of Arabian Nights
unaware of the realities of living under the Shariya, real possibility of having to live under Shariya,
for those who do not bother to find out what individual rights they would have in such a world…

for the christmas day, for me, is incomplete without
no! not the Queen’s speech,
the frivolous festivities
the roasts with trimmings
the cakes or the puddings
the empty promises on the once a year cards
the slaughtered conifers, the tinsels or the baubles
the meaningless pressies wrapped with countless dead trees

no, it can never be complete without
A Christmas Carol,
gifted to us by Mr Charles Dickens long ago, on 12/19 of 1843

one of the very few things I am grateful to my dad for, for forcing me
to set aside the Scrooge McDuck to know the Ebenezer Scrooge
and the world of Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim …

Mr Dickens did not tell us that there is goodness in the depths of EVERYone of us
no, he tells us, regardless of what we want to delude about ourselves,
the true goodness of the heart, in our world, belongs to the few
Bob Cratchits, the Fans and the Freds.

Christmas?
how can the Christmas’ spirit haunt us if we choose to live only in the instant present
when we are in deep denial of our unpleasant pasts,
and refuse to look at our future?

if you wish to jerktears like you have never tearjerked before
try the 1999 television movie adaptation directed by David Hugh Jones
with Patrick Stewart as Ebenezer Scrooge and Richard E. Grant as Bob Cratchit

just as night follows day and hides everything under darkness

the kashmir propaganda invariably follows every islamic atrocity in India
the ultimate excuse for a perpetual lie

and does it come any more blatant as this – I Am A Muslim…

it is said a picture conveys a thousand words but it does not have to be the truth
the perfect tool for clever propaganda

this photograph
published on an obscure and untraceable URL
with no means of confirming its source, its context or authenticity
becomes “this picture is of KASHMIR” –
a lie – to be repeated over and over again –
till it becomes accepted by the intentionally lazy ignorants – as the truth.

Kashmir as it is today
is because of atrocities committed by pakistani muslims
on both MUSLIMS and HINDUS, the true kashmiris of 1947 –
as a planned campaign by the pakistani army to invade and annex Kashmir

the muslim founder fathers of Pakistan
could not legally ‘demand’ Kashmir for their new nation
so they had to get their claws into it any which way –
even if it was by setting muslims on muslims

and obsessively so for 60 more years.
why else would Musharraf initiate a war in Kargil?
what right had he to invade and to fly the Pakistani flag atop the Srinagar Assembly?
he is no “terrorist”.
Or is he?

strange that
no muslim will ever mention how “Kashmir” started
no muslim will ever explain how the Pakistan Army happens to be in Kashmir
no muslims will ever mention that Pakistan was ordered by the UN security council to withdraw it forces from the territory that was the Princely state of Kashmir.
no muslim crying for a plebiscite in Kashmir will ever mention the withdrawl of Pakistani troops and militants was a pre-requisite
no muslim will ever acknowledge that Pakistan has occupied Kashmir in breach of UN resolution

UNCIP Resolutions of August 13, 1948

PART II: TRUCE AGREEMENT
Simultaneously with the acceptance of the proposal for the immediate cessation of hostilities as outlined in Part I, both Governments accept the following principles as a basis for the formulation of a truce agreement, the details of which shall be worked out in discussion between their Representatives and the Commission.

A.
(1) As the presence of troops of Pakistan in the territory of the State of Jammu and Kashmir constitutes a material change in the situation since it was represented by the Government of Pakistan before the Security Council, the Government of Pakistan agrees to withdraw its troops from that State.

(2) The Government of Pakistan will use its best endeavour to secure the withdrawal from the State of Jammu and Kashmir of tribesmen and Pakistan nationals not normally resident therein who have entered the State for the purpose of fighting.

(3) Pending a final solution the territory evacuated by the Pakistan troops will be administered by the local authorities under the surveillance of the Commission.

to every non muslim Indian who happens to read such propaganda, I ask
why is it that no muslims in india will ever march with banners asking for withdrawl of pakistan from kashmir?
why if Islam is indeed a religion of peace and tolerance and forbids all killings then how could the ghazni’s and ghoris of history, not once or twice but for centuries; loot, plunder, rape, convert, enslave and systematically destroyed hindu temples in the name of spreading Islam?

so convenient there were no cameras, no photographers in those days
to record the plight of the hindus
not in hundreds
nor in thousands
but in hundreds of thousands;
NOT episodic acts of human rights abuse or extremism – but a hindu GENOCIDE

muslims try to portray themselves as world’s eternal victims
if at all they are ‘victims’, it is only of ‘generalisation’ –
none else to blame but their unquestioned faith
in the teachings of Islam

what I read there is not just a propaganda,
but extremely nauseating in its dishonesty and hypocrisy

the banner should read

“I kill
for I am a muslim and it is my religious duty
to spread Islam – and if necessary to terrorise, invade and kill”

but that would be the truth…

Another long comment so best responded in a post.
This comment is from: Author : Thcoder (IP: 202.56.7.174 , 202.56.7.174)

@ Thcoder, I have responded in between your text for convenience.

@littleindian,
i am sorry, could not manage time to read the whole post. have read a part. yeah, I am a muslim too. I never support such terrorism. I am not a big practicing Muslim. So don’t know much inside things. thats surely my badluck. like you, I am also looking for the meaning of fundamentalism.

Before I reply to your comment, may I point out that you have confirmed you do not know “much inside things”. I assume you refer to your knowledge or reading of the texts in Quran. So it is possible that many points you have raised is not necessarily correct.

i think that person’s comment about fundamentalism is not wrong. see it: LINK
Believing in fundamental things does not mean that it can’t be changed. A core theory of medicine, mathematics can be changed. yes, in islam it can’t be changed because Al Quaran and Al Hadiths can’t be changed. But yes, they can be re-interpreted.

If the core of science and knowledge can be questioned and changed, I question why the core theory of Islam CANNOT be changed?

Islam is a religion that is believed to be the words of God revealed to a SINGLE individual 1400 years ago said. Unlike, say the Bible which is a record of events that happened in public, there are no witnesses, nor evidence that any such revelation did happen. But Islam is a religion that does not allow any individual to QUESTION.

Islam calls for the universal Ummah, for all to be ruled under the Shariya Law.
Rousseau said,

Every law the people has not ratified in person is null and void — is, in fact, not a law.

Why should I be forced to live under the Shariya Law if as a non-believer I will never have the right to question it?

That goes against the rights of every individual human being.
To me any such religion that denies me my individual rights, because I have no evidence to believe in it other than the word in a text written years ago; I cannot consider such a religion to be of peace, but of INTOLERANCE.

The many things of Islam highly depend on interpretation of Quaran and Hadith. A believe that has be believed by millions of people may changed after a new interpretation of the Al Quaran and Hadith. The terrorists that are killing people, I strongly believe, are due to misinterpretation of Islam -> Al Quran and Hadith.

The terrorists who they are the faction of muslims that have correctly interpreted Islam and are killing in the name of Islam.
It cannot be disputed, Islam has text in its Holy book that can be interpreted in such extreme ways that allow killings as we saw in Mumbai. As long as their are texts in Quran, that CAN BE represented as a directive to kill non-believers, then to claim mis-representation is itself a mis-representation of Quran.

“Islam is a religion of peace? Only when there are no non-believers left.”
When we discuss, I think we should discuss fairly without going for an quick conclusion. Can you name any religion that advises to break the peace? See, you are an Indian. Each year, many Hindus kills many Muslims, burn their houses. Is it the core theory of Hindu religion? I don’t believe. All religion came for peach and happiness on the earth. But a part of mis-believers always go out of the circle and spoil the peace. Thats a common problem and it should be faced unitedly rather than blaming each other.

Yes. Islam.
A religion that does advice to break the peace – preach religious intolerance.
Before you bring Hindu killings here, explain why,

1. Why were the school textbooks in Pakistan “Islamicised” in the 80’s? – To promote intolerance.
2. Why are Hindus being killed and raped and ethnically cleansed by muslims in Bangladesh? ? Because of intolerance based on religion.
3. Why is it, in nearly all inter-religion conflicts past and present, one side is islam?

The denominator? Islam’s intolerance of all other religions.
As long as such conflicts, such terrorism continues in name of Islam it cannot be called a religion of peace.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is also a fundamental ideology that accepts every humans’ individual rights. The indivisibility and interdependence of all human rights has been confirmed by the 1993 Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action:

“ All human rights are universal, indivisible and interdependent and related. The international community must treat human rights globally in a fair and equal manner, on the same footing, and with the same emphasis ”—Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, World Conference on Human Rights, 1993

Yet muslims are unable to accept it? Why?
Why the need for the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam of 1990?
A declaration that does not guarantee EQUAL RIGHTS, but merely EQUAL DIGNITY. And does not give a guarantee of FREEDOM OF RELIGION?

And it places the responsibility for defending those rights, NOT on the United Nations, but upon the entire Ummah. An Ummah that only represents a fraction of the world’s community – NOT UNIVERSAL. Then how can Islam be a religion of peace, if it cannot accept other religions to be equal?

To face together and not blame each other?
It is Pakistan that has refused to deal with terrorism arising from her soil for 60 years. The blame of the Mumbai killing is SOLELY on Pakistan. Pakistan can try and point blame back to India, the world will no longer fall for it.

The circle of killings

How far in back in history do you dare to go back to find how this circle of killing started? I can take you back to the 10th century – the invasions of Ghaznis and Ghoris spreading intolerance and hatred – killing in the name of Islam.

The intensity of hatred towards muslim grew – for every hindu killed, every temple desecrated for every day of the 700 years of Islamic atrocities on Hindus. If muslims are prepared to kill in name of Islam, they have to be prepared to be killed in return. You cannot play the eternal victims and fool the world for ever.

Why don’t you think, who is the most beneficiary if India-Pakistan war takes place? Who is patronizing the terrorism? Where these terrorists get the modern ammunitions? Why USA can’t capture Bin Laden in spite of having world’s best technologies? Isn’t it a great joke that a man in hill tracks is much clever than USA->CIA->Pentagon and their beyond space technologies?

Good try bringing up the laughable ‘international conspiracy’ theory.

Who is patronizing this terrorism? It is a nation called PAKISTAN.
A nation and its lying doubletalking ex-President that has fooled the Americans for 7 years they were fighting ‘terrorism’ – while all along they have been protecting the terrorists themselves. And took $10 billion off the united suckers of america and diverted the money to his own homegrown terrorists.

The rhetorics following 9/11

Musharraf’s Address to People of Pakistan on 19 September 2001

I must tell them that I and my government are much more worried about Afghanistan and Taliban. I have done everything for Afghanistan and Taliban when the entire world is against them. I have met about twenty to twenty five world leaders and talked to each of them in favor of the Taliban.

I have informed Mullah Umar about the gravity of the situation. We are trying our best to come out of this critical situation without any damage to Afghanistan and Taliban. This is my earnest endeavor and with the blessings of Allah I will continue to seek such a way out.

“Pakistan comes first, everything else comes later”

If Pakistan is truly with the world to fight against the terrorists on their west front, why refuse to let NATO assault troops to use their territory to attck their common enemy.

Indo-Pakistan War?!!

There will not be a Indo-Pakistan war till it is of benefit to Pakistan ALONE. As vociferously confirmed by Musharraf, “Pakistan comes first, everything else comes later”.
Who was to benefit from the Kargil War? Pakistan, a nation obsessed for 60 years to take over the whole of Kashmir. Musharraf’s grandiose promise to fly the Pakistani flag atop the Srinagar Assembly.

If there is a war now, it will ONLY be Pakistan’s effort to hide its involvement with the ‘terrorists’. The military and the ISI. Zardari made a mistake by agreeing to send the ISI chief to India, not knowing how deeply involved the ISI is with the ‘terrorism’ they are claiming to fight against.

good luck. i will try to return later and read the post.

Luck indeed. Lucky that I am in a part of the world where I can exercise my rights to freedom of independent thoughts and my freedom to expression to write this. In an Islamic nation I would be dead for voicing my thoughts.

@ Thcoder, you have to try better to try and contradict my articles. I do not fall for empty propaganda.

I read the translation of the lecture by Maulana Wahiduddin Khan
to a group of his disciples on November 30 – focussed on the recent terror attacks in Mumbai.

It is a long lecture to quote in entirety. But these are his lines that strikes out.

Muslims have gained nothing from terrorism

Maulana Wahiduddin Khan | translated by Yoginder Sikand for Rediff.

I have studied in Muslim seminaries, madrassas and have participated in numerous Muslim gatherings, and in many of these places hatred and pride is instilled in the minds of Muslims. They are taught: ‘We are the caliphs and vice-regent of God on earth.“

I once met an Arab whose first question to me was, “Who are we?” He then said: “We are the Caliphs of God on earth.” I told him that this is not written anywhere in our books. The Sahih Al-Bukhari says that Muslims are witnesses of God. That is, they have to spread the message of God on earth. The same is alluded to in the Quran, that is, the task of Muslims is to spread God’s message and lead a life according to His instructions.

However, Muslims have made themselves the self-appointed Caliphs, and have launched all sorts of movements that propagate the ideology of capturing political power. This thinking emerged when the Ottoman and Mughal empires declined, and Muslims started considering the rest of the world as usurpers and oppressors who snatched their rights and power from them.

Today I receive this comment. A muslim who by his own declaration a proud fundamentalist. It is a long comment, his text is within the blockquotes. I hope you do read the entire post.

SAJJAD | ……..@rediffmail.com | IP: 116.72.188.176

WHY ARE MOST OF THE MUSLIMS FUNDAMENTALISTS AND TERRORISTS?

This question is often hurled at Muslims, either directly or indirectly, during any discussion on religion or world affairs. Muslim stereotypes are perpetuated in every form of the media accompanied by gross misinformation about Islam and Muslims. In fact, such misinformation and false propaganda often leads to discrimination and acts of violence against Muslims. A case in point is the anti-Muslim campaign in the American media following the Oklahoma bomb blast, where the press was quick to declare a ‘Middle Eastern conspiracy’ behind the attack. The culprit was later identified as a soldier from the American Armed Forces.

Let us analyze this allegation of ‘fundamentalism’ and ‘terrorism’:

1. Definition of the word ‘fundamentalist’
A fundamentalist is a person who follows and adheres to the fundamentals of the doctrine or theory he is following. For a person to be a good doctor, he should know, follow, and practise the fundamentals of medicine. In other words, he should be a fundamentalist in the field of medicine. For a person to be a good mathematician, he should know, follow and practise the fundamentals of mathematics. He should be a fundamentalist in the field of mathematics. For a person to be a good scientist, he should know, follow and practise the fundamentals of science. He should be a fundamentalist in the field of science.

This is a typical explanation of a propagandist – made to sound convincing but in reality illogical.

Fundamentalism refers to deep commitment to a belief, and strict adherence to a set of basic principles mostly religious. A fundamentalist has to adhere to that set of beliefs even in the face of criticism or unpopularity.
A true scientist, mathematician or a doctor cannot be “fundamentalist”. They have to be flexible enough to accept all possibilities and challenge the fundamentals to make new discoveries, to progress. The early belief was the sun revolved around the earth, a fundamentalist astronomer would never be able to challenge it.
Fundamentalism is only possible in religious beliefs. More so in Islam which does not give anyone the right to question or challenge, but to only blindly follow.

But his logic only goes to confirm my views about Islam.
The more devout are the followers of Islam, the more fundamental or even extreme their beliefs. After every atrocity, the muslim community now says that the killers are not true muslims. But this comment confirms that a muslim terrorist has to have fundamental beliefs – and be a devout muslim.

That is the paradox, that no muslim will ever admit, the more devout a muslim, the more the possibility of becoming an extremist; or even a terrorist.

2. Not all ‘fundamentalists’ are the same
One cannot paint all fundamentalists with the same brush. One cannot categorize all fundamentalists as either good or bad. Such a categorization of any fundamentalist will depend upon the field or activity in which he is a fundamentalist. A fundamentalist robber or thief causes harm to society and is therefore undesirable. A fundamentalist doctor, on the other hand, benefits society and earns much respect.

To call a thief or a robber a fundamentalist by his profession is beyond the ridiculous.

He argues a fundamentalist who causes harm to the society is undesireable. This leaves it open to every individual to decide which activity is good and which is bad fundamentalism.

To the non-muslim world, an islamic fundamentalist is a cause of harm to the society – Mumbai killings for example. Applying his own logic such Islamic fundamentalists too are undesirable.

3. I am proud to be a Muslim fundamentalist
I am a fundamentalist Muslim who, by the grace of Allah, knows, follows and strives to practise the fundamentals of Islam. A true Muslim does not shy away from being a fundamentalist. I am proud to be a fundamentalist Muslim because, I know that the fundamentals of Islam are beneficial to humanity and the whole world. There is not a single fundamental of Islam that causes harm or is against the interests of the human race as a whole. Many people harbour misconceptions about Islam and consider several teachings of Islam to be unfair or improper. This is due to insufficient and incorrect knowledge of Islam. If one critically analyzes the teachings of Islam with an open mind, one cannot escape the fact that Islam is full of benefits both at the individual and collective levels.

Islam may benefits some individuals and society, but to say that it has to be the way for the entire world is just an arrogant delusion. But that is what is frightening – the fundamental belief of every ‘true muslim’ that the entire world HAS TO FOLLOW ISLAM.
There cannot be another way that is as good or even better.

4. Dictionary meaning of the word ‘fundamentalist’

According to Webster’s dictionary ‘fundamentalism’ was a movement in American Protestanism that arose in the earlier part of the 20th century. It was a reaction to modernism, and stressed the infallibility of the Bible, not only in matters of faith and morals but also as a literal historical record. It stressed on belief in the Bible as the literal word of God.
Thus fundamentalism was a word initially used for a group of Christians who believed that the Bible was the verbatim word of God without any errors and mistakes. According to the Oxford dictionary ‘fundamentalism’ means ‘strict maintenance of ancient or fundamental doctrines of any religion, especially Islam’. Today the moment a person uses the word fundamentalist he thinks of a Muslim who is a terrorist.

The original definition was to describe a narrowly defined set of beliefs that developed into a movement within the Protestant community. The important point here is ’strict maintenance of ancient doctrines’ and usually narrowly defined.
Islam’s fundamentalism takes away the right of every individual’s independent thinking and beliefs.

5. Every Muslim should be a terrorist
Every Muslim should be a terrorist. A terrorist is a person who causes terror. The moment a robber sees a policeman he is terrified. A policeman is a terrorist for the robber. Similarly every Muslim should be a terrorist for the antisocial elements of society, such as thieves, dacoits and rapists. Whenever such an anti-social element sees a Muslim, he should be terrified. It is true that the word ‘terrorist’ is generally used for a person who causes terror among the common people. But a true Muslim should only be a terrorist to selective people i.e. anti-social elements, and not to the common innocent people. In fact a Muslim should be a source of peace for innocent people.

This is explanation is meant as a justification for ‘terrorism’.
The policeman is a ‘good’ terrorist – because he creates ‘terror’ in a criminal.

The 10 pakistani Islamic terrorist who created terror in Mumbai, to be good terrorist, they had to .
create terror in anti-socials. The innocent people who were killed were by his logic anti-socials; ‘thieves, dacoits and rapists. They all had to die – because in the eyes of Islam they were criminals?
This warped logic is what makes every ‘law abiding muslims’ a potential ‘terrorist’.

6. Different labels given to the same individual for the same action, i.e. ‘terrorist’ and ‘patriot’

Before India achieved independence from British rule, some freedom fighters of India who did not subscribe to non-violence were labeled as terrorists by the British government. The same individuals have been lauded by Indians for the same activities and hailed as ‘patriots’. Thus two different labels have been given to the same people for the same set of actions. One is calling him a terrorist while the other is calling him a patriot. Those who believed that Britain had a right to rule over India called these people terrorists, while those who were of the view that Britain had no right to rule India called them patriots and freedom fighters.
It is therefore important that before a person is judged, he is given a fair hearing. Both sides of the argument should be heard, the situation should be analyzed, and the reason and the intention of the person should be taken into account, and then the person can be judged accordingly.

By definition ‘terrorism’ is
deliberate and systematic spread of terror to coerce a result – to achieve a goal.

Sure I agree, one man’s terrorists is anothers’ freedom fighters. There were many indians prior to independance of india (who came from all classes and religions); who engaged in activities for the independence of India AND pakistan. Their actions were aimed at spreading terror in the British administration, with an aim to coerce them to leave – to achieve an independent India.
But they never mislead the world about their intentions.

To the non-muslim every Islamic killer is a terrorists, but to every devout muslim each of these killers, be it Md Atta or Ajmal Amir Kasab, they are holy warriors, patriots, and if they get killed – martyrs. This only proves what I have written before. The reason no apparent ‘law abiding muslims’ will ever denounce the killers of the Mumbai tragedy.

The SOLE AIM of Islamic terrorism is to cause ‘terror’ is TO GAIN POWER to make the entire world an Islamic world – the Islamic Caliphate. They will never admit to it.

7. Islam means peace
Islam is derived from the word ‘salaam’ which means peace. It is a religion of peace whose fundamentals teach its followers to maintain and promote peace throughout the world.
Thus every Muslim should be a fundamentalist i.e. he should follow the fundamentals of the Religion of Peace: Islam. He should be a terrorist only towards the antisocial elements in order to promote peace and justice in the society.

By this warped logic, every muslim is / or should be a fundamentalist / extremists. And CAN BE A TERRORIST towards anti-socials anti-social and peacebreakers. Except those that get killed are innocent civilians. Besides who gave the muslims and the religion of islam the mandate to maintain and promote peace throughout the world?

WAS ISLAM SPREAD BY THE SWORD?
How can Islam be called the religion of peace when it was spread by the sword?
Answer:
It is a common complaint among some non-Muslims that Islam would not have millions of adherents all over the world, if it had not been spread by the use of force. The following points will make it clear, that far from being spread by the sword, it was the inherent force of truth, reason and logic that was responsible for the rapid spread of Islam.

1. Islam means peace.
Islam comes from the root word ‘salaam’, which means peace. It also means submitting one’s will to Allah (swt). Thus Islam is a religion of peace, which is acquired by submitting one’s will to the will of the Supreme Creator, Allah (swt).

Islam’s fundamental belief, for true peace EVERYONE has to SUBMIT their will to the alleged supreme WILL OF ALLAH. If you do not wish to ’submit’ yourself – to Islam you are a non-believer and can be persecuted.

2. Sometimes force has to be used to maintain peace.
Each and every human being in this world is not in favour of maintaining peace and harmony. There are many, who would disrupt it for their own vested interests. Sometimes force has to be used to maintain peace. It is precisely for this reason that we have the police who use force against criminals and anti-social elements to maintain peace in the country. Islam promotes peace. At the same time, Islam exhorts it followers to fight where there is oppression. The fight against oppression may, at times, require the use of force. In Islam force can only be used to promote peace and justice.

Again this is a partially true.
Islam’s permission to use force is not restricted to fighting oppression, it is clearly directed against non-believers – as quoted here.
In religious parlance, this use of force is called Jihad, and in the Qur’an it can be classified in two distinct categories:
Firstly, against injustice and oppression.
Secondly, against the rejecters of truth after it has become evident to them.

The muslim propaganda typically is always set to deceive by such omissions.

3. Opinion of historian De Lacy O’Leary.
The best reply to the misconception that Islam was spread by the sword is given by the noted historian De Lacy O’Leary in the book ’Islam at the cross road’ (Page 8):
’History makes it clear however, that the legend of fanatical Muslims sweeping through the world and forcing Islam at the point of the sword upon conquered races is one of the most fantastically absurd myth that historians have ever repeated.’

4. Muslims ruled Spain for 800 years.
Muslims ruled Spain for about 800 years. The Muslims in Spain never used the sword to force the people to convert. Later the Christian Crusaders came to Spain and wiped out the Muslims. There was not a single Muslim in Spain who could openly give the adhan, that is the call for prayers.

5. 14 million Arabs are Coptic Christians.
Muslims were the lords of Arabia for 1400 years. For a few years the British ruled, and for a few years the French ruled. Overall, the Muslims ruled Arabia for 1400 years. Yet today, there are 14 million Arabs who are Coptic Christians i.e. Christians since generations. If the Muslims had used the sword there would not have been a single Arab who would have remained a Christian.

Another deception by omission.

This is a verse from Quran:
Fight those who believe not in Allah or the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which has been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the Religion of Truth, from among the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizyah with willing submission and are subdued. (9:29)
And it is a directive related to both the Jews and the Christians. The punishment mentioned in these verses was in fact a show of great lenience to them because of the fact that they were originally adherents to monotheism.

He, the fundamentalist muslim must know why and how some christians got spared. He does not explain it, neither does he mention the status of the ‘dhimmi’ in an islamic caliphate and the jizya tax.

The primary reason why the non-muslim falls for the propaganda everytime, for they do not feel bothered to read the text of the Quran for themselves. And the propagandists knows it and takes full advantage.

6. More than 80% non-Muslims in India.
The Muslims ruled India for about a thousand years. If they wanted, they had the power of converting each and every non-Muslim of India to Islam. Today more than 80% of the population of India are non-Muslims. All these non-Muslim Indians are bearing witness today that Islam was not spread by the sword.

This is another example of muslim propaganda.
This muslim quotes the demography of 21st century india to prove that between 10th – 17th century, Islam did not forcibly convert hindus with the point of their swords. No mention of the many records of history that rubbishes his claims.

Was There an Islamic “Genocide” of Hindus?

Dr. Koenraad Elst – a Belgian Catholic – it cannot be any more impartial.

… important testimonies by Muslim chroniclers suggests that, over 13 centuries and a territory as vast as the Subcontinent, Muslim Holy Warriors easily killed more Hindus than the 6 million of the Holocaust.
Ferishtha lists several occasions when the Bahmani sultans in central India (1347-1528) killed a hundred thousand Hindus, which they set as a minimum goal whenever they felt like “punishing” the Hindus; and they were only a third-rank provincial dynasty.
The biggest slaughters took place during the raids of Mahmud Ghaznavi (ca. 1000 CE); during the actual conquest of North India by Mohammed Ghori and his lieutenants (1192 ff.); and under the Delhi Sultanate (1206-1526).
The Moghuls (1526-1857), even Babar and Aurangzeb, were fairly restrained tyrants by comparison. Prof. K.S. Lal once estimated that the Indian population declined by 50 million under the Sultanate,

7. Indonesia and Malaysia.
Indonesia is a country that has the maximum number of Muslims in the world. The majority of people in Malaysia are Muslims. May one ask, ’Which Muslim army went to Indonesia and Malaysia?’
8. East Coast of Africa.
Similarly, Islam has spread rapidly on the East Coast of Africa. One may again ask, if Islam was spread by the sword, ’Which Muslim army went to the East Coast of Africa?’

9. Thomas Carlyle.
The famous historian, Thomas Carlyle, in his book ’Heroes and Hero worship’, refers to this misconception about the spread of Islam: ’The sword indeed, but where will you get your sword? Every new opinion, at its starting is precisely in a minority of one. In one man’s head alone. There it dwells as yet. One man alone of the whole world believes it, there is one man against all men. That he takes a sword and try to propagate with that, will do little for him. You must get your sword! On the whole, a thing will propagate itself as it can.’

10. No compulsion in religion.
With which sword was Islam spread? Even if Muslims had it they could not use it to spread Islam because the Qur’an says in the following verse:
’Let there be no compulsion in religion:
Truth stands out clear from error’
[Al-Qur’an 2:256]

11. Sword of the Intellect.
It is the sword of intellect. The sword that conquers the hearts and minds of people. The Qur’an says in Surah Nahl, chapter 16 verse 125:

’Invite (all) to the way of thy Lord
with wisdom and beautiful preaching;
and argue with them in ways that are
best and most gracious.’
[Al-Qur’an 16:125]

Except under the Laws of Jihad it also says,
II. The Directive of Jihad
Prophet! Rouse the believers to wage war. If there are twenty amongst you, patient and persevering, they will subdue two hundred: if a hundred, they will subdue a thousand of the disbelievers: for these are a people without understanding. (8:65)
IV. Captives of War
So, when you meet [in the battlefield] those who disbelieve, strike off their heads.

They may be self-contradictory passages, but they are very much the text of Quran. It is the degree of fundament of a believer to decide which to follow. History documents hundreds and thousands of such conversion.

12. Increase in the world religions from 1934 to 1984.
An article in Reader’s Digest ‘Almanac’, year book 1986, gave the statistics of the increase of percentage of the major religions of the world in half a century from 1934 to 1984. This article also appeared in ‘The Plain Truth’ magazine. At the top was Islam, which increased by 235%, and Christianity had increased only by 47%. May one ask, which war took place in this century which converted millions of people to Islam?

13. Islam is the fastest growing religion in America and Europe.
Today the fastest growing religion in America is Islam. The fastest growing religion in Europe in Islam. Which sword is forcing people in the West to accept Islam in such large numbers?

The explanation is simple.

The Demographic Siege.

explained by Koenraad Elst
Many Hindus take an alarmist view about the numerical growth of Islam through high birth rates and migration. This alarmist view is even stronger in Europe, with its low birth rates, than in India. The impressively higher Muslim birth rate is a plain fact, which is why the secularists are so zealous in denying it. Admittedly, birth control is now catching on in countries like Iran and Turkey (not in Pakistan), but Iran’s population is still expected to double before reaching zero growth. If you extrapolate present trends, it is certain that Islam will take over Europe in fifty years, India and the US in a hundred at most.

These numbers so proudly quoted in the comment only confirms that Islam has no respect for any other religion. No respect for another’s right to have an independent thought, belief and ideology or religion. If anyone writes or draws anything that goes against their beliefs – they become a target to kill, on the run from a fatwa.

No one, muslims or not, believers or non-believers have the rights of a independent human being,
I have a problem with that – I refuse to follow doctrines set in the 7th century. This is a from an interview with mr Elst. This echoes the words of Maulana Wahiduddin Khan.

An Interview With Koenraad Elst

By Dr. Ramesh Rao – AUGUST 2002
Or take a more fundamental item, the core belief of Islam: that Mohammed is God’s prophet.
Suppose one of your colleagues told you one day that henceforth you have to obey his every word, as he has become God’s spokesman receiving exclusive messages from above. Presumably you would guess he had developed a serious mental problem. Well, that’s exactly what Mohammed’s contemporaries thought, as the Quran itself testifies a dozen times. It is also what modern psychologists have said: Mohammed suffered of a classic case of paranoia, a grand delusion about himself nurtured with audiovisual hallucinations.
A real secularist is sceptical of the defining belief of Islam and feels sorry for all those Muslims trapped in it. So there you have a properly secularist point to take up with the Muslims: do you want to continue regulating your lives after the injunctions of a 7th-century Arab businessman who heard voices? Do you want to base wars, states and laws on the non-secular belief in Mohammed’s deluded claims? Instead, the only thing the secularists ever discuss with Muslims is a joint strategy against the Hindus.

I agree with V.S. Naipaul: the non-Arab Muslims suffer from the conflict between their ancestral cultural roots and their imposed religion. Every Muslim is an abductee from the civilization in which he once belonged. Where I differ with the Nobel-winning author is that I would apply the same diagnosis to the Arabs. Though they did not have to adopt foreign customs and language, which made the transition to Islam less disruptive, they too were cut off from their original culture. Either way, Muslims would do well to take a critical look at the basics of their religion. I don’t think anyone else can do it for them,

14. Dr. Joseph Adam Pearson.
Dr. Joseph Adam Pearson rightly says, ’People who worry that nuclear weaponry will one day fall in the hands of the Arabs, fail to realize that the Islamic bomb has been dropped already, it fell the day MUHAMMED (pbuh) was born’

Except, it is called the Islamic bomb, created by Pakistan with American dollars and Chinese help.
And predicted to go off in a world’s major city within five years.

I do not care what a muslim believes, as long as they have the honesty and courage to clearly say they are ‘fighting’ ONLY to convert every nation and every individual to Islam. Every conflict like Bosnia, Kosovo, Kashmir, is just an excuse.

This comment almost says it, but did not have the courage to confirm it.
The final aim of Islam – an Islamic Caliphate.

26th November: Mumbai killings
27th November: Identity of the solitary arrested terrorist revealed.

5th December: An indian muslim member shaan333 writes on rambhai – an Indian blog portal:

there are few possibilites about terrorist attack in Mumbai. . .

1. Pakistan organised that
2. Any terrorist group did that. . .
In this case, you cant blame Pak cause they are also suffering because of it.
Hope that you guys are having idea about attack on JW Marriot hotel in Pak
3. Any Indian extremist group did that (any religion)
4. Any political party organised that just to create the scene for ongoing election (our politics is so dirty that i could not ruled out this point)

may be these points sounds funny or idiotic to others but thats what i think about this issue

when
the only truth is the arrested terrorist HIMSELF has confirmed
his identity
his home
his involvement in terrorism and links to Lashkar -e -taiba
and details of his training for this ‘killing till last breath’ mission
after he and his squad had killed 163 indians and foreign nationals,

an Indian muslim
has the audacity to suggest that these 10 terrorists could be
1. any terrorist group
2. any indian extremist group of any religion – (meant to read – hindus)
3. any indian political party to win votes in future elections – (meant to read – the BJP).

This is a deliberate effort to hide the truth while cleverly diverting the focus on hindus and BJP.
And the rest of rambhaiyas including the hindus accepts his reasoning without questioning. Read the full thread of comments – LetsDiscuss: the excuses and denials: islamic jihad | “me no big chief …

What is so frightening is the number of Indians and hindus
who will accept such propaganda with even an attempt to find the truth for themselves.

There is even further confirmation

Mumbai terrorist came from Pakistan

Saeed Shah in Faridkot, near Depalpur

An Observer investigation has established that the lone surviving gunman caught by Indian police during last week’s terrorist attacks on Mumbai came from a village in the Okara district of the Pakistani Punjab.

Ajmal Amir Kasab, interrogated in custody after last month’s attacks, which killed 163 people, reportedly told Indian security officials that he came from a place called Faridkot in the Punjab province. His father was named as Mohammed Amir, married to a woman named Noor.

A villager, who cannot be named for his own protection, said the village was an active recruiting ground for the banned militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba. ‘We know that boy [caught in Mumbai] is from Faridkot,’ he said. ‘We knew from the first night [of the attack]. They brainwash our youth about jihad, there are people who do it in this village. It is so wrong,’ he added.

When asked to prove that Islam does not direct killing of non believers,
this muslim ‘Indian’ responds in the ever evasive manner of a propagandist,

In the last 21 years of my life, i never find a line in Quran which told to kill others. None of my family members, my muslim friends or any Maulana told me to kill people of other religion.

I do not want to know what Mr Shaan333 has been ‘told’.
I asked him to prove there is no such text in the Quran, which as a muslim he must have read.

So instead of marching with banners and blaming
our government,
intelligence services,
anti-terrorism legislation
and the incompetence of our military /police forces,
every Indian hindu should first learn the whole truth beyond any doubts
about Islam and its teachings
and how the ‘extremist’ madrassas in pakistan can use the text in Quran
to create killing fields – from mumbai to manhattan
EVERY 26/11s and the 9/11s

Or accept some responsibility for these killings – for there will be more to come.

And do not wait for Indian muslims to join you to fight this “terrorism”
for in their hearts these are the holy warriors of Islam.

So,
a blast from the past as my friend writes to me.
jethro tull
- the lyrics of Ian Anderson to be specific.

I loved this song
since way backwhen –
when (in kolkata) it was considered to be too uncool to even listen to this band.

but Mr Anderson himself explains:

this song was to illustrate how a style of music may go out of popularity
like with every other fashion and fade and then
everything comes back around
and the style rises
again…

being uncool –
is the story of my life – all my life
and words comes around as a reminder

“Too Old To Rock ‘n’ Roll: Too Young To Die”

The old Rocker wore his hair too long,
wore his trouser cuffs too tight.
Unfashionable to the end     drank his ale too light.
Death’s head belt buckle     yesterday’s dreams
the transport caf’ prophet of doom.
Ringing no change in his double-sewn seams
in his post-war-babe gloom.

Now he’s too old to Rock’n'Roll but he’s too young to die.

He once owned a Harley Davidson and a Triumph Bonneville.
Counted his friends in burned-out spark plugs
and prays that he always will.
But he’s the last of the blue blood greaser boys
all of his mates are doing time:
married with three kids up by the ring road
sold their souls straight down the line.
And some of them own little sports cars
and meet at the tennis club do’s.
For drinks on a Sunday     work on Monday.
They’ve thrown away their blue suede shoes.

Now they’re too old to Rock’n'Roll and they’re too young to die.

So the old Rocker gets out his bike
to make a ton before he takes his leave.
Up on the A1 by Scotch Corner
just like it used to be.
And as he flies     tears in his eyes
his wind-whipped words echo the final take
and he hits the trunk road doing around 120
with no room left to brake.

And he was too old to Rock’n'Roll but he was too young to die.
No, you’re never too old to Rock’n'Roll if you’re too young to die.

2008 AD

the United States of America has elected a black president – their first ever black president.
It is an event I did not expect to see in my lifetime.

I am in disbelief.
Why?

There has been many notable first blacks in the country’s sad and often unpleasant history.

On a day when history is about to be re-written,
I can only think of
one person – Elizabeth Eckford
one school – Little Rock Central High School
and the one event – Little Rock Nine
that never failed to leave me in speechless anger,
everytime I remember
and for as long as I can remember.

Little Rock Nine

1957 AD
Nine students who had been chosen to attend Central High because of their excellent grades.
They were nine black students.
Central High was a racially segregated school.

September 4:
Segregationist “citizens’ councils” threatened to hold protests and physically block the black students from entering the school. The Governor Orval Faubus had deployed the Arkansas National Guard to support the segregationists.

On that first day of school, only one of the nine students – Elizabeth Eckford
showed up because she did not receive the phone call about the danger of going to school.

Elizabeth Eckford is depicted in this photograph taken by Will Counts in 1957

She was harassed by White Americans outside the school, and the police had to take her away in a patrol car to protect her.

September 24:
President Dwight Eisenhower sent in the 101st Airborne to escort nine students to school.

153rd Infantry, a Task Force had to hastily organized taking over the entire operation when the paratroopers left and remained on duty until the end of the school year.

October 3:
Georgia Dortch and Jane Emery,
editors of Central High’s student newspaper The Tiger, editorialize:

“Looking back on this year will probably be with regret that integration could not have been accomplished peacefully, without incident, without publicity.” The editors encourage “each individual to maintain a sensible, peaceful neutrality; to accept the situation without demonstration, no matter what personal views are entertained; and to make these, your years in Little Rock Central High School, the happiest and most fruitful of your academic education.”

How long will it take to finally erase all these memories?

How long does it take to right the wrongs?
Fifty years, it seems, hasn’t been long enough.

The Legacy of Little Rock

Juan Williams Thursday, Sep. 20, 2007

The 50th anniversary of the Little Rock school crisis is a powerful lesson in the complicated calculus of social change.

Earlier this year the U.S. Mint issued a silver dollar commemorating the event, and throughout the anniversary’s week there will be other observations marking this turning point in U.S. history. But the joy will be somewhat muted, for American schools are still nearly as segregated as they were 50 years ago.

Fifty years after U.S. troops had to escort nine black children to school in Little Rock, the issue is still how to take race out of the equation when it comes to educating every American child.

The students had written the editorial fifty years ago.
The observation in the Time US was made only a year ago – fifty years hence.

Equality is not confirmed overnight by the election of a president,
it will come only on the day every American child is truly considered as equals.

Its over to each one of you,
each american citizen …

Americaequality