Stop the NYS Madrassa: A Response to sheik yer'mami

Submitted by Jaisingh Thakur (India), Aug 20, 2007 at 05:30

While pointing out the losses suffered by the non-muslim world to the imperialistic and aggressive forces of islam, my friend sheik yer'mami seems to have overlooked the great losses suffered by the Hindus and the Buddhists of the Indian sub continent.

There was a time when the entire region from Afghanistan in the north to peninsular India in the south was preponderantly under the influence of the Hindus and the Buddhists. The sword of islam, however, conquered everything- it snatched away from us by force everything it considered worth taking possession of , except our values and our firm adherence to millennia-old civilisational ethics, which had made our Indus Valley civilisation and those subsequently following on its heels, a force to reckon with in the entire world. Yes, we have indeed, been fighting islamic terrorism for the past 1200 years, and , prima facie, have suffered tremendous losses of our territory to these retrograde and civilisationally inferior forces.

Even today, our political and intelluctual elite, albeit aware of this tremendous loss our country has had to suffer because of islam, prefer to remain blind to islamism, largely to sustain themselves in power. We, the Hindus, in independent India today, are paying the price of political myopia on the part of our political leaders who assumed the reins of power after independence. As we all know, secularism and tolerance are liberties to be permitted strictly to those who themselves appreciate their value and significance, and also in their turn, extend them to others. In the case of the muslim community, it can rightly be said that of all the people they are the least likely to understand both secularism and tolerance and therefore extending them both would be a self-defeating exercise.

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