A free society nor a free person can be compelled to adopt an authoritative idealism and still claim to be free.

Submitted by trans-parere (Canada), Apr 23, 2008 at 18:41

Dear Junaid Bhura

Thank you for your response. I do appreciate your personal decision to embrace Islam. I never speak out against religion of Islam. I always speak in regard to the governing of Islam and those Moslem's who seek not parity but social advantage and "special" exclusions subject to their religion as authority. If you are a Moslem who can keep his or her religion private to home and Mosque I applaud you. If you are Christian or Jewish or Mormon or Hindi, or want to worship a discarded juice box. I don't care. I will defend your right to that freedom as long as your religious interpretation brings no harm or influence upon any other. In my personal system of belief no one person has the right to impose their religious beliefs on another.

Unfortunately I can not agree with you that Islam is not used to govern. If what you say was true in the workings of todays world there would be no "Islamic Councils" engaged in political activity and consistently working to have non-Moslem's adopt such narrow social exclusionary constructs.

I don't know how it is in India from personal experience but, I do know what I read internationally and I can also tell you tell you that Islam is of no interest for us in the west as a religion or as a method of social governing to Westerners. No one cares. Be Muslim. That's your choice. And WE allow for it. However, part two of freedom of choice is accepting responsibility for that freedom and your personal choices. We have social freedoms beyond what Islam allows for and we will not become part of a authoritarian totalitarian system of religious governing. This is not anti-Islamic. That is the wrong point of view. It is pro-democracy. Pro social freedom. And the rights of the individual in law before any rights of a collective. It does not matter if that collective is Islam or Christianity or Shinto Buddhism.

It is not a question of preconceived ideas. Neither Islam nor Moslem's are new to the western hemisphere. It is a question of a growing percentage of Moslem's who for reasons of their own can not abide a peaceful co-existence with their neighbours and demand the right to govern themselves with in our society. It is just not socially feasible to have a dictatorship and an open democratic society occupying the same space. Besides that these fundamentalist who are pushing for these extreme interpretations of the Koran are not the majority and we as members of our free society must act to protect the normal everyday Moslem's from such socially disruptive exploitation. It is our duty as citizens.

There is a third factor for which you may take offense but must be addressed. Many of the Moslem's coming to North America and Europe today are not as educated or as sophisticated as the society they are entering and many are being preyed upon, exploited by their fellow Moslem's and used as tools to insight social disharmony where non exist. These are truly disreputable individuals who mask their abuse by their interpretation of Islam to knowingly carry out criminal activity.

And last but not least, let me say that I am familiar broadly speaking with Indian history and that if I was going to look for any loss of personal or national wealth I would acknowledge the period of the Indian Principalities. Those conflicts/wars and the pillaging done by the Indians themselves before the British showed on the scene. I know it's popular to reject anything derived from colonialisation and to vilify that colonial power but, as terrible as it must have been to be occupied by foreigners the British legacy was much more benign than that of the Islamic conquest. I will accept your subjective opinion of which was worse.

Cheers

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