Dear Heidi

Submitted by Straight_Talk_Luigi (United States), Jun 30, 2008 at 14:36

Thank you so much for your comments Luigi. Actually, I read the headline when I was half done typing my comments and decided to post them regardless of the divergent subject.

Youre welcome, and I will try and help out as best I can.

I am not well educated on Islam. I am seeing its influence in the behaviour and attitudes of my partner, as well as the traditions I have witnessed living in an Arab country.

The key thing is to get acquainted with the good, bad and ugly of Islam. Robert Spencer and Dr. Pipes offer a comprehensive, but fair—and non-emotional--- criticism of Islam. I really wish that more women who post on here would read some of other Dr. Pipes's articles.

The mistake I see made a lot on here is that some women seem to be afraid to look at the bad aspects of Islam, for fear of seeming to be intolerant or of offending their man.

Look, I'm a Catholic, and I've heard every theory on Jesus—that He married Mary Magdelene and moved to France, that He went to India, that He never existed. I wasn't happy about looking into it, but I did.

I was raised Christian but most of my life I have rejected institutionalized religion and kept my beliefs private. Islam's power and pervasiveness in both private and public realms is ....for lack of a better word....frightening.

When Mohammed was in Mecca, Islam was largely peaceful. This is the type of Islam that moderate Muslims embrace.

Here's the thing about orthodox Islam (which Dr. Pipes calls Islamism): it is nothing more than a means to spread the Arabic culture and Islam. This takes priority over all the Five Pillars. In fact, it's so important that Muslims are even called upon to use deceit and other measures (terrorism) contrary to initial Islamic teaching. This is why sharia law caters to Muslim men and forces everyone else to live as second-class citizens. There are no ands, ifs or buts about it. This is the type of Islam that Mohammed practiced AFTER he arrived in Medina. The reason: he got access to an army. Robert Spencer notes all of this in his video "What the West Needs to Know about Islam."

It's interesting that you mention POWER. Here in the West, we have been conditioned to think politics means right vs left. What politics really means is the study of power.

I've studied this pretty extensively in college, and there are different ways of measuring power.

Islam is growing in power. Its population is growing from high birth rates in the Third World and also from high birth rates in Europe. Population is generally a key component in power.

So is will-power. This is where Islamism becomes dangerous, because in the secular West, most people don't have the level of belief that radical Muslims do. These jihadists are motivated by the two most powerful forces on earth: 1) sex with virgins of all shapes and sizes and 2) promise of eternal life.

What motivates the secular West?

1) TRUTH - My partner has spoken of a search for 'truth'. I am a skeptic when it comes to 'absolute truth'. Reality, as I see it, is not packaged into dichotomous values: truth/untruth; right/wrong; good/bad. Social institutions try and serve it up as simple and uniform as this. You made reference to the hegemonic tendencies of Islam which made me evaluate my partner's interpretation of truth, which I believe he is essentially refering to Islam.

Other readers can take this as they will, but I'll be the first to note that it's not always easy to get Muslims to say how they REALLY feel. It's sometimes like talking in riddles.

One the questions they love to dance around are ones about sharia law. I always ask about this because for one, I think it's a greater threat than terrorism, mainly because it has broader support among Muslims than terrorism does. The responses I get are usually along the lines of "well, God's will is God's will" as though they have no choice in the matter and are simply the messenger, AK-47 or not.

These are the kinds of things that someone who is blinded by tolerance and diversity will never see between the lines. And actually, that response---it's a sales trick, believe it or not. If you've ever encountered a problem with service and the person you are talking to to says "they didn't do this or that" it's the same thing. Shuffling the blame on someone else whether it's just or not. In the Muslims'case, God gets blamed.

It's the perfect response to a Western secularist who's chief worry is about looking intolerant. I mean, you won't dare question a minority religion's God, right?

AK-47 references aside, you don't have to be a trained al quedia operative to want sharia law, either.

I believe in tolerance and acceptance of beliefs and views that are divergent of my own so far as they are not destructive (and yes I am well aware of the subjectivity of what is deemed destructive).

The problem with tolerance in the West is political correctness. Zella recently wrote about this.

Political correctness can be something as trivial as making a romance movie and having a white woman with a white man or a black woman with a black man ect. OR it can be as bad as actually twisting science and proven facts for fear of hurting someone else's feelings.

I'll give you example, one that is close to my heart: The settlement of the New World. I've heard it all from guilty whites, atheists and Muslims about how the Native people were ravaged and what not. But I've always argued that European colonists came here not to rape and pillage, not initially, but to find a natural waterway to the far reaches of Asia.

Also, I'd like to point out that many Native American braves thought that not just their race, but their tribes were superior to EVERYONE else. They fought amongst each so often and so intensely before the arrival of Europeans and Asians that some tribes nearly wiped each other out.

The higher education system in the West and the main stream media are awful when it comes to this. The level of indoctrination is staggering and in some cases dangerous.

We are literally training the next generation to not be able to think for themselves. That's one reason why so many of our innovators now come from foreign countries.

Some of the best-reputed schools from Stanford to Oxford now use diversity in their selection process as opposed to merit-based achievements, and even those are feigned in some cases.

2) FEAR - It appears that Islam indoctrinates its members with this fear of sexuality. This is most apparent in the covering of women. We are sexual beings. However, the human body is not just a vessle for sex/procreation and therefore I believe we should not perceive it as such. I do not understand how the repression of such expressions as dance, sport, and art that require an appreciation of the human form can be beneficial to culture.

Because in Islamism, the idea is to stop any notion or temptation of leaving Islam IMMEDIATELY---no questions asked. That takes precedence over all else, even the safety of Muslim children. Now, don't give up on me just yet, I know that sounds crazy, but that's why the terrorists are called crazy. See, if you were an Islamist woman, you would need a male escort outside of the country because there's a chance she'll fall in love with a Jew or Christian and convert and leave Islam.

That's why the penalties for disobedience and apostasy are so intense. To stop even the idea of social uprising within the ranks of Islam through the use of control. It's an idea original to Islam, obviously, but Mohammed thought it was effective.

I have often argued that fear is a necessary part of Islamism. The fear is, of course, the loss of faith in Islam.

Fear is what drives dictatorships.

Female circumcision (still practiced in Egypt where my partner is from) is absolutely appalling to me and epitomizes fear and rejection of femininity and sexuality (Is this sanctioned by Islam?)

The challenge for Islam is that it doesn't have a hierarchical organization like the Catholic Church does.

For instance, you have Muslims in the UK who are very concerned with how terrorists are damaging the reputation of Islam and they don't want that huge mosque to be built in London.

On the other hand, you have Saudi sheiks who sign off on everything Bin-laden does and recently, one of them said it was okay to marry a one-year old as long as no sex was involved.

So you have two very different views, but all of them claim to cherish Islam.

In my religion, the Vatican has final say over all teachings, and they use painstaking measures to make sure that they follow Jesus's teaching.

It's not just Islam that has this problem either. Many Protestant denominations are coming apart at the seams over social issues like gay marriage.

Female circumcision is sanctioned by some Muslims, abhorred by others. It is practiced widely in Africa and is a terrible, traumatizing experience.

Certainly there has to be some middle ground between the Western world's hypersexuality that breeds its own social ills and the overtly oppressive East. In both worlds I perceive patriarchal values that limit the defining and expression of what is feminine by exploiting sexuality in form or another.

It's like my great-grandmother said: Everything in moderation. It's the first step psychologically to being a better person, I think.

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