enforcement of standards is the problem

Submitted by the Grand Infidel of Kafiristan (Australia), Jan 28, 2010 at 17:08

Myth writes:

"Grand Infidel, is it "good to have standards"? In the light of islamism I am very sceptical of standards. One religion islam, one book the qran, one language valid arabic, one law sharia, one community the sunna"

I must not have made the sentence clear. You have read too much into it. I was talking specifically about your lament at the rise of English particularly due to business. I made the point that standards - such as between computers (ASCII code, HTML , XML etc) have allowed for free and fast flow of information. If there were no standards - we'd be a lot worse off - people would always be reinventing the wheel. The adoption of English in business has not been forced on anyone. Personally - I think the rise of English at the expense of other languages is not a good thing. I want to see that Danish, Norwegian, German, Dutch Estonian, Latvian, Finnish, Russian (but maybe not French) etc are still around in 200 years time. How boring would it be to have one language worldwide. How stifling to the world of art and literature and the creation of new ideas and insights.

This is no doubt part of the reason islamic countries are so backward these days.

You've stretched this out to include Islam - which was not my intention at all. But I can see that while standards enhance creativity and the better use of time and energy rigid standards do the opposite. But then it's not the standard itself - it is the forced obedience to the standard that would do this. So it comes down to control.

In Islam's case - you are correct - it is a rigid totalitarian control system that reinforces itself and its own standards through various insidious means - mostly fear based. The terrible wrath of allah,punishment for non-islamic activity, wife beating, death for apostates and other sanctions , threats of reprisal to apostates even in muslim communities in the west , hate speeches from various imams, promises of destruction of western society, the push for sharia law and the unattainable but stated aim of worldwide domination..

And of course there's all the associated phenomena coming from this enforced ignorance - whining about the smallest perceived insult to muslim 'honour', arab machismo and hypocrisy, abuse of Western welfare systems at taxpayer's expense, demanding special rights and privileges - e.g. special prayer rooms set aside at workplaces , their palpable hatred of Jews and associated cultural practices such as - clitorectomy, wearing burkhas, arranged marriages, cousin marriages.

All very, very toxic stuff.,

And yet they wonder why we have a problem with it.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".