With respect to all

Submitted by Alonnehhob (Canada), Sep 21, 2005 at 13:58

I am christian who came from Arabic culture, I lived most of my life in a neutral Muslim country. To be fair with Muslims and Islam, I agree with the fact that Muslims are tolerant to minority only if the minority follow the rules of Islam. i.e. We have to go with their Sharia law, there is no other law in Islamic countries, no free speech about Islam, they can insult our religion but if one of us say any word about Islam, they will be put in jail. I was insulted so many times in my work place, in taxis, in public but couldn't do anything about it. We can not breach our religion to them, our catholic schools have to be open to them, we can not forbid any muslim from enrolling in our schools, but their pure Islamic schools are forbidden to Christians. Women dress code should comply with their culture or else they will be harrassed and looked at as whores. The community pressure is so high in Islamic countries that Arab Christians are treated as second class citizens. The discrimination against us went to a point that we couldn't not tolerate anymore so we immigrated to Canada.

We came to Canada, and I was so surprised when a Muslim woman who never volunteers in school activities, came in to the school to forbid the Christmas carols during Christmas because it doesn't comply with her religion, surprisingly, the school cancelled the Christmas carols evening because of this Muslim woman.

I am really wondering, why would Muslims deny the rights of minorities in their countries and also denies the rights of majorities in countries who were generous enough to accept them as immigrants. Why they are creating all this noise in all over the world. Recently in Germany, Muslim groups could also pressure the German government to turn crosses down from public schools, Why for GOD sake?

However, I still think and insist that we should respect minorities and treat every human life in dignity and respect, regardless of religion, culture, differences in any kind. But I am asking politely all Muslims to stop the noise, to have respect for others. Muslims, with their fight for their rights they are hurting so many people in the world and creating hostile environment against themselves.

Freelance and every other Muslim, I have high respect to human beings all around the world because that what Jesus taught us to be, I can not understand why you are trying to force your culture and values on everyone, why would Muslims fight to have Sharia law in a free country like Canada? Why can't they accept the fact that they are not superior?, GOD created everyone equal, GOD loves all his creation, do not take what Imams tell you about other religions blindly, you are asking people to be open minded and read Quran, trust me I read Quran in a very open minded but couldn't accept the fact that a religion would promote and justify violence against other human beings.

I acn not understand that muslims in England deny the right of free speech to Salman Rushdi regardless of what he has wrote, I can not understand that muslims in Netherland kill Van Gogh because he makes a movie against islam. If you want freedom of speech and religion then yoou are required not to deny it to others.

The insult of bible, christianity and the West on the registered islamic web sites written by respected muslims imams are also hurting us, please be fair in your teachings especially to poor young muslims who only knows about christianity of what your imams tell them.

Btw, I have read it more than 3 times already in its original language (Arabic). I ask you to be brave and read the new testimonies in an open minded.

Please have respect to the free society that you are in, why can not you accept that we have to love everyone equally and adapt with the culture we are in?

Peace be with you all, and I really apologize if I offended anyone.

---

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".