A brave writer

Submitted by Ibrahim Faran (Australia), Jul 24, 2006 at 23:27

Star of David is right. Moderate Muslims the world over have been hijacked for the past two decades by an orgy of self-indulgent, sel-righteous and violent fundamentalists.

It is clear that the Muslim world is not really interested in helping its brothers the world over to any signinficant extent, because if there really was pan-Arab will, it would not take much doing.

No, Arab leadership in the Muslim world continues to guard petty kingdoms and fiefdoms and to play one against the other instead of coming to the unescapable conclusion that support for terror and unrest is the srtaegy of the myopic leader. There is no long term future in it.

As an Arab and a Muslim, it is depressing to see Iranian leader Ahmadinenejad continue to use a tired rhteoric from a previous age in order to deflect world attention from himself and his countires woes. And because I would be attacked and ostracized (and perhaps even physically endangered) by this response from my friends and associates, I have used an alias in my surname.

It is a pity. Millions of Muslims like me live in fear of reprisals if we say what we really think about our leaders. And in this Starof David is right: Islam is not a tolerant religion or way of life precisely because diversity of thinking is not tolerated.

My prayer is that it will come of age sooner rather than later.

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