Dennis Prager on shooting children
I don’t know how many of my readers regularly read Townhall.com, a site by the Heritage Foundation which contains an archive of articles by various right-wing columnists. Dennis Prager is one of them. The first article I read by him was “Why Young Women Are Exposing Themselves?” which was linked off Ladies Against Feminism. Essentially it said that modern society gave women precious little opportunity to be feminine, so they resorted to the only means they had – their bodies. I’m not convinced. The problem, as far as I can tell, is the dictates of fashion issuing from an industry obsessed with the “bottom line”. In Europe, it may be possible for the government to take a tough line on indecency when it covers the written word, while the US, of course, has a Bill of Rights which forbids it. (Arguably, the recent Human Rights Act, and the European convention behind it, does this as well.) Perhaps Prager and other Americans reading this would be horrified at the suggestion.
His latest is entitled They shoot children, don’t they?. Here’s an extract:
According to The New York Times, when the terrorists took over the Russian elementary school, they shouted “Allahu akbar” (“Allah is the greatest”).
Does this surprise you, dear reader? Does it shock you that the people who deliberately attacked a school and then systematically shot and blew up little children did so in the name of Islam?
Unfortunately, the question is rhetorical.
And no, this doesn’t shock me. Prager then goes into a laundry-list of terrible things “fanatical Muslims” do:
The slaughtering of innocent human beings as if they were animals while chanting Muslim prayers.
Well, Islam forbids what Prager describes. The people doing this are at best ignorant, possibly making interpretations of sacred texts to suit their purposes, and possibly are acting in revenge for the murders of their own relatives by the security forces. When people do this on an individual basis in the USA, it’s still a criminal act, and it is here too. Let nobody think there is any ambiguity about it – acts like the Beslan massacre are not Islamic even if the people committing the acts are Muslims.
The reintroduction of black slavery and genocide against blacks.
As far as I know, in some parts of the world this has never gone away. And it has nothing to do with al-Qa’ida or terrorism, but simply with the culture of the Sahara region. If we’re talking about Sudan, though, the slavery claims are disputed, and the Darfur genocide is known to be the work of tribal militia and the victims are Muslims.
The murder of daughters and sisters for imagined or real sexual behavior.
Actually, honour killings are common in many parts of the world, not just the Muslim world. We hear of dowry-related murders of women in India, among Hindus as well, and mass abortions of baby girls among non-Muslims in India, by people who don’t want the financial “burden” of a daughter. It’s forbidden in Islam to spread innuendos and rumours about women, especially women.
The stoning of women accused of adultery.
Just accused of adultery? The punishment in Islam applies to those convicted, with (according to most authorities) four upright, male, Muslim witnesses who testify to seeing the penetration itself – not just seeing the man on top of the woman with either partly undressed. (Yes, some authorities do accept pregnancy as proof, but not all.)
The burning of Hindu temples and Christian churches, and the destruction of among the greatest Buddhist sculptures.
It’s known that Hindu fanatics have destroyed mosques and Islamic shrines also, particularly in the state-sponsored “riot” in Gujarat in 2002.
The ban on women driving cars or learning to read.
This has happened in only two countries, namely Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. In every other country, there is no ban on women driving. No Muslim authority disapproves of, much less forbids, women learning to read.
The idolization of young men who blow themselves up while murdering and maiming innocent non-Muslims — and the theology of sexual rewards in heaven for doing so.
Our religion tells us that the pleasures of Paradise are physical as well as spiritual: the most excellent food, beautiful landscapes, and yes, lovemaking. We are not like Catholics who dream of a heaven which is like a monastery! As for the “idolization” of suicide bombers, this is not known to happen anywhere except Palestine, and like Chechenia, it seems to be a product of the conditions there rather than of Arab religious culture. Suicide bombings are not seen in that many places – Palestine and Chechenia, primarily.
Unlike the Arabs, Israelis have the choice of who they elect as their leader, and they chose a man who had been responsible for the deaths of far more people than any suicide bomber. Several of their earlier leaders had been terrorists who attacked the British during the mandate. Some of us do criticise Palestinian suicide bombers and disapprove of the tactics; you are not entitled to, as you continue to benefit from the actions of the terrorists who founded Israel.
No Muslim should admire anyone who deliberately kills children unless the children are actually combatants. Children are innocent, and this includes non-Muslim children.
It is, of course, only a minority of Muslims that engages in such horrors, but it is only Muslims who are doing all these things. Christians aren’t — even among Palestinians, there are no Christian terrorists.
This is in fact not true. There are no Christians involved in the specifically Muslim groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad. But they were involved in the secular groups like the PFLP and the DFLP. George Habash cannot be a Muslim with a name like that. And Christians have waged terrorist campaigns against other Christians elsewhere – look at Northern Ireland, and EOKA in Cyprus.
As for the Israelis, they don’t need terrorist organisations (anymore) – they have an army and a security service which has not been averse to murdering and kidnapping in other people’s countries.
With the psychopathic cruelty at a Russian elementary school, have we reached the point where people of goodwill can ask serious questions about Muslims and Islam? Or are any challenging questions still to be dismissed as “Muslim bashing” or, even more absurdly, “racist,” as if religion were a race?
Well, Islamophobia manifests itself in ways very similar to the ways of racism: police harrassment, profiling based on looks and skin colour, which often traps non-Muslims and quite innocent Muslims, hysteria and violence. A generalised hostility to an entire, massive community is identical to racism. What questions do you need to ask about Islam which you did not know how to answer before Sept 11? The books are there, in greater number, and there are imams in every mosque who could answer your questions. If you want to know what lies behind the massacre in Russia, do some research into the situation in Chechenia, because as far as I know, the deliberate massacre of a large group of children has no precedent.
Prager then tells us about his background of moderating an interfaith radio show in Los Angeles in the late 1980s. He invited Muslims onto the show, and to speak to Jewish organisations, and was himself invited to speak at a mosque there. Which is natural, as religious people might well be able to develop common moral positions and other understandings. He might ask those people the answer to these questions:
First, is there anything in Islam or in the way Islam is now taught and practiced that dulls the conscience and thereby enables many religious Muslims to engage in or support atrocities that other groups, religious and secular, find inconceivable?
The answer is, for the most part, no. The thing which may dull the conscience is anger, which can occur to anyone, and when groups of angry and traumatised people get together, they may do quite dreadful things.
Second, the laudable condemnations of Islamic terror made by the Islamic Center notwithstanding, why are there virtually no public demonstrations of Muslims against the unspeakable evils committed by its adherents?
Perhaps because this is not normally the type of issue which attracts rallies anyway? I don’t remember ever hearing of British rallies against Northern Irish terrorism, but I did hear of rallies in Northern Ireland by peace groups and the like, which drew members from both communities, and the terrorists came from both communities also. Demonstrations mostly happen when the demonstrators believe they can influence a decision, and it’s unlikely that Muslims in the west would prick the consciences of people deranged by bitterness or anger. Some of them probably don’t regard us as true Muslims anyway.
