Dear all
What some sons of Abraham get up to!
For what its worth, this is how I see things, after reading Simon’s blog about the Central African Republic (CAR).
ONE VERSION:
What a horrendous time for the people of the CAR. I cannot possibly understand how the situation developed to such a frightening scenario of sectarian violence. All I do know that the killings by Muslims must not make us even more anti-Islam or prejudiced, in anyway against Muslims we might meet. It certainly must not make us even more determined to get our own back or, to extend the War of Terrorism in Afghanistan beyond the end of 2014.
As regards political correctness, I think that being correct in every way is the only correct thing to be! We could do with being religiously correct, too but then that means being loyal to the faith you were brought up in when we should be able to think things out for ourselves and to come to our own conclusions.
Being correct in every way means, I think, acknowledging that the Muslims have a better track record than the Christians when it comes to who does the least violence.
Being correct in every way means, I think, accepting that the Koran has no violence but the Bible has much.
Being correct means understanding that the Arab slave trade was much less extensive, and brutal than the slave trade by the ‘Christian’ nations.
It seems to me that the Muslim countries look as though they are less avaricious, materialistic and less dominated by the ‘consume ever more’ mentality of the now very rich ‘Christian’ nations.
It is definitely the Western world, with those nation’s wars over their various empires, over the last two hundred years, at least, that has the worst record for man’s inhumanity to man. The Western, ‘Christian’ world that includes America, is responsible for
the killings of Africans that included Muslims during the vicious slave trade.
decades of oppression and deaths of black people by the supposedly ‘Christian’ and advanced nations of the USA and South Africa.
the persecution and killing of Jews,
then, Communists in the countries of SE Asia as we fought for “our vital strategic interests”, capitalism and democracy against godless, evil Communism; and, now
the latest horrors are perpetrated against Islam and the people of Iraq and Afghanistan. Both direct and indirect killings in, so far, twelve years of the war of terrorism in leaving a wasteland, mayhem and intermittent civil war in Iraq.
Yet, Bush and Blair sincerely believed they were doing what God wanted in launching the War of Terrorism. Just like the two Muslims who killed the soldier outside his barracks in Woolwich in 2013. Except Bush and Blair have much more blood on their hands than the two Muslims, of course. Abraham and his God and Allah have much to answer for.
for years the West has threatened to attack Iran for wanting nuclear weapons to balance or match Israel’s arsenal and so deter an attack from them.
this year, the Western powers nearly attacked Syria as punishment for a chemical attack in July. Putin saved the day. And, what an excellent article of his in the ‘New York Times’, too!
Yet, we get into such a state of indignation over the very much lower killings in the countries of eastern Europe that came under Stalin’s control in the wake of his help in defeating Nazism. We honestly think USSR communism killed “millions of millions” of their own (Daily Mail Dep Editor, Jon Staefel, ‘Newsnight’ 2013) but we conveniently forget our own millions whose premature deaths we are responsible for! However, since we kill blacks and foreigners, perhaps that does not matter.
Therefore, not man’s inhumanity to man but ‘Christian’, Western inhumanity to the Muslims of this century. How very ironic, how very thoughtless and hypocritical of us, how very unkind of us, how very reprehensible of us!
ANOTHER VERSION:
I do suspect (but there is no way of proving this) that down through the centuries, the adherents of the three dominant and influential Abrahamic faiths have been more responsible for killing their own than all the other faiths put together.
Muslims in my former workplace (I have now retired) tend to view their home of Britain as being founded and still based on the Judeo/Christian view of the world eg for many centuries the practices of Parliament on the centrality of the Bible and Christian belief and, especially, in the Coronation ceremony of our once all powerful, unelected and dictatorial and, too often, very badly behaved monarchs. In other words, since we label all Arabs as Muslims, some Muslims do like to label all people in the West as Christians. That is understandable.
The latest upsurge of violence between two largest branches of Abraham's family started with what the 'Christian' West called a declaration of war on the USA - 9/11. The 11 September 2001. Indeed, that Bible believing Christian who was saved from alcoholism by the Lord, President GW Bush called his launch of the War of Terrorism, a crusade. For Muslims, the word, 'crusade' has the horrifying connotations of the first named Christian crusades against the Muslims some centuries ago.
That far wiser man of God, Bishop Desmond Tutu, commented on 9/11 as being an act of terrorism and not an act of war. The implication being that the White House administration of the time, rather than seeing the attack on the twin towers as an opportunity to launch their 'New American Century Project' of violence and domination in the Middle East, should have used the courts of law to bring Osama bin Laden and the other surviving plotters to justice under American law in the USA and not to lock suspects up for years in Guantanamo Bay outside American law, in a state of limbo. Many seem to be suspects picked up on a whim, provided they were Muslims. Some remain in Guantanamo Bay without evidence against them and without trial. No wonder we have many Muslim insurgents or terrorists fighting our brave, upstanding, heroic soldiers.
Rather than keeping within the law, we have seen both the very military powerful Jewish state of Israel and its financial backer and supporter, the 'Christian' state of the USA, both indulging in extra judicial assassinations of their enemies who are classed by both democratic states as 'terrorists'. Exactly the same name was used to describe Nelson Mandela who narrowly escaped hanging for his crime against the state of South Africa.
Using the term ‘terrorist’ does help them to assuage their consciences in circumventing the far lengthier but inconvenient route of going down the legal avenues of using American law on US territory. Or, in the case of Israel, Israeli law.
What is worse, the men of violence in both the Knesset and in the White House feel quite unable to even abide by the resolutions and mandates of the United Nations. The UN, like the law, is another inconvenience that both the Western states, with sometimes Russia and China, simply ignore when it suits them!
No wonder we have constant war and mayhem in some parts of Africa, along with Iraq and Afghanistan. Iraq and Afghanistan that we have liberated to enjoy the rich blessings of Western democracy, religion, culture and schooling for girls.
In addition, all these men of violence, some the sons of Abraham in the prosperous 'Christian' West (and not so prosperous 'Christian' Africa) or the 'Muslim' Middle East and Africa, make the very weapons that fuel these never-ending wars.
The Bible has much violence in the Old Testament (see NOTE, below); the Koran has none. I have read every single word (practically) more than once in the Bible and literally every word in the Koran, once.
The Bible even has rules for waging holy war (Deut 20 v 1-20); the Koran has none. The Koran allows self-defence but not pre-emptive attacks of so called ‘self-defence’ as the Israelis have done many times since their state was founded. Founded, too out of many acts of terrorism in 1946 and 1947 to force the hand of the authorities to give them, and only them, the land. The most unholy Holy Land, ever.
The centuries of the most shocking violence indulged in by the supposedly Christian Western European nations - and the United States of Aggression with its offshoot, Israel - all, in this century, set a very bad example to the warring factions in the Central African Republic. Or, is it just human nature the world over, regardless of religious belief?
The time is well overdue for us good Christian men and women, the righteous of the Lord, to actually begin living up to the, admittedly, extremely difficult teachings of Jesus Christ in the Gospels. Or, if we cannot even attempt to do the non-aggression of being peacemakers instead of warmongers, how about abiding by UN mandates, international law or, just the law of our own lands?
Or, if even that is beyond us, how about keeping to the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights? This time, only thirty paragraphs of sound, common decency for us to attempt!
NOTE
The Bible is a contrast of ‘Thou shalt not kill’, yet also ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for tooth’, to genocide as God told Israel to wipe the inhabitants of the Promised Land off the face of the map. From that to a loving God and His people are to love neighbour and to love enemies. Perhaps, all that explains why atheist, agnostic and devout Christian believers all take part in warfare, and look up to our soldiers as heroes, as making the ultimate sacrifice, as noble service and, who so respect our soldier heroes (as my father in law did). Nearly all vote for the three main political parties who are this century’s war parties. For it is they who order the years of aggression, invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, without any authorisation from the UN.
