Underlying dangers of minarets!!!!
December 10th, 2009
While the ban on minarets by the people of Switzerland which was passed in a referendum may not actually be implemented because of intervention by European Court of Human Rights or Supreme Court of Switzerland, it is reflective of the perils we all have to face in our desires to live in a peaceful world. The secular people have indeed denounced this ban but there are quite a few who admire the Swiss for what they have done. And that, my dear friends, may just be the beginning of opening of another front in the war between these faiths.
Though the dangers of right wing activists starting this kind of campaign in other parts of an otherwise secular Europe is not really being talked of openly but there are people like Roberto Maroni, Italy’s interior minister who have indeed called for a similar ballot in Italy. As you can see the fears are rubbing off. It may take some time for his right wing Northern League party to gather public support but indications are that they will surely step up their campaign in the next few months. If they succeed you can well imagine what the outcome of such a ballot will be in an Italy which has a very deeply conservative Catholic population. If Italy does something similar we can be rest assured that Muslim countries too will come out with their ballots against other faiths. And so on and so forth. You guys can draw your own assumptions as to where we are all headed towards.
The second facet to this ban is the argument that if we as secular people endorse the rights of Muslims to freely practice their religion then people of other faiths living in Muslim nations should also be allowed to practice theirs freely. To cite just one example of Sikhs and Hindus in Pakistan have not only been terrorized by fundamentalists but have been forced to either convert or flee from their homes. While it is unlikely that Swiss voted the way they did because of their affections for these people yet if Muslim nations continue to suppress the feelings of minorities in their countries they really would not have the right to talk of fate of Muslims in other countries.
Actually, the problem is both ways. There are sections within each faith who openly denounce the other. It is just that that some of these are played up by the media and some are not. Like for example the protests against Danish cartoons of Prophet Mohammad were flashed all around the world by the media while Pope Benedict’s lecture at Regensburg in Sep 2006 where he deplored Islam was not. Possibly because international media houses are predominantly controlled by Christians and they can choose what to play up and what to play down. It is for the same reason that condition of Sikhs and Hindus in the troubled areas of Pakistan were not played up by them. You can be rest assured that had this happened to Christians in Pakistan and not Hindus or Sikhs things would have been absolutely different. Islamists on their part too were guilty of inciting Muslims around the world to protest against those cartoons. And while we are discussing this issue it will be worthwhile to note that this violence happened months after the cartoons were actually published by the Danish media and are still freely available on the net. You can check this out on Wikipedia here. And since I have a history with Wikipedia wherein they removed a page from their website after I linked to it here’s a screenshot of that page where they have clearly given pictures of Mohammad and which I have deliberately hidden.
I know you can’t see the proof but if I’ve taken all this trouble to say what I have, I mean, you can take it as the truth. And I have no reason to lie either. If this is indeed very blasphemous for Muslims around the world why don’t we see any more protests? Well, that’s because the aim was to internationalize the issue and that aim has already been achieved. It would now serve no purpose if they were to organize protests again on this issue.
As you can see there are vested interests involved in this battle between the faiths. For most it is ideology and faith and for some it is just business. Mind you guys money plays a very important role in this whole affair. It was the financial clout of Swiss People’s Party and Federal Democratic Union party because of which they could successfully sustain their campaign against construction of minarets in Switzerland. Talk about money driving ideology or ideology driving money instead. As we can see they both go hand in gloves with each other with disastrous consequences for lesser mortals.
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December 10th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
[...] Underlying dangers of minarets!!!! « makeSplash.com by Sush Jaitly [...]
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December 10th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
How can you say that if Italy does something similar Muslim countries too will come out with their ballots against other faiths, when in most Islamic countries already minorities and even subsects of Islam are oppressed? In countries like Saudi Arabia even having a picture of a Hindu God is prohibited. If you consider Gulf countries Pakistan is far better. The only Islamic country which does not oppress its minorities is Indonesia and Arab money and ideology is invading even Indonesia to make it fundamentalist.
There are 2 categories of hatred mongers in Europe - one are the racists and the other are the paranoids(whose rank has swollen after 9/11). Racists hate Muslims because Muslims in Europe are largely recent migrants to Europe. If you take the UK for instance, the BNP is spreading hatred against Muslims and is even trying to rope in Sikhs and Hindus against Muslims. Muslims themselves do nothing to remove the fear from other communities. For all their claim of Islam being a peaceful religion we are seeing more and more terrorist attacks.
If religions insist that theirs is the only way to reach God (for people who believe in God) we would only see more and more clashes. But the fear in the leaders of these religions is that once they accept that, everybody will desert their religion. So they try their best to fuel fundamentalism.
As you said, the media though not dominated by Christians, is influenced by them. But they do highlight even the Pope's speech when it affects their society, for example there is a good amount of criticism of the Vatican's opposition to condoms, abortions and evolution. That is because the Vatican's stand is largely unscientific and backward, not very different to the stand taken by Muslim fundamentalists.
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December 10th, 2009 at 7:15 pm
wot the f'n faith are ppl in this planet after!!!??? afterall there is only one faith too all the human species in this earth called-KARMA!!!!
believe me peeps 5 decades from now this is wots gonna happen n things like faith would be a joke!
------>
PATH BREAKING CONCEPT FOR THE HUMAN SPECIES- extract the human mind/feelings/thoughts/traits n embed it into a chip n take several back ups of it n put the chip into a flexible artificial non destroyable human like machine that can fly/swim/walk/talk/see/feel etc etc... this way the human species can overcome death n become invincible!!!! Any scientists intrested in developing my concept( requires ppl from a lot of fields like medicine,pshycology,software,engineering etc etc....)
links that inspired this idea - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpEnFwiqdx8
and
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tv/TED-India-Pranav-Mistry/videoshow_ted/5231080.cms
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December 11th, 2009 at 9:28 am
@swami www ji, making KARMA your religion is the ideal way. Unfortunately, it does not cut much ice with majority of us including many Hindus.
I would request that both you guys check out my post Loosing My Religion.
http://www.makesplash.com/loosing-my-religion/
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December 11th, 2009 at 10:00 pm
Talking of India.. We already hv 25 crore Mulims in our country.. If not checked, India is going to be another Islamic State..Read this link..http://www.facebook.com/groups.php?id=1451235127&gv=12#/topic.php?uid=103295562390&topic=13450
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December 12th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
The aim of right wing swiss parties was to demonize Islam and ensure that citizens get scared by its influence- this aim was achieved by comprehensive hate campaigning. this entire episode had nothing to do with Saudi Arabia unlike what one of the readers here has mentioned. SA has been like that for ages. to say that this was related to that is ridiculous.
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December 13th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
India also needs to stop conversions from one religion to other.If conversion is illegal each faith will feel safer. Mayb people wil fight less over religion then. if u want to convert let it be a legal case which only courts can decide.
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December 13th, 2009 at 9:47 pm
What an effin waste of time debating about this. Burn them all down I say...the temples, mosques, churches, synagogues and every place of worship. Organised religion can and never will allow humans to progress beyond our bickerings, because religions by their very nature are meant to opress people and make them bigots and despise others. There is not a single religion in the world that has not been used to justify murder and opression. The major religions like christianity and Islam and even budhism started out as enti-establishment political philosophies which later was perverted to the so called institutions of today.Religion has been the sigle largest readon in history over which people killed each other and are still willing to do so. That why i think religion has outgrown its use and needs to be scrapped. People say that the objective of religion is to make people moral. I ask them "what have you been smoking ?". Look around and see where religion has brought us to. Morever one does not actully need to have a religion to behave in a moral manner. Doing good because we believe in a god is a fools game. That means a person is not capable of innate goodness. What we need is a revolution of sorts where people realise the sham they have been subjected to over the centuries and kill every priest, mullah and godman and burn every so called holy book in the world :)
ashwinrj.wordpress.com
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December 13th, 2009 at 11:00 pm
Firstly, let me tell you that I go to all of them and believe you me there are places of worship where I've indeed found solace and inner peace.
Secondly, religions are not going to go away. And we can't just wish them away either. What we need to do is to learn how to respect other religions. This can be done and this is what we should all aim for.
Thirdly, check out my post
http://www.makesplash.com/loosing-my-religion/
You'll see what I mean if you read it.
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Comments on : @Ashwin, quite an extreme view....
Comment By : Ashwin R J
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December 15th, 2009 at 10:10 am
Yes, you are right. God is a belief. In my opinion there is indeed a God and like I said in my post LOOSING MY RELIGION we have to give HIM a name. Not just this, this belief of mine gives me moral and physical strength to survive in this big bad world. I'm not a very religious person but I feel having some kind of faith makes you a better person. It is a different matter that some people have made this their profession and have taken it upon themselves to impose their faith on others.
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January 5th, 2010 at 6:22 pm
I just read what you wrote an I was amazed to somehow you tried to put it like saying "its ok, they are doing this because Muslims are doing that" or may be like " you Muslims should not do what you are doing, or else this happens to you"
I have a question, lets say that minarets are not a mater of life and death to Muslims, but actually they there in building mosques, but does it mean that if Muslims in Switzerland want minarets on their mosques, then its ok that banning is all fine? I mean why in particular Muslims? I mean isn't Switzerland democratic? I mean if I want to build my house or a building, can't I build it in anyway I want as far as its not OFFENSIVE to others? I mean its just Swiss people who built it and who are using it. Its theirs. If its about the so called "ISLAMIZATION OF EUROPE" then what do you think of WESTERNIZING the Muslim world? I mean if you(European) people are against globalization, okey. But you do things the way you want in other countries and you don't want anything to in your country like of what other cultures are, especially when Muslims do it,and to be more specific EUROPEAN MUSLIMS. I mean what is it ? why is the double standard?
And you also said something about the things that some Muslims do so and so, and you talked about Pakistan. I have never heard of such a thing. I am not denying that there is. There may be. But what if that leader of the Muslim country do so, does it mean that EUROPEAN MUSLIMS should suffer? Then talk to the leaders do what ever you what with them. Why should the innocent Muslim civilians suffer? If some one is bad does it mean that I have to be like that person to be just? "THINK", I know you (EUROPEAN,some of you) just don't like Islam, and want to ban Islam in your country, then stay "THE HELL OUT OF MUSLIM COUNTRIES".
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