Remember (how were you allowed to forget?) the purportedly toileted Koran that raised such a stink? People died in the conflagration of outrage that followed this leak by you-know-which-journal in you-know-which medium. It’s Rumsfeld’s fault, probably. Everything else is.
Well, here’s an interesting comparison. Vikrant_Camberleykar, a commenter on Jihad Watch, posted a link to the Times of India. The story showed a pair of shoes… one has to resist the temptation to break into Manolo-speak here… and on these shoes were an image.
The story was not about the riots and death which followed the outrage of these shoes. No. No outrage at all. Instead, readers were urged to begin a letter-writing campaign to the manufacturers of the shoes, asking that they cease manufacturing these desecrations:
| “It has come to the notice of Hindu Human Rights Group that you are currently marketing shoes with the pictures of our sacred and highly revered Hindu god Lord Rama printed on them,” said a letter sent to Minelli by Web-based activist group Hindu Human Rights Group. | |
| "We wish to point out to you that Lord Rama thus illustrated is actually worshipped by millions of Hindus across the world. It stands to reason that such a display of contempt for the spiritual beliefs and practices of a billion Hindus worldwide is causing a sense of fury and outrage in the Hindu community and we have received numerous complaints from Hindus in France." |
Here's the severe warning:
| “Hindu Human Rights ask that you withdraw this line of shoes from circulation and sale immediately so as to prevent further unwarranted stress and distress to Hindus worldwide. Naturally, we also expect you to publish a fully apology to the Hindu community,” the website adds. |
10 comments:
Rune--
The darn things look like flip flops, not sandals. You're actually walking onJesus, rather than having him atop your foot, as Lord Rama is.
Hmm...in the 'good' old days this would have been worth a charge of sacrilege and you would've had to hire a Canon Lawyer real quick. But that was back when heresy had some kick to it...
Makes you wonder: what if some enterprising, anything-for-a-buck entrepeneur thought of inscribing Alluh Akbar -- or whatever -- onto a pair of thongs. Imagine the riots, the deaths, the rage of the Arab Street...
Imagine the rest of the world changing the channel.
But a4g, that's the point. It's not in the Hindu nature of things to be so bloody-minded as that.
My point was exactly that it won't merit any MSM coverage precisely because it doesn't bleed...
Islam got as far as it did because it arose from a warrrior culture, a culture so anachronistic now that it's essentially doomed. Loud, mind you, but doomed. They will make a whole lotta noise on the way out -- and you can fully expect them to slam the door as they leave.
The Hindus behind the letter-writing campaign just want that twit to remove his sacrilege from the shelves.
As for the Left,they'll go with anything fiery, noisy or bloody. It's bread and circuses for an essentially empty mind. Besides, think about it: if you are prohibited by your culture from using aggression in appropriate ways, what is there to do but to project onto others?
The peecee group has outlawed dodge ball at recess. Some idiot doctor in England is asking for knives to be banned -- just to name two egregious examples. The Muslims are the lot onto which they can project all the things these blunted souls dare not do or even feel...Psych 101, courtesy of ~D.
BTW, go to the Watcher's Council for this week and look at Sundries Shack's fisk of current journalism. His conceit, using the Magic Eye toy, is excellent.
I seem to recall reading about a new theme park planned in India. The theme of the park is basically the pantheon of Hindu gods and goddesses.
I don't recall hearing about large-scale Hindu outrage over that. . . must be different somehow.
Minh-duc:
You said Until prominent Islamic scholars become more concern with people than abstraction, it will difficult to be convinced of the "religion of peace".
You have just hit the nail on the head. It is abstraction that forms the basis of Islam. The proper forms for washing, praying, whatever. It's all about the form, not about the person.
The religious meaning of the Bamiyan statues aside, they were part of our human heritage and what was done to them was evil in the extreme. It is not the destruction, it is the motive behind it. These are the people who forbid singing and music. How demented and twisted is that??
People like this must be stopped. We did stop the Taleban, now we must stop their imitators...the ones who blow up children and kill women for bringing shame on them.
On thing they did prove:evil is not an abstraction; it is very concrete and it lies in the actions of those who would reduce thousand year old statues to rubble and to those of us who stood by and let them do it. What will our descendants say?
Yashmak--
The point of this is exactly that there isn't some mythical "Hindu Street" ready to fly into a rage over manufactured, invented, made-up and so-called "atrocities" committed against the Koran. It's simply a book...pieces of paper written on and sewn or pasted together. There are millions of copies and if one gets destroyed, it can simply be replaced...
unlike, say, the thousand year old statues at Bamiyan that a bunch of crazies blew up and reduced to rubble. A thousand years of heritage, gone.
Did you hear any Muslim outrage about that? It was much, much worse than whatever was supposed to have happened to that book. If it happened. The destruction of the statues is a known fact, pictures, witnesses and all. Where's the riot? Where's the outrage? Do you care?
My point in doing this post is to illustrate that when Muslims, hypersensitive as they can be, think someone has dissed them, they go bananas. OTOH, when a worse desecration is done to a Hindu image, the Hindus write letters and ask that the shoes be removed and not be sold.
Do you see the difference? Do you think there may be something wrong with the Muslim picture? I do. They need, as the saying goes, to get a life.
"Do you see the difference? Do you think there may be something wrong with the Muslim picture? "
I think you misinterpreted the tone of my comment. Please don't assume that because we disagree on one small aspect of the Islamic issue, that we disagree on ALL of them. I completely agree with you that other religions seem capable of taking in stride things which certain Islamic groups do not.
I was simply comparing the item about the shoes, with another recent story about Hindu religious iconography being used in a way that to some Hindus might be considered sacreligious. I honestly don't know why the issue with the shoes caused protest, while the issue of the amusement park doesn't.
Lots of groups can be easily offended. How they handle those perceived offenses speaks volumes.
The Hindus' reaction is one which I can respect. The Muslims' reaction to the many offensive (alleged) events makes me distrust and despise them.
Dharma (or Jay Shree Ram),
I don't see Hindus as weak. Hindus have a vigorous, ancient, sophisticated civilization, and a theology which reflects it. The image of the "weak" Hindu was propagated by the British and reinforced by Gandhi's method of opposing the British. But that is only one aspect of Hinduism.
I believe that the Hindus and India are our natural allies in the fight against the Great Islamic Jihad, and regret that the US government does not do more to further that alliance.
Dharma, where are Hindus being forcibly converted by Christians? I hadn't heard about that. There are many vigorous Christian evangelicals attempting to convert people in India and elsewhere, but I wasn't aware of any forcible conversions.
I have been proselytized by Hindus numerous times, but always by the "Hare Krishna" people.
I don't see why any religion should aggressively target believers of another faith. It only leads to animosity and bad feelings between the different groups.
Sadly, at this time, most Hindus are very weak (and oblivious). To prove this point, simply go to any so-called "yoga site." Are they teaching Hinduism? (If you find one, please post it.) Are the teachers Hindus? Also, ask around and see what people think is Karma, a Guru and Mantra, for example.
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