Our expatriate Russian correspondent Russkiy has been studying Arabic, and understands the language well enough to follow the discussion in various Arabic-language forums. Here’s his report on some of the Muslim commentary concerning recent events in Iraq:
This is something I believe GoV readers may find interesting. When a bombing happens in Iraq, the BBC Arabic service usually publishes a poll questioning the opinions of Arabs concerning the latest events and the future if Iraq. In response, non-Iraqi Arabs typically post rubbish such as: “Look what your democracy has brought! The deaths of children, women, old people, etc.”- - - - - - - - -
However, I have noticed that more thoughtful comments are posted mainly by Iraqi commenters. Here’s an example from a BBC News Forum thread:A very important, simple and clear question must be asked; the answer to it will explain the deterioration of security and general conditions of Iraq. The question is: what is the identity and what are the beliefs of the person who has blown himself up and killed tens of people?
Is he a Zionist or an American? Or is he of an Arab of Muslim background?
Did he pray consistently, read the Quran, cry out in fear of Allah, and in general fast during the month of Ramadan?
The Muslim Arabs must admit to themselves the cause of their misery, instead of continuing to lie to themselves and the world, and turning the truth upside down because of their weakness and ignorance.
— Ali al Ghaanimi al Iraqi, Boston
9 comments:
The Muslim Arabs must admit to themselves the cause of their misery, instead of continuing to lie to themselves and the world, and turning the truth upside down because of their weakness and ignorance.
What if "turning the truth upside down" is their only strength? What then?
In yet one more way, taqiyya irrevocably damns Islam. Not only does this form of ideologically sanctioned deceit make trusting Muslims totally out of the question but it also infantilizes them.
Like some card sharp that relies upon palming his aces more than actual ability, Islam's routine resort to subterfuge only serves to weaken its real survival skills. While this is wholly appropriate, it still encourages a mastery of craft and, especially, propaganda that can be very difficult to combat.
However, with equal ease, that same proficiency becomes dependency, as is amply evidenced throughout the MME (Muslim Middle East). It may well be a predictable outcome for a looting culture whose core belief structure discourages the sort of curious and investigative mind needed to innovate instead of appropriate.
In a similar manner, Islam appropriates the truth in order to distort or selectively utilize whatever portion suits its ends. This reliance upon convenience has bred up a congenital laziness, not just of body but mind. The unpopulated lunar landscape of Muslim Nobel Prize winners stands as stark proof of this.
Finally, as with all addictions, this Muslim deceit comes home to roost with a vengeance. Our world is being involuntarily modernized by the Internet and its ability to rapidly disseminate the truth. By its very nature, a technology with such ease-of-use equally encourages its users to originate work-around solutions that can defeat even the most determined efforts to block or obstruct them.
Thus do we see Islam's professional liars slowly being unmasked out in the disinfecting sunlight of this Information Age. The pasty and anemic visage found lurking beneath is merely symptomatic of the hothouse flower that Islam has turned into. Its unwholesome habit of deceit has become a crippling vice in a world that increasingly demands intellectual and physical vigor.
While Islam very capably sells itself to the deluded and willfully blind in Europe and Liberal America; once sympathetic ears become increasingly tone-deaf to Muslim cries of victimization and poverty. Donor fatigue amid Pakistan’s latest natural disasters signal a growing doubt as to whether Islam will ever stand on its own or just continue to walk across the backs of all who have ever sought to uplift this childish way of thinking.
Both article and comment excellent! Thanks, very interesting!
Interesting to hear that this sort of commentary comes from within Iraq itself, as this wouldn't be the case under an Islamic rule.
Erick: Interesting to hear that this sort of commentary comes from within Iraq itself, as this wouldn't be the case under an Islamic rule.
Exactly what "sort of commentary" are you referring to? Are you literate in Arabic and managed to translate some of the other BBC forum comments that others of us were unable to?
The BBC commentary cited in this post was most likely from an expatriate Iraqi, one Mr. Ali al Ghaanimi al Iraqi of Boston, as his signature seems to indicate:
Ali al Ghaanimi al Iraqi, Boston [emphasis added]
The entire problem in Iraq is that "that this sort of commentary" is not encouraged while nothing remotely resembling this "comes from within Iraq itself" and there is nothing to indicate that "this wouldn't be the case under an Islamic rule".
So, as I noted, either you are referring to some other comment entirely or projecting a tremendous degree of wishful thinking onto a situation where such behavior is not just delusional but lethal.
Well, Zenster, I'm not sure as to why your tone was so hostile towards me, but I was indeed referring to the comment that was cited here, which was referred to as (and I quote): "... posted mainly by Iraqi commenters.", without any mentioning of the person being an expatriate living anywhere.
You can be quite assured that I do not indulge in self delusion, but am merely relying on the information given here. Forgive me for not wasting my time reading the BBC news forum and getting to know each person commenting there, but thanks for clarifying nonetheless.
I originally posted the comment. I would like to confirm that if "Muslim Arab" ever says anything worth reading chances are the commenter is an Iraqi. I guess all the killing and spilled blood made them realize that it is not the Americans but fellow muslim arabs who are doing all the killings.
I would also like to add that I have noticed an interesting trend. I have known several Iraqis during my university years. They were practicing muslims at the time. Upon their graduation they travelled to work to Dubay and Qatar. They seemed to have become non practicing muslims or atheists as they have started drinking, completely relaxed their atitudes, started to eat pork. The comments on their political views that they post on their facebook pages are very unislamic.
I am just saying...
Erick: Forgive me for not wasting my time reading the BBC news forum and getting to know each person commenting there, but thanks for clarifying nonetheless.
Neither I nor anyone else asked you to. For one thing, you would have to read Arabic in order to scan the text posted there.
However, you did manage to misattribute the comments of Ali al Ghaanimi al Iraqi as being of Iraqi origin and thereby gave Iraq's current political climate a totally undeserved air of tolerance and openess.
No such thing is the case and it is incumbent upon all sane people to make sure that these tyrannous Muslim regimes do not get portrayed as any sort of open or fair societies, which they most clearly aren't.
There are numerous Western governments which are intent upon perpetuating such a remarkably peurile error and this continues to allow many people to indulge in the comfortable illusion that Islam is nowhere near the tremendous threat that it, in fact, is.
You seemed to making that identical mistake and, by default or otherwise, managed to help spread this dangerous misperception. The absence of any meaningful analysis of the article in your comment made it just as easy to suppose that you really had very little understanding of the situation.
Were you to have that understanding, it would most likely have occurred to you that opinions such as those of Ali al Ghaanimi al Iraqi are ruthlessly suppressed throughout the MME (Muslim Middle East), in favor of blaming America and Israel for every imaginable self-inflicted woe they suffer.
Dear Zenster.
Indeed, I am not thoroughly acquainted with every detail of life in Iraq. I was relying on the information provided in the article, which I assumed to be more knowledgeable than me. Admittedly, that was a mistake, but rather than pointing out the misleading error in the text, and offering additional information, like a semi-civilized person might have done, you lashed out on my innocent comment in a disproportionate, and plain rude manner, seeing it as a deliberate attempt at subverting the facts.
Since you've done that twice now, I understand this is an attitude problem, but perhaps it is not beyond your capabilities to realize that if a person cannot make an innocent comment in this blog, without being treated like some sort of criminal by the regularly-posting 'elites', then you are not really helping the cause.
In short, I am not the enemy. If I were the enemy, I wouldn't have bothered to post anything here.
Food for thought.
Erick: In short, I am not the enemy. If I were the enemy, I wouldn't have bothered to post anything here.
There is one thing that still does not make any sense:
Interesting to hear that this sort of commentary comes from within Iraq itself, as this wouldn't be the case under an Islamic rule.
Your statement is difficult to interpret as anything but a celebration that Iraq is something other than yet another Islamic theocracy.
Rest assured that, as an American citizen, I am furious at the way our blood, treasure and moral capital has been expended for the cause of installing one more Muslim tyranny.
However, at all times I do my level best to avoid portraying Iraq or Afghanistan as anything but the despotic Islamic Hell holes that they are.
Even now, your own initial comment seems rather far afield from my own surmise. Far too many people from either partisan sphere appear willing to make a similar mischaracterization of Iraq and, just as frequently, of Islam itself.
At the very least this is a lamentable degree of naïveté. At worst, a fatal form of delusion.
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