The K Experience

"Religious" Terror?

Present - News

Wednesday, 27 February 2008

Religious Terror

What does YouTube, the Twin Towers, Christianity and an extract from a Danish newspaper have in common?

Well, those of us that are avid surfers would have noticed issues with YouTube a few days ago, where the site was inaccessible. Some may have put it to a little glich in their own computers or maybe their local servers, which I did. Little did we know at the time that this was infact a major disruption of the YouTube service, lasting about 2 hours in total. According to Yahoo News, this was caused by the Pakistan government ordering all of their ISP's to block the YouTube website. This in turn rerouted all of the request for YouTube services around the world "the wrong way" to put it simply, meaning that no one could access it for a while (for a more detailed technical explanation of how this happened see this cnet news article).

So why did Pakistan order it's ISP's to block YouTube? For those that haven't yet clicked on the link I provided above, and read the article themselves, I shall divulge. It was because YouTube was found to contain blasphemous content, videos and documents offensive to Islam. Even though the worldwide inaccessibility of the YouTube service seemed to be an unintentional consequence of Pakistan's actions, some are claiming that the action was an intentional "Hijacking" of YouTube by Pakistan.

Danish Flag burning This brings us back about 2 years when the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, printed cartoons of the prophet Mohammed (30th September 2005 to be more precise), which was deemed to be offensive to Islam. This sparked off protests from Muslims around the world, leading to violence, the burning of Danish embassies and Danish flags and many other incidents. More than 100 deaths resulted as a consequence of these actions.

Westgaard This now brings me to a news article which appeared in the last few weeks, but managed to go unnoticed by myself and I think was not widely publicized at all. (Maybe due to the fact that the US election news is saturating the media in LA right now). The news is of the reprinting of one of the cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed by Jyllands-Posten and several other Danish newspapers. This action reported by BBC News, was in protest of the alleged plot to murder Kurt Westergaard (right), one of the cartoonist behind the images. Three suspects were detained, two of which will be deported without trial.

I'm not sure if the YouTube content is at all related to the reprinting, but it all seems like it's happening again, and if people are not careful, it could easily get out of control. Can't we just sit back, relax a while and try and figure out what is really going on here? On the one hand it comes down to freedom of speech, and on the other hand it comes down to understanding and regard for other people way of life, both of which are highly important. The problem is some nations regard one as more important than the other, and feel the whole world should do the same.

Crusades I can totally understand how many of the Islamic nations are feeling as for the past few decades their way of life has been under attack, not just in the physical sense, but more in the social and economic sense, with globalization moving the whole world towards a western style of living. When this is taken into consideration, it becomes understandable, that the Islamic nations want to defend their way of life. Just like the western nations want to defend theirs. Many of the actions from western powers in the past and the present have been under the guise of Christianity and Freedom, and this has been used as an excuse for things such as the colonization of Africa (one of the excuses used was the education and transforming of the barbaric, uncivilized Africans, into God fearing civilized people); the colonization of America (similar to what happened in Africa but without the slavery, and the Europeans were trying to free themselves from the tyranny of British rule, which they ended up imposing on the Native American Indians); and colonizing part of Asia. And let us not forget the crusades of the 11th Century which targetted not only Muslims but pagan Slavs, Russian and Greek Orthodox Christians, Mongols, Cathars, Hussites and political enemies of the popes (pretty much everyone then!).

All of what I have stated above is not the true face of Christianity, and I say this as a Christian who has studied in and around the religion for over 2 decades. The true face of Christianity, as Jesus Christ came to show, embodied true understanding; the coming together of all people in peace no matter what colour or creed; and equality amoung all races. It was anti-sexist (Jesus showed the same respect to the women as he did men); it was anti-racist (he treated Jews and gentiles the same, and believed that salvation was for all); and it was anti-classist (he had time for the poor blind begger as well as the rich and hated tax collector, and before you ask, yes classist is a word.). I believe that one of the aims of Christianity in Jesus time was to help to fight the oppressive rule of the Romans, where the Jews where the privilaged upper class, and all others were exploited, similar to what is happening in many nations today. It's funny how that same vehicle for emancipation was then abused and became a vehicle for oppression years later. Even so, I hope people still realise that True Christianity is not about hate, and genocide, but is in essence, about love.

I also hope people realise that True Islam is not about the terrorism we associate it with today. I believe that people are carrying out these acts of terror under the guise of Islam, just like the evil acts described above were under the guise of Christianity. It hurts when I hear people say that the world would be better off without religion. It's a shame when mainstream media concentrate on all the negative acts which are carried out under the false name of Christianity, and Islam, and when people throw around terms like "Islamofascism", and forget all the good works which are carried out under the true name of Christianity and Islam (most charitable organisations are based on religious roots). Just because something is abused, doesn't mean that it has no use, or that the benefits of its correct use should be dismissed. I believe the benefits of the correct use of religion far outway the terror of its abuse. Get rid of religion, like many people blindly wish for, and I believe the world will really become a living hell.

So what is really going on then? What else can it be if it's not religion that is doing all this? Politics! Or Poly Tricks, as a friend of mine once put it.

Blair and Bush

ter·ror·ism (těr'ə-rĭz'əm)
n. The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.¹

There is nothing more scary than someone saying

"States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger.." ²

Does that sound familiar? Who are the real terrorists? I don't have to go into details of a lack of "Weapons of Mass Destruction", in a place conveniently flowing in a fair amount of oil. This has already been done to death. The media have done a great job of making Muslims out to be little more than the barbarians so called Christians thought they were during the crusades of the 11th century. Lets come to our senses people, and stop following those who don't really have the future of the world's best interests at heart.

I'll leave it here for now.

Peace (everywhere, not just in the middle east)

Other sources not referenced in the text: Istockphoto.com, details of Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten from wikipedia.org, definition of Terrorism from dictionary.com, picture of crusade from St Mary's College website, picture of Blair and Bush from The Judiciary Report.com.
1. By highlighting "political reasons" in the definition of terrorism, I am not dismissing the fact that terrorism can also be done for religious reasons, but am merely highlighting the fact that it can also be done for political reasons.
2. George W. Bush, 2002 State of the Union Address from Wikipedia.org