Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Anti- Muslim Rhetoric Inflames Ugly Americans

Last week's mosque- bashing was the frosting on the hate cake. The not- really- built- at- Ground Zero mosque ( in reality a Muslim community center)is still portrayed as some kind of insult to the fallen of 9-11 by the usual right- wing blowhards. A Teabagger Republican politician claims that Islam is a not a religion but a cult of hate ( here we go again with the psychological phenomenon of projection- a speciality of batshit Christian reactionaries). A Florida pastor plans to hold a Quran burning rally at his church to memorialize September Eleventh. Hundreds of swaggering, " more American than thou" rank- and- file conservatives who wanted to join the in fun of picking on a minority which yields little power in our nation, picketed local mosques, insulted the Muslim parishioners and behaved like assholes in general.
Look, I'm no fan of either of the junoir Abrahamic faiths, but their followers have the Constitutional right to worship whatever faith they want to. A lot of conservative Christians don't like that, despite their lip service to the Constitution. Christianity and Islam are like estranged brothers, who hate each other because they are so much alike. The only reason Christians don't go around burning heretics, infidels, and women these days is that the secular power of the bourgeois state put a stop to that some two hundred fifty or so years ago. Back in the day, even your most ignorant peasant knew one thing- that the Church was an oppressive racket and needed to be beaten into submission. Christianity isn't innately more humane than Islam, only under much more control through humane secular law. But radical Christian fundamentalists seek to break their faith free of its restraints and subject the rest of us to their Dominionist vision for America. Call it the Christian version of Sharia Law ( actually both are very similar, coming from the same source after all). And believe me, the chance of that happening is far greater than some pipe dream about establishing Sharia Law in the States.
A few decades ago, it looked as if the sects of Islam was headed for the same fate as the Christian churches. After independence from their various colonial masters after the Second World War most of the predominately Muslim nations, with a few exceptions, adopted Westernized, secularized, Nationalist governments. Islam was the official religion in all of them, but did not dominate the state. True these states were far from perfect, mainly following the one- party state model, but a secular dictatorship was infinitely more preferable for women and religious minorities than the Islamic Republics of today. Unfortunately for the people of the Middle- East, the West decided such Nationalist governments, with their demands to control the resources of their own countries, had to go. After sixty years of having The United States, France, and Britain constantly fucking with them( via the C.I.A. or their favorite sword in the Middle- East, Israel)the Middle- East is made- up of theocracies or states that have adopted free- market "reforms" that have made them vulnerable to radical Islam as the number of desperately poor people increases.
Ironically the states that have dealt the most successfully with the challenge of Muslim fundamentalism have been the old Nationalist states like Algeria or Syria, with their creaky old welfare systems and conscript militaries.
So get off of your high horse, Christian fundies. For there is nothing as similar as a Muslim jihadist as a Christian Crusader. They are both bad news for the rest of us trying to get on with our lives without being constantly fucked with by The Ignorant Assholes Of The Book.

3 comments:

00000 said...

Thank you for that.

Boyle said...

The Body of Christ has always been in it's weakest form whenever it has been strong politically. It is another part of the great deception that the Enemy uses to lead people away from Christ, making them think that they can somehow establish God's Kingdom on Earth themselves. This ridiculous idea is counter to the Word. We are to teach the truth of God to all the Nations, not form or take over a Nation.

comrade x said...

Errr... I think we are talking about two different Enemies. Unless you believe capitalists and their dupes are affiliated with the Devil, in which case I'm down with that!