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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nikole Wollerstein who wrote (202722)	9/13/2006 3:24:49 AM
From: Elroy	Respond to of 281500

Winston Churchill about Islam Where are the defenders of this religion on these internet boards? It's easy to find critics among the non-Muslim posters, but where are the Muslims that should be around somewhere debating points like the following: The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceasedto be a great power among men.

To: Nikole Wollerstein who wrote (202722)	9/13/2006 9:41:37 AM
From: carranza2	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Nice, Nikole. Though Churchill knew the Muslims, I think the Great G. K. Chesterton understood them much more deeply. Here is something he wrote which I think is one of the most accurate depictions of the Islamic conundrum--its simplicity in the face of undeniable complexity: "There is in Islam a paradox which is perhaps a permanent menace. The great creed born in the desert creates a kind of ecstasy out of the very emptiness of its own land, and even, one may say, out of the emptiness of its own theology. It affirms, with no little sublimity, something that is not merely the singleness but rather the solitude of God. There is the same extreme simplification in the solitary figure of the Prophet; and yet this isolation perpetually reacts into its own opposite. A void is made in the heart of Islam which has to be filled up again and again by a mere repetition of the revolution that founded it. There are no sacraments; the only thing that can happen is a sort of apocalypse, as unique as the end of the world; so the apocalypse can only be repeated and the world end again and again. There are no priests; and yet this equality can only breed a multitude of lawless prophets almost as numerous as priests. The very dogma that there is only one Mahomet produces an endless procession of Mahomets. Of these the mightiest in modern times were the man whose name was Ahmed, and whose more famous title was the Mahdi; and his more ferocious successor Abdullahi, who was generally known as the Khalifa. These great fanatics, or great creators of fanaticism, succeeded in making a militarism almost as famous and formidable as that of the Turkish Empire on whose frontiers it hovered, and in spreading a reign of terror such as can seldom be organised except by civilisation…" (Lord Kitchener)" The Great Chesterton knew instinctively that simplification of the complex is deadly to liberty, and knew even then that Bolshevism and Islamic intolerance were very much the same currency: ">> Now a man preaching what he thinks is a platitude is far more intolerant than a man preaching what he admits is a paradox. It was exactly because it seemed self-evident, to Moslems as to Bolshevists, that their simple creed was suited to everybody, that they wished in that particular sweeping fashion to impose it on everybody. It was because Islam was broad that Moslems were narrow. And because it was not a hard religion it was a heavy rule. Because it was without a self-correcting complexity, it allowed of those simple and masculine but mostly rather dangerous appetites that show themselves in a chieftain or a lord. As it had the simplest sort of religion, monotheism, so it had the simplest sort of government, monarchy. There was exactly the same direct spirit in its despotism as in its deism. The Code, the Common Law, the give and take of charters and chivalric vows, did not grow in that golden desert. The great sun was in the sky and the great Saladin was in his tent, and he must be obeyed unless he were assassinated. Those who complain of our creeds as elaborate often forget that the elaborate Western creeds have produced the elaborate Western constitutions; and that they are elaborate because they are emancipated." ("The Fall of Chivalry" The New Jerusalem) Not much has changed since Chesterton wrote these wise observations. Correction: We saw them validated when Hitler took power, and we are seeing their continued validation in the resurgence of Islamic fanaticism. Unfortunately, the resurgence is on a much greater scale than I think Chesterton ever imagined could occur.