Leaders of the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir met in Australia this week to call on Muslims to reject Democracy and moderate Islam as “haram” or forbidden under the Koran (Qur’an). British Hizb ut-Tahrir leader Burhan Hanif told an audience that Democracy is a lie and that no laws but those in the Koran could govern mankind.
Hanif insisted “We should not be conned or succumb to the disingenuous and flawed narrative that the only way to engage politically is through the secular democratic process. It is prohibited and haram.” He specifically warned that Muslims could not embrace any system based on “secular and erroneous concepts such as democracy and freedom.”
His views were echoed by Australian Islamic leader Wassim Dourehi, who told the conference that Muslims should not support “any kafir (non-believer) political party” in “this godforsaken country” of Australia. He specifically denounced moderate Islamic views as “a perverted concoction of Western governments.”
Source: News.
ruba, I understand your comments, but I’m not talking about preaching to an audience free to ignore the message. My concern is with efforts to legislate the message, irrespective of the identity of the “cult” or religious body seeking to make its tenets the law.
And you’re humble, too, BIL.
“… and the caveat that while I try to be those things, I have not always been so in the past.”
-True on this end, as well.
“I think of the ongoing process of becoming a better person as wisdom – like any improvement – comes with associated costs.”
-Oh, those “associated costs.” Very steep, in my own case, but “so it goes.” 🙂 One just keeps moving. And, hopefully, in the right direction.
anon nurse,
You’re going to make me blush. Might I add that you seem to exemplify those traits as well and the caveat that while I try to be those things, I have not always been so in the past.
I think of the ongoing process of becoming a better person as wisdom – like any improvement – comes with associated costs.
Thanks, BIL. (You seem like a kind, good and decent person.)
anon nurse,
I found you perfectly clear. I was just elaborating (and most likely pointing out the obvious about my nature. :))
BIL,
I wasn’t clear, perhaps. I would never have pegged you as a “go along to get along” kind of person. And when I said “go along to get along”, I certainly wasn’t proposing that one live in this fashion.
From my perspective, those who rock the proverbial boat these days may be headed for trouble. Still, I’ll keep rocking the boat.
(And I agree with your “sheep” remark.)
You’re most welcome, anon nurse. I seem to be in a pop culture mode this morning.
I never have been much one for “go along, get along”.
That’s a thought process best reserved for sheep.
Thanks for reminding me of the Carlin quote, BIL.
And we’d better start “watching the Watchmen”…
Justice Douglas wrote: “As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we much all be most aware of change in the air — however slight — lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.”
From my vantage point, we’re on a very dark road. “Go along to get along” and you may be fine. Try to expose something or simply ruffle the feathers of the wrong person and watch out…
“Who is watching the Watchmen?” – Alan Moore
“The only way that asshole Colson found Jesus is that Jesus didn’t see him coming.” – George Carlin
Related to Swarthmore mom’s comments, a quote by Charles Colson from the Watchmen on the Wall website (mentioned in the Tony Perkin’s video:
“Pastors must be the “Watchmen” of our community, [who] read the signs of the times, see what the culture is saying, look at all of life through a biblical lens, and then act accordingly to bring Christian truth to bear in the great struggle for the heart and mind of this culture…. The Family Research Council’s annual ‘Watchmen on the Wall’ Pastors’ Briefing is a great event.”
– Chuck Colson, Founder of Prison Fellowship
“The battle is raging for the soul of America! Will you sound the alarm?” (from the “Watchmen” web site)
About Chuck Colson (Wikipedia):
“As former Special Counsel for President Richard Nixon from 1969 to 1973, he is noted for being the first member of the Nixon administration to be incarcerated for Watergate-related charges.[1] He was commonly named as one of the Watergate Seven, but was never charged with, or prosecuted for, any crime related to the Watergate break-in or its cover-up, although he did plead guilty to obstruction of justice in another case.[2] He converted to Christianity in 1973, and the following year served seven months of a one-to-three year sentence in Alabama’s Maxwell Prison.[1]”
Too many “Watchers” and “Watchmen” these days… (Thanks for the link, Swarthmore mom.) This is a perilous time.
mespo,
Although I recently used that Jefferson quote myself, the words that leaped to mind this morning were from a more musical source.
“You can’t run a country by a book of religion
Not by a heap or a lump or a smidgeon/
Of foolish rules of ancient date, designed to make you all feel great/
While you fold, spindle and mutilate those unbelievers from a neighboring state”. – Frank Zappa from “Dumb All Over”
The thing about blindly following religious dogma is one is still blind. It’s the illusion of light that blinds the weak of mind just as it’s the true nature of dogmatic though that attracts evil men wishing to execute their crimes under the cover of darkness.
this stuff sends chill down my spine… I always wonder, as a person of middle eastern & muslim origin, had the ME not been under constant colonization and interferneces by foreign entities would we still have people say stuff like this? or would we have such movements?
off course one will have to discern the real threats behind such statements and would have to know the historical facts, the context, any ulterior motives behind this story or events (I mean after all didn’t some Australian youth last year go on a rampage of attacking any person that looked of middle eastern origin in some part of australia?), the statistics of such statements and how they compare to other statements by other religious persons before one can take such statements seriously…
so knowing that 90% of the stuff reported on the middle in western media is incorrect and badly researched if researched at all, I think stories of this sort only serve to muddy the waters more and help in keeping a divide between people… the funny part is this stuff has been happening for centuries yet people seem to fall into it every single time..
unfortunately psychosis doesn’t discriminate on the basis of religion, race or geographical location, middle easterners are like all other people everywhere in the world, have their saints and their nut cases.. it is not about religion unless we make it so…
and Mike all monotheistic religions except for zoroastianism, were founded by preaching to the “millions of poor, illiterate people mostly unaware of the world beyond their villages, lacking the knowledge necessary for judgment and the experience necessary for discernment” so this does not apply to sharia law imposition, this is the nature of the creation of any “cult”…
http://www.casttv.com/video/r0918w/tony-perkins-on-the-call-2-fall-video
Good post Mike I have been reading about a new movement where the tea party and fundamentalist christians come together. It is named Call2Fall.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPyxToQgPuc
The demand for imposition of sharia law will continue as long as it has a constituency, meaning millions of poor, illiterate people mostly unaware of the world beyond their villages, lacking the knowledge necessary for judgment and the experience necessary for discernment. It is the perfect tool of the powerful for control of the powerless.
The proponents of sharia law have their Christian counterparts, of course. Examples are the Catholic hierarchy that refuses to acknowledge the supremacy of secular law in dealing with the crime of sexual abuse and fundamentalists who seek the elimination of no-fault divorce, resist the extension of full civil rights to gays, compel unnecessary medical procedures for women seeking abortions, lobby for the re-criminalization of sodomy and attempt to blunt the effect of religious abominations such as the teaching of evolution through the adulteration of school curricula with the pseudo science of creationism.
All efforts to give religion the force of law, and the champions of those efforts, need to be denounced and discredited whenever they appear. They are plagues.
“He specifically warned that Muslims could not embrace any system based on “secular and erroneous concepts such as democracy and freedom.”
*********************
Of course, the mullahs are precisely correct in terms of their reading of the dogma. This is what is so pernicious about fundamentalist religion – it’s inevitable collision course with democracy.
As in most things political and religious, Jefferson understood the problem and the historical track record:
History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.
~Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, Dec. 6, 1813.
Warning, as much as elucidation, I think.
We just deported one of these full-of-faith wingnuts;
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/06/27/2938300.htm
Don’t let the door hit ya’.
The brainwashed children are always the victims.
If we can break the generational tribalism these problems will sort themselves out as the next generation leave faith behind.
Hasn’t this happened before? Like in Spain, Portugal and other places? Wasn’t this the problem in other kingdoms as well?