The savage murder and mutilation in London by two Muslim men yelling “Allah Akbar” was meant to send a blood-soaked message to England and the world about the treatment of Muslims. The victim was not important to Michael Adebolajo as he paraded before cameras. Yet we owe it to the victim and ourselves not to allow the victim to be an abstraction laying the street. He was a person and his name was Drummer Lee Ridgy, or ‘Riggers” to friends. He was not just a brave soldier but the father of Jack, his two year old son.
Riggers was a member of the proud The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, 2nd Battalion (also known as “Second Fusiliers” or “2 RRF”). He joined the Army in 2006 at the age of 19 and served in Cyprus and later stood guard outside the Royal Palaces. He later served in the prestigious Household Division’s Beating the Retreat – a real honour for a line infantry Corps of Drums. It has been a tradition since it was ordered by James II of England in 1690.
Riggers was deployed in Helmand Province, Afghanistan and later in Germany. He had returned to London, where his posting would allow him to be closer to his son and his beloved Manchester United.
Ironically, while selected at random, Riggers was a true representation of the very best of England’s history and culture. He has left a young boy who will not understand why his father was made such a grotesque symbol by these men in the name of religion. He will eventually learn, I hope, that there was more meaning in his father’s life and his love for his son than the senseless act that took him away from his family.
Nal, Thanks for your work above and beyond.
Blouise, Lol! I know my name is inflammatory to some.
I pretty much agree with Sling……. I am tired of tit for tat…. my side is better ! Do you really have a side ? Just you, yourself and you…. scary ehhh ? @99guspuppet
Here’s a thought on terrorists killing British soldiers in London.
On July 20th 1982, the IRA set off two bombs in London.
The first bomb hit the Changing of the Guard procession. Three soldiers died instantly. Three died later of injuries. Bystanders were also injured. Seven military horses were also killed.
You want tragic?
One badly-injured horse survived and became famous.
His rider gained a different kind of notice. Apparently suffering from PTSD, he divorced later and then took his own life after killing his two children.
The second bomb hit a military band performance. Seven soldiers died. All remaining bandsmen were injured. Many in the audience were injured.
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The conflict was centered in Northern Ireland, where the British government facilitated a nakedly sectarian rule by Protestants over the minority Catholics.
The cause of these and other bombings was therefore religion (with both sides sharing “Christianity” but not Christianity) and primarily Catholicism. No?
The good news is that things have gone quiet – apart from occasional outbursts by fringe minorities on both sides – and whose primary motivation appears to be criminal profit.
This was not due to one side defeating the other.
It was due to all sides sitting down and sorting out their grievances.
Without that, it would most likely still be going on.
This is what is to be expected from nomads.
po:
since everyone is making excuses for the Muslims, here is one for the Buddhists in Myanmar:
“Violence between Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims in Burma’s Rakhine region erupted in June after the alleged rape and murder of a Buddhist girl by Muslim men.”
from the Guardian August 2012
You reap what you sow?
I can see a theme in some responses that is informed by the “If you’re not with us, then you’re against us” rule.
Interpreting my comments as an attempted justification for violence is a sign of a lazy mind.
There is a very considerable difference between attempting to offer alternative explanations and attempting to justify.
Some people seem incapable of realising this. Such people contribute to a continuation of the madness.
If you thing Trebuchet is tripping, you haven’t been reading closely. His/her arguments are thorough and valid, to everyone at least who isn’t biased or small-minded! 🙂
On religious motivation:
“The only reason we have killed this man today is because Muslims are dying daily by British soldiers.”
He didn’t say that the only reason he killed was that his (new-found) religion demanded it. He said it was a response to British soldiers killing (Muslims).
“We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you.”
I swear by God and that’s fighting talk alright. I mean. J*sus H Chr**t!. God Almighty! What a thing to say!
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On shots landing on oneself:
This blog posting on the victim could be described as…
“It’s an attempt to create a martyr and justify more militarism instead of admitting the cause of…”
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On Buddhism / Islam
Speed-readers probably missed it, but what I wrote was:
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“If the population of the ME was primarily Buddhist, the guy would have been saying “The only reason we have killed this man today is because Buddhists are dying daily by British soldiers.”
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I chose Buddhism only as a different non-Christian religion.
I now realise that for the benefit of lazy minds I should have written “If the population of the ME was primarily BigEndian, the guy would…..”
However, as a complete distraction from the debate….. meditate on this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_and_violence
Extract: Although among the least associated religious traditions with violence, there is a robust history of Buddhist-related self-flagellation, suicides, torture, and wars. Within the monastic traditions alone, there are over sixteen hundred years of Buddhist violence in Asia.
There are ample doctrinal sources that provide Buddhists with a justification for violence such as the Mahayana Chinese version of the Mahaparinirvana Sutra, Upayakaushalya Sutra, and the Kalachakra Tantra. One of the core element that draws Buddhists into the social realm of violence is their identification: “I am a Buddhist,” which requires the distinction between those within and outside the imagined community. In contemporary times, the term “Buddhist” is coterminous with a number of ethnic and national markers such as “Tibetan (Buddhist),” “Thai (Buddhist),” “Burmese (Buddhist),” and “Sinhalese (Buddhist)
Davidm2575 is engaged in the same fallacy that my brother in law does, where he claims that Islam is the problem, then when you spend a bit of time bringing in enough equivalencies from the other sides, Christianity, Judaism, he acknowledges enough of your point so as to seem to agree with you, while holding to his original point that Islam, as a whole , is a problem. Here for example he says that Islam is a political and religious ideology, as a whole, yet claims that Christianity is not. Now if most of the leaders of this country, Prez down to State house call themselves Christian, their policies are informed by their faith (in a country that supposedly touts laicity).
We all know, as Sling mentions above, that the Iraq war was a modern Crusades for it called on Believers to go over there and destroy the evil doers, under false pretenses evidently. Now isn’t that religious AND political? If Christian Senators seek to overturn Roe VS Wade, isn’t that political and religious?
Every religion is political while in power or seeking power for it is the nature of the beast. In order to acquire strength, or maintain, one has to play the political game, because that is the way through the system.
“The actions of Paul Hill and others like him do not imply that all Christians are evil, but his actions were religiously motivated, and therefore we might condemn the Christian ideology that he followed if we judge that his actions were evil.”
This quote from David says exactly what Muslims have been demanding all along. Islam is not evil, but the muslim who commits an action in the name of Islam is religiously motivated, yes, but let us only condemn the Islamic ideology he followed if we judge that his actions were evil. Instead, we don’t condemn salafism or wahabism (both of which underpin Saudi Arabia, our ally), we throw in all Sunni, all Shia, all Sufis…and make the claim that Islam is the problem.
As Nick hinted at, religion is a tool, only a tool. It is used to justify leanings, actions, politics…especially for those lack the knowledge of it or are bent on manipulating it for power. This is present in EVERY religion, EVERY SINGLE ONE, including Buddhism, in the name of which, in Myammar, Muslims as are being massacred as we speak.
PO wrote: “Davidm2575 is engaged in the same fallacy that my brother in law does, where he claims that Islam is the problem…”
Wrong. You are misreading what I wrote. I said that the man was religiously motivated, and I pointed out that it was similar to how Paul Hill was motivated by his Christian ideology to kill an abortionist. I never said Islam is the problem. I said just the opposite. I said that the “sect of Islam that he follows” is brought into question. It is his particular Islamic ideology that is the problem, not all of Islam.
Both Islam and Christianity represent very large religious philosophies. I doubt it is possible to either condemn or affirm either Islam or Christianity as a whole because there are so many varied beliefs within them. Both have motivated terrible atrocities within civilized societies.
What I can say is that the Christians who helped form America had a theology where they believed secular nations were ordained by God for a time, and that in the last days Christ would set up his kingdom without the normal type of wars and violence by which other empires rose and fell. Christians are to “occupy” until Christ returns and not raise up the sword against government in order to establish a religious kingdom. Therefore, the Christians involved with the framing of our Constitution maintained a separation of religious institutions and civil institutions, recognizing the value of both institutions to society while at the same time recognizing the problems that happen when they are mixed together improperly in a way where the religious authority wields the power of the civil authority.
In contrast, Islam does not believe in separating the religious and civil powers. They believe by a matter of theology derived from the Koran, that their religion will take over all aspects of life. Some sects believe in literally following the way of Mohammed, who was a warrior and fought many bloody battles. They take the writing of the Koran literally and blame those who do not take up the sword for being cowards. They basically attempt to live the same way that Mohammed did, as brave soldiers. Other Muslims read the Koran in a metaphorical way, and interpret the call to Jihad not to be literal bloody fighting, but fighting spiritually and politically. This is why all these countries greatly influenced by Islam, such as Iraq and Afghanistan, have Constitutions that specifically make it a crime for any law to violate the Koran. They are Islamic Republics because this is the way of Islam.
The closest thing in modern times that Christianity has produced in this vein is Great Britain, which is a constitutional monarchy that has established a national church, the Church of England. The Queen is the Supreme Governor of the Church of England. Nevertheless, while it has established the Christian religion by law, it does not rule religiously in the same way as we see in the Islamic Republics with their clerics holding great political power. Laws do not have to conform to the Bible, nor are laws of the Bible required to be established in their civil institutions. In practice, they are very tolerant of other religions, as indicated by the great many muslims who live there, like these two terrorists who murdered Riggers.
The point is that religions are not all the same, and it is wrong to try and make them equivalent to each other or to give the same value judgment just because they are labeled religion. What people believe is important because it motivates how they think and act. We should judge what people believe as good or bad. We should judge religious teachings as good or bad. I think the Islamic teaching of Jihad being literally killing the infidel with the sword wherever you find him is a very bad and dangerous teaching and should be denounced. That does not mean that I think all Islamic teaching is bad or that Islam has no value.
Trebuchet is so incompetent that her attempted shot went straight and landed on herself. Claiming this wasn’t a religiously motivated crime is like pretending a cross burning wasn’t motivated by racism. It’s not naivete, it’s an attempt to rationalize hypocrisy, to rationalize the same actions by those she agrees with.
As for the crime itself, putting faces on these incidents only prevents examination of the underlying causes of the situation. It’s an attempt to create a martyr and justify more militarism instead of admitting the cause of islamic fundamentalism. You can’t find a solution if you don’t address the source of the problem.
To compare Bhuddism with Islam and say that the former are similarly violent is to merely cause the rest of us dogs to Contast the two religions. Islam does have more than its share of violent nutcase killers. It is too bad that England does not have the death penalty. Since they have so many immigrants they might need to adopt it.
Nick: “Islam has become a religion attractive for sociopaths looking for legitimacy. Several of the recent islamic terrorists were recent converts and sociopaths. ”
Yup. Just like the loners that the FBI recruited, trained and equipped so that the plot created by the FBI could be foiled at the last moment. Misfits they were and looking for legitimacy/cause.
What the FBI do is entrapment in the extreme, but they assert that it is not entrapment (in the legal defence sense) as the ‘perps’ were “pre-disposed” to the crime.
Why would they be attracted to Islam?
It’s not the essence of the religion is it?
Is it not that what they see as an injustice turns out to involve victimisation of people who are incidentally Muslims? They take up the trappings of the religion in order to identify with the victims and take up a cause.
Every religion has its crazies. Look around the USA for some Christian groups. Converts to any religion are generally the noisiest and most intense about the trappings of it.
It is not reasonable to type-cast a religion based on the behaviour of crazies and misfit converts/blow-ins.
nick,
I think putting your name in a post inflames the spam softwear … 😉
I’m going to take Nal’s advice and add the word “HELP” to my moniker when I experience problems.
nick,
Some good comments are flagged as spam by Akismet, WP’s anti-spam software. Don’t know why. I can only click on the “not spam” button. Hopefully, Akismet will learn. I only check the spam queue when I see spam in the “Recent Comments” section on the right. Add something like “HELP” to your name to alert me to a problem.
I think it is perfectly obvious we value Muslim lives far less than any others. I mean if we bombed a Baptist wedding party killing a dozen, we would be in shock. But kill a dozen faceless Muslims somewhere and who cares? Well ,they do, for starters.
Many of the innocents killed in Afghanistan and Iraq were killed by recent converts to what the military calls “Christianity”, but it is really Mithrasim.
Here is a death map showing where some of it took place:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/datablog/interactive/2010/oct/23/wikileaks-iraq-deaths-map
Nick: “Why do the substantive comments w/ not a hint of anything objectionable not go through, and these pointing out the problem do go through???”
Because Allah Akbar?
….. “and these pointing out the problem do go through”
Aha! Gotcha!
How did you know that was going to go through?
It’s *you* doing all this isn’t it? Christian-hacking WordPress, by God!
Why do the substantive comments w/ not a hint of anything objectionable not go through, and these pointing out the problem do go through???
I’m 0 for 3. I feel like Rickie Weeks.