We have often been told by some Muslim faithfuls that Islam is a
religion of peace! R-e-a-l-l-y? A religion of peace or that of hate?
Well, while not judging anybody or any religion we can seek to
demonstrate hereunder how hypocritical these islamic elements could be
in defence of their religion. One makes bold to declare here that he is a
Christian but holds Islam and Muslims in high esteem in the spirit of
secularity and religious tolerance. Like the former Nigerian Ambassador
to the United Nations, 'Dan Masanin Kano' Alhaji Maitama Sule, my
religion is LOVE and God is one and love! Whoever kills another for His
sake is destined for the Hades!
Just recently an anti-Islam film, a video depicting Prophet Mohammad
as a degenerate posted on YouTube caused (and still causing) some huge
demonstrations and violence against America and her interests in the
muslim world. The film titled "The Innocence of Muslims" produced by an
ex-convict "Sam Bacile", led to the gory death of the American
Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and three others in Benghazi. A
militant band of ignorant interlopers invaded the consulate and
assassinated the Ambassador who personally helped the revolution to
topple the late tyrant, Muammar Ghadafi whose 41-year uniterrupted reign
came to an abrupt end with his capture and crude execution last year.
When one considers the fact that the new Libya post-Ghadafi was made
possible by the Americans and other European democratic forces it
becomes a tragedy for democracy, an assault on civilisation! Without the
NATO forces the Libyan revolution would have turned to the current
military logjam in Syria. A Syria where the embattled but adamant
President Bashar al-Assad continues his killing and battering of the
opposition with the international community doing nothing because of
Russia and China. Today Assad remains the worst violator of human rights
on a large scale in the entire world.
The chaotic (sometimes bloody) scenes from Cairo to Kabul, Islamabad
to Beirut, Tunis to Tehran, Jakarta to Khartoum, Sanaa to Benghazi
represented another reminder of the violent nature of the islamic faith.
Attacking the American embassies and interests and burning the Stars
and Stripes cannot solve the problem. Uncle Sam shall come out stronger
and more united in the abiding faith in democracy, freedom and rule of
law. The American values held sacrosanct can never be thrown overboard
no matter the pressure from barbaric forces hell-bent on changing the
course of history!
In the Institute where I teach here in my location I have Muslim
friends and two of them, radical Professors trained in the US and France
respectively, are very close to my family and I; they visit my house
and I visit theirs even without prior notice! I am at peace with their
company and they with mine as well. We always drink together every other
weekend as we analyse world affairs and engage in broad enriching
cross-fertilisation of ideas. Last weekend as we shared some alcoholic
beverage and some roasted meat in a bar downtown we discussed about the
anti-Islam Youtube film causing serious ripples in the (mostly) muslim
world. We reached a communal conclusion, a consensus that whilst
religious bigotry is condemnable and the release online of the film
provocative it was not enough to incite people to commit crimes on the
streets in the name of voicing out their anger over the film that sought
to denigrate the Prophet Muhammad.
Come to think of it America never commissioned the film nor
sponsored those that produced it. As President Obama and Secretary
Clinton had said whilst respect for all religions are necessary and the
film itself outrageous in content nothing could have justified the
killing of the American Ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens and three
others or the orgy of violence (being) visited on Americans and their
interests worldwide. It remains an assault on civilisation, decency and
reason! Blaspheming Prophet Muhammad cannot be condoned as one cannot
stand any blasphemy directed at our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ of
Nazareth!
Jesus Christ or Prophet Muhammad, to the best of my knowledge, never
counselled anyone to kill his brother in order to defend Him or His
religion! Rather the Messiah admonished us to love our neighbours as
ourselves declaring that to be the greatest of the Commandments! The
global project for peace in the world cannot be achieved with
uncircumcised hare-brained animals wielding daggers, bombs and machettes
ready to cut limbs in the name of 'sharia' or engage constituted
authorities in terror campaigns.
In Nigeria we recall that many 'infidels' had been killed just for
'mishandling' the Holy Koran or doing nothing at all. In Kano one
Igboman Gideon Akaluka was beheaded and his severed head hoisted on a
stick in a street parade for committing an 'offense' against Islam -- we
were told! And one Yoruba woman teacher was hacked to death by her
students in the north for mistakenly throwing away a copy of the holy
koran found with other books in an exam hall! How can a religion be so
crude and cruel? What gives Muslims the right to shed blood in whatever
guise or circumstances? If Christians immitate their barbaric conducts
then the world would have ceased to exist by now!
In Pakistan an innocent young Christian girl was recently set up by
an insane Imam by tearing a copy of the holy koran and placing same in a
bag the poor girl was carrying only to raise alarm moments later
accusing her of blasphemy! Thank God the detectives got cracking early
enough by making a stunning discovery of deliberate attempt by the Imam
to cause killings of the minority Christians in his area! The girl has
been discharged and acquitted while the criminal Imam, a lunatic bigot
at best, was jailed!
It is ideological madness for anyone to try to kill in defence of a
dead prophet or a religion! That is why the former randy billionaire
Prime Minister of Italy, Silvio Berlusconi, could be somewhat right,
given the circumstances today, when he said that in terms of religious
maturity and tolerance Christians and Muslims are worlds apart: the
former looking at the larger picture in an effort to broaden its outlook
and reform their faith overtime and the latter still stuck in
centuries' old practises of blood-letting and primitive rhetorics in
defense of a faith and prophet many know little about historically.
Thank God the new world order is tilted more in favour of Christians
in terms of politics of Super Power and power of nations. Were America
to be a muslim country with a muslim President then the world would have
been constantly in turmoil. That imaginary islamic President of the
free world would have since ordered troops to go wipe away Isreal from
the face of the earth! Or could have since ordered President Goodluck
Jonathan of Nigeria to cease being a praying Christian and obey the
'commandment' of Boko Haram for him to embrace Islam full-time or risk
invasion! That the world is daily challenged by violence is due mainly
to the Islamic recourse to sheer terror in an otherwise negotiable
disputes.
It was former President George W. Bush, after the 9/11 terrorist
(horrific) attack on America, who declared super-powerfully that the
three axis of evil in the world -- Iran, Iraq and North Korea -- must be
confronted head-on and defeated soundly if the new world order must
make any sense. While Saddam Hussein had died leaving Iraq in ruins,
Afghanistan and the Talibans are still mounting some ferocious
resistance in the face of NATO armada but thus far terrorism has beaten a
hasty retreat finding refuge in Pakistan. And today Iran still
constitutes a major threat to global order with her desperate attempt to
obtain nuclear weapons, something that could spell doom for Israel!
North Korea is still in engaged in self-denial, living dangerously with
her 'brother' South Korea while maintaining a closed fiendish society.
But the Islamic Republic of Iran must not be allowed to possess nuke
for whatever reason. A country that openly calls for the annihilation
of the Jewish state of Israel should be watched closely before its
nuclear efforts pay off with the production of nukes. One is with the
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu when he expresses his apprehension over
the desperate attempt by Tehran to obtain nuclear arms with which it
hopes to balance the military equation in the volatile Middle East. But
the eccentric President Ahmadinejad and the supremely-paranoid Supreme
Leader Ayatollah Khamenei must be stopped in their tracks! Tehran, as an
exporter of terrorism across borders, must be disarmed!
Islam must be reformed in the positive sense of the world; as it
stands today the 'reforms' we have seen thus far tend to be those of
fundamentalism, terrorism, extremism and intolerant of other faiths. The
might-is-right syndrome and the erronous belief that killing someone
amounts to keeping in touch with heaven must be jettisoned if Islam must
win global respect and recognition that it lacks today. No religion has
any monopoly of violence anywhere; we Christians, we are well ahead
because of our broader views and maturity. Violence is for the
weak-minded and those suffering from inferiority complex while the
strong proves his strenght by superior arguments and logic.
Again the "satanic verses" that are found in the Holy Koran must be
expunged for Islam to be presented as a true pacific faith that value
human life and tolerate secular dissent and not the present empty
slogans and preachments that hit deaf ears. Salman Rushdie, even in his
hiding place, must have been vindicated! While the mad Mullahs in Iran
had recently increased the 'fatwa' bounty placed on his head one wonders
the fate reserved for "Bacile" (Nakoula Basseley Nakoula?). One can
only state here that these anti-Islam radicals are imbued with core
convictions in a post-modern world where the literary works of
extra-ordinary faculty and ingenuity prevail!
Between Islam and Christianity, therefore, the rest of us
(especially the folks on the atheism and paganism fringes) must be given
a break in a tranquil world. More than the Christian leaders (Pope,
Bishops, Reverends and Pastors) the Muslim leaders have the enormous
responsibility of taming the murderous monstrous rage of their faithfuls
in the face of slight provocations. There is an urgent need for
re-orientation campaigns aimed at dissuading violence.
While one condemns strongly the Allah Akbar-aggrandizing
pontifications from the mosques and the streets we appeal to the
producers of the controversial offensive film to pull it out of YouTube
for peace to reign. To the Omnipotent God, the Trinity, however, be all
the glory!
SOC Okenwa
soco_abj_2006_rci@hotmail.fr
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