www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Islamophobia

Dear Bob,

You are right! People should forget the past, and go on to the future...that is unless the other side is continuing the actions they have committed in the past.

For instance, if the Nazi party was to rise again in Germany, and Jews were being persecuted again, then certainly people should be aware that things have not changed much.

Well, today all the churches and monasteries are being destroyed in Kosovo...and that should certainly be taken into account considering that the one's doing the destruction are Muslim Albanians. Also the Turkish jets are continuing to fly over Greek air space threatening the Greek islands, and that should certainly be taken into account. Actually it is, by the EU.

I for one, on hearing that the people in Eastern Turkey objected to having their chickens killed because of the bird flu, couldn't help but wonder if they were Kurds and therefore being left without sustenance.

I know though that there are politics at play and it is in America's interest to have Turkey in the EU. And Greece, because of the threats imposed on her by Turkey, invited her in. Yet Turkey insisted that she will not join the EU if Christianity was mentioned as a basis for European civilization. Now she said she will not join if France does not remove the Armenian genocide from her constitution. Excuse me!

Well maybe we should start removing all genocides ...including the Nazi one against the Jews, for as far as I can tell, any nation that is not willing to admit that it has committed attrocities, is perceiving 'itself' only as a victim. I guess in Turkey, it would be called a crime against 'Turkishness'.

As an example of what I am saying, my grandson went to Hiroshima and Nagasaki recently. In both places there were grand museums showing the horrors of what we did. In Nagasaki, there was also a run down small museum, placed there by the Korean government with pictures of the immense attrocities committed against the Korean people by the Japanese army. My grandson said that the Japanese students were in a state of shock. They were never told.

Well I heard that the EU has a new book out, which shows a more balanced view on the history of Europe. So far the only nation that has accepted it and has adopted it is Serbia. So much for 'victimhood'.

Zenovia

I find this an interesting statement...

This Mahdi he keeps referring to is the Hidden Imam they expect him to return in the company of Jesus.
http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/01/14/wiran14.xml

Then are they not contradicting themsleves?

Why would they think he is returning with Jesus if Jesus is not the Messiah?

Pani Rose

I don't know that I said people should forget the past or that I said, or meant to say, that moving forward is easy. There are 4 choices, I suppose;

1. Be a victim and live as a victim. There are plenty of people in the second- and third-generations of the various "diasporas" who can teach you how.

2. Be a Professional Victim, use or take state power and make life miserable for others by being as bad, or nearly as bad, as the people who oppressed you. Zionists and some of the Armenian charities can provide instruction; both have helped build holocaust industries, the profits from which go to support political agendas.

3. Be bitter, racist, Islamophobic or anti-semitic or anti-Christian or just etho-centrist in some way. It doesn't matter which prejudice you uphold because they all start to sound equally banal in short order. If the Serbian nationalists don't do it for you, learn from the Croatian neo-fascists or the later-day Bosniacs or the KLA or the Greeks who support Enosis or any of the other nationalist forces. In truth, they all need one another to justify their own insecurities and lust for power. If you buy into one of their agendas, you're complicit with all of them.

4. Decide that hatred needs to stop with you, refuse to support the killing, refuse racism in any form (including nationalism) and take the risks which come with creating a third way to justice and peace regardless of the cost. Ask yourself: is it better to participate in violence, even indirectly, or better to risk for the peace of the Kingdom of God?

An old Italian joke: Garibaldi invades a village in Sicily, sets up his banners and makes a speech. "Eviva giustizia! Eviva libertaria! Eviva Italia!" he ends with. A peasant in the crowd says to his mate, "Justice and liberty are great, but who is this woman 'Italy?'"

My point is that our grandparents or great-grandparents probably had no sense of nation or national boundries, or at least not in forms we would recognize today. They related to family or clan or village or region. So when we talk about Thessaloniki or Macendonia or Serbia or Italy or Israel or almost anywhere else as historic entities and the property or right of a particular people we are imposing a concept on history which history itself does not support. When we add nationalism and religion to the mix we are perilously close to sinning.

You should address your justifiable concerns about Kosovo as much to the Serbian authorities as to anyone else. Why has the Serbian government alternately used the organization of Kosovo citizens and refugees for its own purposes and put distance between the government and this organization at other times? Why hasn't resettlement worked? Why does part of Beograd party on while part of it lives on an expanding trash heap? Blame the west, blame the KLA and blame Beograd.

I have a hard time seeing how acceptance by Serbia of one book supposedly put out by the EU gets the Serbian government and what is left of Serbian civil society off the hook. Where did flood relief for Vojvodina go in 2005? What happened to the Scorpions and the priest who blessed them? What happened to those soldiers killed in Beograd? Why is B-92 attacked and threatened? Why can't Mladic be caught? Did the Serbian Church buy that porno tv station or not? Why can't Serbian workers have a voice in privatizing the companies in which they are joint stockholders?

Be assured that I ask the same of the Turkish and Croatian governments by strongly supporting opposition forces in those countries as well.

Be well.

bob r.

Pani

A very brief reply (I am trying to avoid all the debates in here, though I have to say, good job to djs and iconophile):

Muslims believe Jesus IS the Christ, the Messiah. They also believe he will come again. But they believe the Messiah is but a man, not God. They are like the Jews in this.

But unlike the Jews they do acknowledge that Jesus is the Messiah!
-D

Thanks, HK - I think.
I hadn't posted in this thread at all.
Is it my not posting that you are calling a good job?

Iconophile -- yes, that is the point. Muslims believe Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ. Jews do not. But both Muslims and Jews believe the Messiah is only a man, not God.

I've seen people say "They don't believe Jesus is God, therefore they don't believe Jesus is the Messiah." Or "They do not believe Jesus is the Savior, therefore, they do not believe Jesus is the Messiah." But when people say that, they forget what Jews think the Messiah is to be. To use the term Messiah must acknowledge that Jews have a conception (which Christians believe Jesus fulfills and then transcends). Muslims believe Jesus fulfills them (or will, hence in the second coming). But to not believe in him as God or savior is a different issue from that of Messiah. Hence that brief comment.

And djs -- I meant good job in all the debates I have seen of late, debates I have seen you comment in but I have not. Not just this one.

This article may point to a way to help liberal Muslims resist the Islamacists and help America to respect religion more. Any way, I offer it with good intentions.

http://www.meforum.org/article/890

CDL

Dear Daniel you said:

"But unlike the Jews they do acknowledge that Jesus is the Messiah!"

I say:

I'm quite surprised at this. I have always heard that the Muslims believe in Christ as a prophet, and that there was another prophet after him; Mohammed. Actually, I believe they give more reverence to Mary, than to Jesus...thus their pilgrimeges to Fatima etc.

__________________________________________________

Dear Bob:

My grandson has a close friend that is a very wealthy Saudi. He's probably a lovely boy, they usually are, but he said that they want to restore the Caliphate. Of course in their point of view, and rightfully so, the national boundaries are artificial and were drawn in the sand by the English so that they would accomodate the French, as well as give the oil to the Arabs.

No doubt, since it was the English that did this, they undoubtably considered that by splitting the Arab world into more prosperous and less prosperous areas, they would keep them separated, and thus have more control over them. No one says that the Arabs don't have a right to want this, and I'm sure their propaganda is rampant, but no matter, it is a threat to us.

Now I'm quite sure the Turks also want to restore the Ottoman Empire. As for the Greeks, yes there are those that still believe that Constantinople will one day be theirs. There are prophecies you know.

Of course these Greeks never wondered what they would do with the Turks living there. Throw them in the Bosporus. Now it's not that I don't believe in prophecies, but maybe just maybe, they are not to be fulfilled in the way that some people want them to be. Could be that the day will come when the Turks will become Christian and Saint Sophia will cease to be a museum...and certainly we should pray for that day.

Now I'm sure that this is the EP's intent, as well as the hopes of those that want Turkey in the EU.

Yet, I can't help but look at the situation going on in the world today with the Muslims. We can think in our Western and comprehensive way, and certainly the Muslims want us to think in this way since it works to their benefit....yet look at their actions. Funny how it is never the Muslims that leave an area, but always the Christians, Buddhist, or what not, with the exception of the Jews since their suffering for their lack of a country in the past, has managed to keep most of them steadfast.

When the Kosovans and Clinton's propaganda was being blasted all over CNN, once in a while a 'turbaned' one could be spotted in the background. These 'turbaned' ones made sure that the Kosovans would not leave, (except of course on CNN where they were being paid $5.00 for each time they exited in front of the camaera). The hindrances imposed on the Kosovans in leaving by Muslim extremists from other nations such as Iran, was never shown here, and even had the suffering Kosovans been able to leave, very few if any would be accepted by Turkey. Strange isn't it, especially considering that they perceive themselves as Turks. So it comes down to why?

Why is it that the Christians can leave in the millions when their lives and livlihood are being threatened by terrorists? Could it be that they have a place willing to take them in? Yet the Muslims are forced to remain, or be stuck in refugee camps for 40 plus years in order to arouse the world's sympathy.

Islam believes that one must accept their fate. If the fate of that Muslim Kosovan or Palestinian is to live in an area that is under a non-Muslim authority, they must suffer until it becomes completely Muslim. That is their fate. They must never leave it no matter how much they and their family suffers.

So what is going to happen in Europe. They say that with this constant increase in the Muslim population, as well as the illegal immigrants smuggled into Europe through the Greek islands, Sicily and Spain, the first nation in Europe that will become Muslim will be Belgium. The second France.

I recall listening to a Muslim years ago saying how the Muslims were an outcome of the Arian heresy, the original inhabitants of Spain. It doesn't shock me then, that the Jordanian 'elite' believe that Spain should be theirs. Now thinking along these terms, I recall my mother telling me that at the time Smyrna was destroyed, this doctor told her that his single sisters were not allowed to leave. They had to become impregnated first with a Turk, and leave the babies there. After that they were allowed to go to Greece.

So considering this, one does have to wonder what their beliefs are. Could it be that by repopulating the land with inhabitants with Christian blood, they could say that they are now the 'true' inhabitants of the land.

Just some things to ponder.

Zenovia

I think the eschatological view espoused by the Iranian leader is something peculiar to Shia Islam, and possibly one particular school of thought within it. I don�t recall ever reading about such a belief among the majority Sunnis and I think they would actually disavow themselves of such a belief.

It should be remembered that Islam incorporates a number of elements of heretical Christianity. It is believed for instance that Muhammad came in to contact with some wayward Nestorian monks. Stories from the apocryphal gospels such as the young Christ and the clay pigeons that show up in Islam are further evidence of this. IIRC it is also believed that Christ was not in fact crucified, such a fate not being not worthy of a prophet of God, but a double or stand in was crucified in his place.

It should also be remembered that in the Islamic view the world is split basically in to two parts. The Dar al-Islam, the land of peace under Islamic rule and the Dar al-Harb, the land of war encompassing the rest of the world. The ultimate goal is Islam is to make all the world the �land of peace�.

Andrew

The grave error of most of the Muslim movements is that they themselves act and behave like terrorists who target innocent people without the slightest remorse wining the hate of al others. This has a lot to do with the leadership which is often ignorant and unable to understand that not only the Islamic countries face opression.

In spite of my opposition to islam as a religion, the birth of a Muslim super-power in the world (Iran or some other country) would be possitive as it would make the world a more balanced place, yet tense.

The opressed nations in Africa and Latin-America and other liberation movements currently orphaned, would have someone to look for in our struggle against the global economic dictatorship.

It's no longer a social-class struggle, that's why communism failed as they tried to put classes against each other. It's also not a religious one, that's why the Muslim terrorists have won the hate of everybody as they target all Jews and all Christians as evil.

It's a struggle between opressed nations and peoples and our opressors who have no other religion but their economic ambitions.

Dear Mexican you said:

"In spite of my opposition to islam as a religion, the birth of a Muslim super-power in the world (Iran or some other country) would be possitive as it would make the world a more balanced place, yet tense."

I say:

I find what you are saying a suicide call. We are not the one's persecuting anyone, but rather it is the Islamic leaders that are willing to have their own people suffer and die for their religious ideology...somewhat like communism. I suggest you read up a little on what went on in the Soviet Union. There are two Orthodox books on Father Arseny, a priest that sufferred in the Gulag for thirty years. That way you can get an idea of what a non-Christian world is like.

I recall one story on how some communist soldiers sneaked into German territory during the war. Three of them accidentally found, or seeked the help of a priest and his family. When they were through, they were obligated to kill them. Otherwise, their own life would have been endangered by their Soviet counterparts.

At the relief of the three, the leader took charge and went into the woods with the young couple and their two children. He risked his life by shooting in the air and telling them to escape. This of course, is one of the nicer tales in a 'diabolical' place and time.

The point is that it is not America that is suppressing anyone, it is the ideology that some people follow. We are sacrificing our 'finest' in Iraq so that we can change that ideology. Remember, we are not the one's murdering the Iraqi's, it is the Muslims themselves. Nor are we trying to bring about a civil war, but rather trying to unite them with a constitution that will ensure that their wealth will be distributed evenly.

Zenovia