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Subject: Educating terrorists
capitalist72    3/21/2004 3:09:10 PM
Abandoning jihad Najam Sethi's E d i t o r i a l http://TheFridayTimes.com/ Pakistan's First Independent Weekly Paper March 19-25, 04, Lahore Certain Quranic verses have been expunged from a textbook on Biology for Class XI. Apparently, these tended to suggest that jihad was obligatory on all Muslims. One could, if that was the intention, also misconstrue from them that Jews and Christians were permanent enemies of Islam. ... However, the opposition parties led by the MMA walked out of the National Assembly in protest when the federal education minister, Zubeida Jalal, explained why the verses had been expunged. The MMA’s response was expected. It has a strong vested political interest in "Islamising" everything under the sun, including biology and science. ... ... It is amazing, though, that in this ruckus no one has asked the relevant question of how mention of ‘jihad’ is compatible with the biology syllabus? How, and why, did these verses find their way into the biology textbook? Clearly, this question hasn’t been asked because the answer is bound to lead to embarrassing disclosures about how the state has systematically indoctrinated its citizens over the past quarter century by means of a particularistic exegesis of Islam since the time of Zia ul Haq. ... But the cumulative impact of this policy of indoctrination has been disastrous for Pakistan. It was meant to put down the liberal-left in Pakistan on the one hand and prepare the youth for jihad to push a certain "national-security" paradigm centring on ambitions regarding Afghanistan and India on the other. But it was a Faustian bargain since it resulted in the loss of internal sovereignty by the state and the rise of anarchic tendencies based on a millenarianism that has no tolerance for the state’s about-turn in the new reality of today. This trend runs contrary to the modern notion of the nation-state and hinders its capacity to exercise effective domestic control or even calibrate its external policies. One of the worst fallouts of this indoctrination has been to compromise the integrity of the territorial state itself. Since every state is wedded to the idea of self-defence and advancing its interests, it is interesting that the rightwing should emphasise ‘jihad’ as the only way of doing it. It is important to remember that there is no juridical consensus on who can declare jihad – is it the state or can any individual or group ask the Muslims to do jihad? But the balance tilts in favour of the state and for good reason, too: if individuals can be given even a slice of the state’s monopoly of violence, it would sound the death knell of the state. This is why in practice the Islamic states have always guarded their sovereignty ruthlessly. The present trend is born of special circumstances in which the Pakistani state establishment was a willing player. But now that the circumstances have changed, the state finds it difficult to alter course because in pursuing these policies it unwittingly ended up strengthening those non-state elements whose interests are linked to the continuation of those old national security policies in which they had a degree of autonomy and leverage from the state. One thing is clear. Recent bomb attacks and other terrorist acts show that the idea of jihad is totally misplaced and is doing great harm to Pakistan. But the rightwing is in no mood to voluntarily vacate the political space it has captured in the past 25 years.
 
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SGTObvious    RE:Sir John Glubb   5/6/2004 7:18:28 PM
We know that Jews and Christians got along just fabulously under Muslim rule, because writings of the Muslims tells us such. And the slaves in the South pre-civil war did just fine, too. Some of them were highly respected and well treated by their masters. To be fair, some of the Muslim societies did treat their second class citizens better than Christian societies AT THE TIME did. But these mythical golden ages of inter-ethnic harmony never existed. Compared to the best of times under Arab rule, Spain TODAY is in its Golden Age. Here is the "tolerance" of Arab rulers in Spain: “No…Jew or Christian may be allowed to wear the dress of an aristocrat, nor of a jurist, nor of a wealthy individual; on the contrary they must be detested and avoided. It is forbidden to accost them with the greeting, ‘Peace be upon you’. In effect, ‘Satan has gained possession of them, and caused them to forget God’s warning. They are the confederates of Satan’s party; Satan’s confederates will surely be the losers!’ And the words of a Jewish scholar, forced to flee for his life (Maimonedes) "..the Arabs have persecuted us severely, and passed baneful and discriminatory legislation against us...Never did a nation molest, degrade, debase, and hate us as much as they.."18 Enlightened Golden Age. Yeah, and there are No American Tanks Within A Hundred Miles of Bagdad... and All Your Base Are Belong to Us. Right. Turkey, by the way, is not a Muslim country. It is a secular country inhabited by a population that is mostly muslim. Big difference.
 
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jastayme3    RE:Jihad and Biology   3/15/2005 7:01:27 PM
Perhaps they view the immune response as a bodily Jihad against the infidel micro-organisms? ------------------------- Well actually terrorists remind me more of germs.
 
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kommando    RE:Educating terrorists - the quicker way   3/16/2005 10:04:37 AM
LOL! i bet this is the best way !!! it is hopeless to try and "educate" these guys i mean look what happened during 9/11 USA paid for being nice to these people and allowing them into their nation...frankly its a lost caus the better idea will be to blow them to hell...
 
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