Thursday, December 21, 2006

"There is No Clash of Civilizations but a Clash between the Mentality of the Middle Ages and That of the 21st Century"

There is at least one person from the Middle East who is willing to take a stand about Islam and call it like it is. Wafa Sultan is that woman - courageous and inspiring. Let's hope that others in the Muslim world take courage as well and stand up against an evil religion that has caused them so much harm, death and destruction.

Following are excerpts from an interview with Arab-American psychiatrist Wafa Sultan. The interview was aired on Al-Jazeera TV on February 21, 2006.


Wafa Sultan: The clash we are witnessing around the world is not a clash of religions, or a clash of civilizations. It is a clash between two opposites, between two eras. It is a clash between a mentality that belongs to the Middle Ages and another mentality that belongs to the 21st century. It is a clash between civilization and backwardness, between the civilized and the primitive, between barbarity and rationality. It is a clash between freedom and oppression, between democracy and dictatorship. It is a clash between human rights, on the one hand, and the violation of these rights, on other hand. It is a clash between those who treat women like beasts, and those who treat them like human beings. What we see today is not a clash of civilizations. Civilizations do not clash, but compete. (For the rest of the interview go to read and enter Wafa Sultan in the search box.)

Saturday, December 16, 2006

When Your Purpose in LIFE is to DIE

What is wrong with the Muslims? Why can't they live a normal life - one filled with goals for a better life for their children? Robert Tracinski reminds us that these people, perhaps best exemplified by the Palestinians, are not like the rest of Humanity that have ever lived on the face of this earth.

"Our enemies, as I keep saying, have problems of their own. For example, imagine yourself in the shoes of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, stopped at the border of Gaza by the Israelis, who want you to relinquish the $35 million in Iranian cash that you need to keep your supporters fed—but also knowing that the longer you stay out of Gaza, the more a civil war between your faction and Fatah escalates outside of your control. Then you enter Gaza, only to have Fatah try to shoot you.
"Haniyeh's problem is the problem of the Palestinians: they have so thoroughly embraced the morality of sacrifice that they worship blood, death, and the suicide bomber—and so they will pass up no opportunity to sacrifice themselves, even when it means systematically destroying their own society.
"There have been countries where millions have been massacred and economies have been plunged into subsistence-level poverty by the arrogance and power-lust of a ruling clique. But I don't know if there has ever been a society that has pursued its own destruction as a matter of broad-based, decentralized popular will. That is the distinction of the Palestinians." (read).