I have been reading on the news websites, the tales coming out from the residents of Mosul in Iraq, who now live under the tender mercies of the ISIL (IS) regime .... these are of course the reports of a few brave souls, who were probably already resistant to the idea of killing their Christian or Shia neighbours in the first place, so perhaps are not unsurprisingly, unhappy at what has happened now.
They may not actually represent the majority view, or maybe they do, who knows, but even so, the full depressing horror of living in a land run by the religious extremists comes to light.
Daily punishments administered by young men with beards, who believe that most things (apart from torture, murder, and rapine) are 'Haram', forbidden. These punishments are basic, crude and strictly Sharia (well mostly). Thieves have a hand cut off. Blasphemers are beheaded. Male infidelity results in being thrown from a tall building, while women are stoned to death ... I think you get the picture.
All religious establishment that are not already strictly IS Sunni are closed or destroyed .... Both Shia and Sunni shrines are destroyed, because even venerating Muslim saints is apostasy in their simplistic view .... oh and in case you are wondering, the Christians, or 'Nasrani' as IS describe them, are forced to convert, die or flee, so any churches left are blown up, as of course are any pre-islamic buildings (it doesn't do to remind anyone that Islam wasn't the first religion to rule those lands).
As with all these sorts of regimes (and Iran and Iraq are often as bad in this respect, but from the Shia side of the barbarism fence), false imprisonment and torture are the judicial practise of choice, as apparently these are not haram. In fact anything their prophet did, is not haram, so you don't have to look past his life examples in the hadiths to see what is or isn't allowed. However seemingly he wasn't very big on education either, well for girls, because nearly all the schools are now closed, and what little education that is allowed, is strictly all male, with only religion and ideology taught by rote, and of a generally Sunni supremacist nature. All surviving Imams preaching, now have to be either IS followers, or prepared to preach the loyalty oath to IS, to those who pray in their mosques .... this apparently has led to the less religiously minded pulling their boys from the IS schools, and for a braver few, to stop going to the mosques as well.
With rubbish no longer being collected, access to the few hospitals that are left generally restricted to IS Commanders, fighters and their families, open sewers, and the water supply polluted as IS resets the clock to 632AD, it paints a picture of truly a seventh century backwardness. They have ransacked the city’s libraries, including the Mosul Museum Library, the Latin Church and Monastery of the Dominican Fathers, and the archives of a Sunni Muslim library in December; and the Nineveh Provincial Library’s Central Library and Mosul University’s library in January. In February, the Islamic State bombed the Central Library.
This is a failed state that even surpasses Somalia, which is really saying something. And yet, there are western 'educated' Muslims, both men and women, who believe that this regime built on blood, is the best that the world can offer, a shining example of what the world of Islam can aspire to, and who consequently flock to its cause. Quite remarkable in a way ... maybe only they can truly explain why the tolerance that the west has handed to Islamic migration into our lands, is only returned with a violent rejection of tolerance, in favour of religious warfare, and the establishment of the sort of regime that we have rarely seen before.
In fact the only historical regime that I can even remotely compare it to, is the extremely ideological Pol Pot regime in Khymer (Cambodia). Which incidentally, we also stood by and watched in horror as it committed internal genocides. Oddly, it also tried to reset the historical clock, this time to 'Year Zero' and remake society in the regime image, by using extreme punishment and force. I seem to recall that this regime was eventually destroyed when a neighbour (Vietnam), lost patience and took unilateral action to remove it (ignoring all the UN rules that let Pol Pot rule in terror).
So, as it appears that despite much hand wringing, and cries of 'something must be done', the West will do nothing on the ground to remove these odious little scumbags, and sadly the only local Muslim regime that really could, Turkey, also refuses to step in to halt the terror, then IS will blight the Middle-East and the world for years, perhaps decades to come. Saddam Hussein is laughing from hell at what Bush and Blair unleashed when they attacked Iraq. Millions of lives destroyed, for what?
We need to plan for the reality of what this policy of inertia may bring us in the future, because it assuredly won't be Sunni Delight.
They may not actually represent the majority view, or maybe they do, who knows, but even so, the full depressing horror of living in a land run by the religious extremists comes to light.
 |
| Mosul under IS barbarians ... Saddam Hussein would laugh |
Daily punishments administered by young men with beards, who believe that most things (apart from torture, murder, and rapine) are 'Haram', forbidden. These punishments are basic, crude and strictly Sharia (well mostly). Thieves have a hand cut off. Blasphemers are beheaded. Male infidelity results in being thrown from a tall building, while women are stoned to death ... I think you get the picture.
All religious establishment that are not already strictly IS Sunni are closed or destroyed .... Both Shia and Sunni shrines are destroyed, because even venerating Muslim saints is apostasy in their simplistic view .... oh and in case you are wondering, the Christians, or 'Nasrani' as IS describe them, are forced to convert, die or flee, so any churches left are blown up, as of course are any pre-islamic buildings (it doesn't do to remind anyone that Islam wasn't the first religion to rule those lands).
As with all these sorts of regimes (and Iran and Iraq are often as bad in this respect, but from the Shia side of the barbarism fence), false imprisonment and torture are the judicial practise of choice, as apparently these are not haram. In fact anything their prophet did, is not haram, so you don't have to look past his life examples in the hadiths to see what is or isn't allowed. However seemingly he wasn't very big on education either, well for girls, because nearly all the schools are now closed, and what little education that is allowed, is strictly all male, with only religion and ideology taught by rote, and of a generally Sunni supremacist nature. All surviving Imams preaching, now have to be either IS followers, or prepared to preach the loyalty oath to IS, to those who pray in their mosques .... this apparently has led to the less religiously minded pulling their boys from the IS schools, and for a braver few, to stop going to the mosques as well.
With rubbish no longer being collected, access to the few hospitals that are left generally restricted to IS Commanders, fighters and their families, open sewers, and the water supply polluted as IS resets the clock to 632AD, it paints a picture of truly a seventh century backwardness. They have ransacked the city’s libraries, including the Mosul Museum Library, the Latin Church and Monastery of the Dominican Fathers, and the archives of a Sunni Muslim library in December; and the Nineveh Provincial Library’s Central Library and Mosul University’s library in January. In February, the Islamic State bombed the Central Library.
This is a failed state that even surpasses Somalia, which is really saying something. And yet, there are western 'educated' Muslims, both men and women, who believe that this regime built on blood, is the best that the world can offer, a shining example of what the world of Islam can aspire to, and who consequently flock to its cause. Quite remarkable in a way ... maybe only they can truly explain why the tolerance that the west has handed to Islamic migration into our lands, is only returned with a violent rejection of tolerance, in favour of religious warfare, and the establishment of the sort of regime that we have rarely seen before.
In fact the only historical regime that I can even remotely compare it to, is the extremely ideological Pol Pot regime in Khymer (Cambodia). Which incidentally, we also stood by and watched in horror as it committed internal genocides. Oddly, it also tried to reset the historical clock, this time to 'Year Zero' and remake society in the regime image, by using extreme punishment and force. I seem to recall that this regime was eventually destroyed when a neighbour (Vietnam), lost patience and took unilateral action to remove it (ignoring all the UN rules that let Pol Pot rule in terror).
So, as it appears that despite much hand wringing, and cries of 'something must be done', the West will do nothing on the ground to remove these odious little scumbags, and sadly the only local Muslim regime that really could, Turkey, also refuses to step in to halt the terror, then IS will blight the Middle-East and the world for years, perhaps decades to come. Saddam Hussein is laughing from hell at what Bush and Blair unleashed when they attacked Iraq. Millions of lives destroyed, for what?
We need to plan for the reality of what this policy of inertia may bring us in the future, because it assuredly won't be Sunni Delight.
Islam wasn't the first religion but professes to be the last, wherein lies the threat. All religions, instead of admitting the inherent dangers of believing in a higher power, continue to close their eyes and deny the blindingly obvious.
ReplyDelete"Religion has always given people great comfort - in a world torn apart by Religion." [Jon Stewart]
Its a fact that Islam is a terrifying religion. Its also a fact that our politicians are burying their heads in the sand about the threat it poses to western values (including atheism) .... its also a fact that it has never learned to accommodate any other belief system (except where the other system out numbers them, and is equally violent in defence of itself e.g. Hindus in India).
DeleteSadly that means only one thing in Europe and the UK if we carry on as we are .... just a matter of time and numbers.