#It's basically like saying the Taliban knows what's “good” for all Muslim people which you should know is untrue and total BS

[deaddee-anime-brownfanlady]

[kendrixtermina]

Gaza is NOT totalitarian

One thing you always hear from Zionists or even unaffiliated random westerners who know little about the conflict as a reason why the war is, if not completely justified, then at least tragically unavoidable, is that Gaza is a totalitarian regime & they’re either all indoctrinated to hate Israelis, or get portrayed as passive victims with no agency that need to be „liberated“

But over the last weeks we have seen a lot of scenes of life out of gaza and i have also read many books & watched documentaries to further educate myself and there is just no trace of that anywhere.

No big posters of leaders in classroom, no symbols & logos everywhere, no political phrases in people’s everyday speech, many of the people in videos seem totally a-political & lament that their family had nothing to do with the resistance or the war. They spend more time talking about friggin olive trees and embroidery than politics.

You could glean a bunch about their culture from the videos – extended families live together in big shared houses, they are very affectionate with children, they value community, the sport they tend to be obsessed about is Football…

Saudi arabia, for example, bans booze, art, music & forces everyone to wear burqas – that’s just not the case in Palestine. There are woman doctors & journalists, a wealth of poets & painters. You can buy booze grown in the west bank. You see the occasional lady without hijab, like Bisan often has her hair out, which tells me the ones that DO wear it do so because they want to, which is their good right. There were several Christian churches apparently operating just fine inside Gaza, until Israel bombed them.

I heard that 4th way esoterism was influenced by Sufism which is an off-shoot of Islam, & seeing the religious mantras people cited I could see the relationship - they said stuff like they should trust in God's destiny, that God alone is enough for them etc. it has that same "accept what is & surrender to the universe, real strength comes from contact with divinity & then you need nothing else" vibe - though of course the esoterists believe less in a personal god & more in a panentheist "Unity Of Being". Ppl used to make a lot of bogeyman talk out of Islam meaning "submission" but now I think it's probably meant in a "surrender to the universe & accept what is" kinda way & that ppl ended up projecting the authoritarian character of Christianity onto it. Islam is alot more de-central & everyone does their own thing, innit? I remember that when Muslims hit a certain percentage in Germany they thought of introducing Islam classes to school (in addition to the Catholic & Lutheran classes they have - atheists & ppl of other religions get "ethics" instead which is basically moral philosophy) but one problem they ran into is that there's no central authority to get a course plan from. There is no such thing as a muslim pope. There are extremists who ARE authoritarian, like Saudi arabia (as there are of all religions; They're all the same, rly, it's probably down to some flaw in human brains) but that doesn't mean everyone's like that. You might pt down the authoritarianism there to Saudi Arabia being an absolutist monarchy...

(Of course, a lot of less educated westerners don’t know that the kind of extremism seen in the Saudis & Taliban is actually a fairly recent movement that was able to take over due to the ME being destabilized in the cold war… the area was once stable, organized & well-educated.)

Some of the people covering the war like Bisan, Plestia, Saleh etc. were normal instagrammers before, doing normal instagram things, not a hint of politics to be found.

I also recall this post by a gay ude saying that yeah it’s not super welcoming but there’s not really systematic persecution – your family might kick you out or quietly tolerate it while wanting nothing to do with it… so just like the more religious parts of the USA basically.

Also, I’d like to note that even if gaza WERE totalitarian, people in totalitarian countries don’t cease to be human and their lives don’t become worthless. Not everyone is a True Believer, most are just scared out of their mind. You need to read „Jugend Ohne Gott“, you need to watch „Das Boot“, you need to listen to stories of people who escaped from North Korea. Maybe if it’s easier to epathize with a fictional depiction, read 1984 or The Handmaid’s tale.

So, I consider myself German because that’s where I grew up & the only culture I have any emotional attachment to, but my parents are Cuban. Cuba is a fairly „soft“ totalitarian state in that dissenters are „only“ beaten & their job prospects ruined, not outright killed like in North Korea or under the Nazis, but even so, my grandma still rips up all papers before throwing them away because spies would go through people’s trash, and my parents needed to be told several times by friends that it’s OK to criticize politicians in public before they would feel comfortable riffing on then.chancellor Kohl.

Note, however, that people DID mock the Castros in private, among trusted family members. There are tons of jokes mocking them. Heck, even mocked Hitler behind closed doors – they used to call them Flüsterwitze („whisper jokes“) because if you say them out loud they shoot you. Just to illustrate how people trapped in totalitarian states are human.

Even in the early 2000s when I was still pretty young, I didn’t buy that it’s OK to kill Iraqis just because there is a Dictator. The citizens are victims, and unlike the leadership they are poor & can’t flee. What if someone invaded Cuba and killed all my cousins just to punish the bad guy opressing them? That din’t seem fair. They said I’d understand when I’m older but all I understood is what utter bullshit that war was.

We’ve heard so many Palestinians talking about their plight and there is hardly anyone speaking of repression or totalitarianism, including peole who left the country. (In stark contrast to Cubans, North Koreans or people who fled the Nazis, who don’t shut up about how much it sucked) There is not zero repression (like an incident where Hamas got Fatah-affiliated workers fired), but the same can be said of Israel or even the west – McCarthyism or the current withhunt against pro-palestine ppl.

Meanwhile we have that creepy song of Israeli children calling for murder, and many videos by Israelis saying they were indoctrinated. One person mentioned being outright told that arabs were their „enemy“, while two arab boys were sitting in her class. I also hear that many Israelis go most of their lives without even interacting with a Palestinian outside of military service.

So, yeah, I think it’s pretty clear who the indoctrinated ones are.

[arcticdementor]

I was talking to Sarah yesterday and I had a revelation I think is worth sharing.

Let’s begin at the beginning. About a month ago, Instapundit posted this.

Now, I’ve been thinking of the rise and fall of civilizations lately. I can’t think why it’s been on my mind. It’s a tale as old as time—a civilization emerges, establishes a new worthwhile order, the good things brought forth by said order soften up the people maintaining it, the softening turns to decadence, and the decadence gives way to the barbarians, who clean the slate. Where would you say things are lately?

…

In short—the federal government of the United States of America has become impotent at almost all good things.

Expanded out—There is no start to its talents. It cannot maintain its borders. Since the “election” it doesn’t even try. No surprise there. It cannot maintain friendly relationships with allies—as our recent screwing of Britain on our way out of Afghanistan shows. The “leader” of the “free world” could not be bothered to pick up the phone for our closest ally. Speaking of Afghanistan, it can’t win a war. It can’t even lose gracefully. In fact it fucked up leaving so badly some people are entertaining that it intended to fuck it up, because how the fuck does somebody above the age of six not notice that pulling the military out first and the civilians out second is not even a remotely workable strategy? Resulting in leaving millions of dollars of equipment—and—excuse me, what? Millions of dollars of dollars in the desert? Fantastic.

It makes self sabotaging and idiotic choices to stymie its own domestic oil industry, while accepting a pipeline not from Canada, but one that’s a joint Russian-German venture instead. Which means the problem, contrary to any environmentalist whining, isn’t the pipeline—it’s the pipeline with a friendly country. Big surprise— its only true interest in the environment lies in international agreements that hamstring us while doing nothing to China, the world’s largest polluter. It either can’t be trusted on energy production  and the environment, or is trying to get it wrong.

It can’t manage its economy. What could have been a “V” shaped recovery has been turned into an “L” shaped one. What could be contributing? Paying people to do nothing? Rampant inflation? Meanwhile all the dumbasses running the country can think of is spending several billion more dollars that don’t exist. The country has infrastructure problems for a fact, but they’ll only acknowledge that to the extent of cynically plastering the word on an “infrastructure” bill which is in fact just a far Left wishlist that largely ignores actual infrastructure, in the hopes people will be dumb enough to support it because it has the right label.

And on.

And on.

And on.

What aptitudes does it have besides taking money, trampling civil liberties, and ignoring constitutional laws at gunpoint? News flash, dummies: We don’t need peaceful protestors incarcerated without a trial. We don’t need the weight of the federal government turned to the problem of violating states rights because Texas passed a law Biden doesn’t like. We need military egresses that look like they weren’t planned by Bozo the clown and an economic plan better than something China would design for us as an attempt to permanently sink the country. Is there anyone at all in DC who can provide that? If not, is there anything useful they can do? I’ll wait.

…

This is what decadence looks like. When the government stops even attempting competence because nothing and nobody that currently exists can replace or displace them so who cares about results? When comfort and plenty have become so common, been taken for granted for so long, that the question of utility or even basic sanity isn’t even distantly considered. When it’s assumed that self-harming policies that will obviously damage the country won’t really matter because nobody has ever known a world without America and fundamentally has no idea how the present day came to be. When the country’s most educated start chasing bizarre and unimaginably stupid ideas on economics that boil down to “inflation won’t happen if you double the monetary supply by printing money, if only you just believe hard enough”. In fact, when education stops being a means to greater insight, more useful abilities, and a better life, and becomes a cult devoted to the kind of idiocy that can survive only with strenuous censorship, the tenets of the cult being treated by the indoctrinated as a collection of sacred mysteries and deeply-thought paradoxes— while to those not similarly trained it is self-obviously a collection of contradictory and self-serving lies.

Verily, decadence is here. We can infer that what comes next is the barbarians. And we have options. Mexican illegals? A heady mixture of poverty-stricken Marxists who have never known a system that wasn’t corrupt, functionally lawless, and devoted to the tenets of voting oneself rich; and outright criminals with lives like “a demon’s resumé”? Perhaps radical Muslims? By sheer numbers worldwide they’re the most likely option. The Taliban just got a huge infusion of cash and a big boost in morale. In a few short days we’ll know whether they’ve arranged a thank you gift for Zho Bi-Xen and his kleptocrat marching band to commemorate his intended pull-out date. But even if, and God I hope, they have not, we can expect an uptick in terrorism and quite shortly. Or perhaps China? The Middle Kingdom would laugh at being called barbarians, but I call genocidal communists like I see them. Mao was morally three steps below a pig and Xi has enough power to aspire to greater depths. As is I wouldn’t dream of feeding a pig Mu Shu Xi due to the great risk of poisoning the pig.

But there is a barbarian group not considered. Us.

Hang on. Before you balk, listen. Look again at what these idiots are selling as the fruits of civilization. Defenses of pedophilia and urinals as art. And more, too—sterilization and disfigurement of teenagers in the form of sex changes. Black supremacy as a panacea to made up threats of white supremacy. Books nobody reads, movies nobody watches, paintings that exist only to launder money—even the ones not made by Hunter Biden.

What good person would not be proud to be considered a barbarian by these miserable, over-decorated Faberge people? I’d be mortified if they agreed with me! So they think I’m a sexist or a racist or whatever. Fine. They do not use these words to mean the same things I mean, so it’s a pointless argument, and they are now officially beneath my explaining myself to them. When the people who are calling me names are so morally opaque that the Taliban can make devastating critiques of them just by referencing the foundational works of their own gender studies programs, I’m done caring about the names. Fine. I’m what you think is a racist. I’m what you think is a sexist. But you think a lot of very stupid things, and as the curtain continues to draw back on the carnival of madness that’s been behind the scenes the entire time it’s occurring to me that what you think and reality overlap so seldom that the only time not to ignore you is when I can ridicule you. If that is your civilization, someone hand me a pointy horned helmet.

…

Yes, this is a moment of peril, but also opportunity. See in your country what every hostile group listed above sees in it—the makings of great civilization, along other, less stupid lines. All of it guarded by weak, fat, stupid people with no will and no self-belief. Take that mindset and go forth.

Get involved in your local systems. There is an old prayer for God to make ones enemies ridiculous. Congratulations to whomever was still praying it. Your prayers have been answered. Will you tell me that you cannot defeat these people? People who lose casual debates to terrorists not on principle but on basic facts?

…

You can’t reason with them so don’t bother. Recent events have made it clear you may as well try to talk sense into a three-day-old mackerel. Just confront them with their own stupidity so that people who see the inevitable video understand what this is about, and don’t feel that you are too good to shout them out of the room. You’re the barbarian, remember? Not like the nice civilized people with their gender-queer Tik-Tokers pushing vaccine propaganda. That means you’re excused from conversations with morons. Don’t bother trying to find common ground. Look at where they’re standing! Do you want to try to find the midpoint between that and reality? Silly. Pointless. Send them back to their walled online gardens to whine to their equally stupid friends about the barbarians.

Can we take it back from the ground up? I don’t know. But hey, it’s got to be worth a shot. Join the fun! Find some friends and locate a low-hanging political event to raid. When was the last time you went to a town hall for your town? Isn’t just a part of you curious to know whether your local county commissioner starts by declaring her pronouns? Wouldn’t it be wonderful to see someone like that made very uncomfortable? You can make that happen. You can probably do it within the next month. Bring a few friends! Or a few dozen. Some of the people reading this probably were afraid to do that kind of thing for fear of losing their job. The Biden economy might have freed up some of your time. What have you got to lose now? More importantly, the way things are going, are you going to lose it anyway if things continue as they are? Think on it.

[alexanderpusheen]

what frustrates me the most abt this china narrative is that the US created al qaeda and ISIS, those groups are recruiting and causing terrorism in xinjiang, china has been trying to handle the situation with re-education programs often suggested by westerners, and its still being treated as this major human rights violation. there are actually dozens of countries with several robust anti radicalization programs that are just as strict, like singapore, colombia, yemen, bangladesh, saudi arabia, and indonesia. this paper ive linked to was even funded by the DHS so like...why has detaining someone and basically reverse brainwashing them out of being a terrorist been so acceptable for so long but now its an issue? 

if you take issue with chinas program, you have to prove its somehow exceptional to these other programs. since we really dont have any way of knowing what is truth or reality thanks to the enormous disinformation campaign going on, you fucking cant. we dont even know what the programs entail because even googling it gets you exclusively hyperbolic concentration camp accusations. 

what i will say is that relations between the han majority and the uyghur minority have been strained since at least the 80s. link is the notoriously conservative and pro US intervention human rights watch, so dont say im using pro commie sources or anything. every time i do any bit of research on this i seem to find an attempt from major news outlets in the early to mid 2000s or late 20-teens to prove this all started or became dramatically worse now, but things have always been tense. and its not really a surprise that things really got bad after the collapse of the soviet union, an event that was geographically close to china and the xinjiang region and also just like, a fucking major global event in general.

what i find to be very odd is just how dramatically the narrative has changed. the diplomat, one of my favorite periodicals, went from taking very nuanced and balanced positions on xinjiang that i almost completely agreed with to being just as aggressive as outlets like the BBC and CNN in the span of five years. they have eleven pages worth of articles on xinjiang, mostly covering the terrorism and beijings response (which i agree is too harsh) and xinjiang muslims’ relationships to the greater muslim world. 

an example is how this article talks about the conflict at the time which warns of escalating violence as a result of han chauvinism and beijing being unable to deal with the extremism holistically. it points out how there were uyghurs captured among taliban ranks in afghanistan and how many might have even been working with ISIL.

The threat will not be an existential one to the Chinese state, as most Uighurs would prefer a peaceful accommodation. But even if only 1 percent of Uighurs hold extreme views, there are 10 million in Xinjiang and even for a state security apparatus as formidable as China’s, 100,000 or more angry people present a tough challenge.

i think its totally right that china does not allow people in that area to have cars, woodcutting tools, and amonium nitrate (which is used in bombs) is very strictly regulated. i completely agree that this is not how you combat terrorism. most people do not want war and broadly punishing these people is itself a human rights violation that went unnoticed until now.

however, in that same year, the diplomat also published this article about the infamous turkestan islamic party. members of TIP are like, literal jihadists lmfao.

TIP fighters call on the world’s Muslims to join the jihad against Western countries in internet videos. Perhaps most worringly for China, the TIP believes that Muslims may fight locally using various means instead of coming to Syria and Iraq to conduct a “holy war” against the “infidel” Western regimes.  

yeah i definitely want to hear more about what these guys have to say. the article is really good because i think it highly illustrates just how dangerous these people are. theyve killed hundreds of people across china and want to establish a fascist religious state in xinjiang. while the article speaks for itself, i believe the last paragraph really highlights why china is being singled out whereas countries like france and canada are considered allies to muslims for whatever reason:

However, as experience has shown, China takes a passive position in the struggle against global Islamic jihad in Syria and Iraq. Beijing has not sent its troops to the Middle East to fight ISIS and has instead confined itself to diplomatic support for Russia and the United States. The Chinese government uses the attacks of Islamic jihadists to persuade Western countries to support Beijing’s position on Xinjiang and turn a blind eye when the freedom and rights of Uyghurs are harshly suppressed by Chinese security forces. Therefore, China is not perceived by the West as a reliable partner in the fight against terrorism. [emphasis mine]

im just a little surprised to see that a lot of these violent attacks from extremists throughout the years have targeted not just han chinese but also other uyghurs. in the west people do not typically sympathize with terrorists as freedom fighters, even on the left, because we know that no matter how angry or how seemingly justified the violence might seem, terrorism is unacceptable and it grossly misrepresents islam. it is a fascist act because those terrorists often follow an extremely right wing version of islam. also, we know that those who carry out terrorist attacks even outside of the west are middle class and professionals in some way, not poor and marginalized people. the level of nuance afforded to terrorists outside of xinjiang is pretty staggering. 

yet in china, there seems to be this excitement than they are killing chinese people, even if some of those chinese are other uyghers or otherwise muslims. those who carry out attacks in xinjiang dont get any nuance or analysis because theyre justified.

ive referenced the diplomat earlier but this article from 2013 says it perfectly: Call Tiananmen Attack What It Was: Terrorism. except terrorism is bad. and the west wants you to support the uyghurs. and make no mistake, they do not want you to support the millions of uyghurs who want to live peacefully, free of any repression, american or chinese. they want you to support the jihadists randomly blowing up chinese and tourists alike because you are meant to sympathize with their plight.

terrorism isnt something to be romantacized or cheered on. it is something someone or someones do when they feel they have no other option. people do not want to kill even those they feel they have every right to because thats a line you cant uncross. murder changes you, justified or not. see the last chapter of wretched of the earth for this.

terrorism is great, however, for destabilizing a region or a country, and xinjiang is resource-rich. establishing a US-friendly regime, no matter how good they are on human rights, is the goal. the US does not care about muslims. they do not care about human rights. china, also, does not really seem to care about muslims or human rights either. but we’ve seen this since vietnam, and the US has learned since vietnam. the vietnamese were sympathetic. they were minding their business. 

after vietnam, merely being communist isnt enough to warrant invasion. theyre killing their own people. nevermind that bolsonaro kills his own people and no one wants to invade (yet--biden has mention sanctions wrt us which is scary but again, thats got everything to do with making sure latin america is loyal to the west, not HR offenses). korea, although it was before vietnam, was less publicized and learning from vietnam gave the US a valuable lesson: always blame the victim. and thus, the US blames the victims of its violence. even if its ‘justified’, even if its ‘true,’ as was the case with saddam hussein, invading and occupying was the nightmare no one but the imperialists anticipated. because they dont broadcast what occupying forces do to the occupied. i am old enough to remember abu ghraib. have it seared in my memory forever. you perhaps are also old enough to remember, but also think millions of abu ghraibs and guantanamo bays are always worth it, always justified. 

i know people arent going to read this and remind me really rudely that they didnt read it but i want to really emphasize how one of imperialism and colonialisms features is ethnic and racial separatism. how the rwandan genocide couldnt have happened without previous belgian and french rule. how yugoslavia wouldve remained a single country had it not been for NATO. i think its easy to diminish the role of the colonizer in all of this, but it is actually one of its goals: divide and conquer. exacerbate the existing conflicts to the point of genocide. 

and if the west succeeds in balkanizing china, you will get more racism rather than less. you will see more violence against muslim minorities rather than less. they will feel less empowered rather than more. china has to learn that they are also to blame in a way that will be catastrophic for over a billion people. han chauvinism and outright racism must be addressed beyond window dressing.

wrapping up, china is in the wrong here. what theyre doing is racist and humiliating a population that has to be empowered. and the one child rule, even for the han majority, is imo fucking evil lol like sorry tankie tumblr im tankie too but i cannot for the life of me accept that as a good thing.... but i also dont buy the accusations of genocide, because even tho a lot of these articles are kind of glossing over it, china is trying to handle the terrorism in the region. imo theyre feeding into it by getting more han in the area, but also having more han but forcing them to take worse jobs would be a show of good will. idk, this situation is extremely complex and frankly, most uyghers do not want secession. 

i also take extreme issue with people saying that adrian zenz is somehow reliable. not only is he a nazi crackpot, hes also literally the only source for almost all of what we know about this in the west. that is not how you do journalism. i dont understand how people are saying ‘yeah hes an extremely fascist grifter but also i believe him because hes anti communist and also anti china’. thats also not really the point? the point is that hes also the ONLY SOURCE on almost all of this, which is alarming. 

i also find it very startling that in order to keep interest in the story, every few weeks the US has to remind people that the chinese are also doing what the US is doing to women in its own camps. forget that the US is separating minors from parents (since 2008). forget that the US is sterilizing women en masse (since 2017). forget that the US is raping women at the border (since there was a border). forget the US even has camps because now they arent even called that anymore. this is not that ‘you can be angry at two things at once’ but a clearly cynical attempt to get its citizens to forget that the US is detaining, deporting, sterilizing, and raping, and gassing non US nationals. 

they are not ‘your own people.’ they are me. the other. i am an immigrant to the US, currently in my country of birth, so i am the other to you, the american. the chinese are doing the evil crime of killing their own. but the americans could never kill their own because they dont consider black americans to be their own. latin american nationals are not their own. bombing millions globally is not their own. thats always justifiable. there is clearly an element of racism in how these crimes are perceived as more or less evil.

the way immigrants and black americans are brutalized in the US is almost naturalized. like its the way things are supposed to be. you can live with that. its upsetting that you have to hear about antiblackness and the like but you know thats just how life is. you dont necessarily call for the US to be sanctioned or bombed by other countries because you believe in the inherent goodness of white america. but countries like china and iran and north korea deserve to be starved and killed for their crimes. and you can never say ‘maybe bombing and starving a country isnt the answer’ because it means you agree with it. you can never say ‘this is clearly propaganda to make me hate another race so much’ because it means youre a genocide denier. im sorry, but again, i remember iraq in 2003, i remember libya in 2011. i dont buy it.

finally, theres been a lot of attacks on asian people in the US lately and if you cannot see the violent way the US talks about china the country and how that influences people to harm asians within the US then idk what else to tell you. people will really believe this shit and say the chinese are all blood thirsty islamaphobes and thus need to be harmed. ‘im not like that! i defend my asian friends from racism!’ thats nice and all but idk how spreading some sinophobic propaganda designed by the US to make you support some kind of violence against one billion chinese people isnt inherently racist. also its unhelpful because sanctions dont really solve problems. but ive spoken too much.

[animentality]

Huge ass rant about men bullshit

Bro do I have a story about bullshit for you that talks about representation and content

So in my art school in my sculpture class this middle aged man comes to present his final piece. He starts by coming late to class and saying how someone jumped in front if the train, tragic right? We thought he was shocked but he was just angry that his bus got delayed??? At no point during his rant did he addresses what happened in a respectful way it was just him going off about how he almost missed the presentation so far. Anyway when brings he brings out his piece its not even a sculpture its a 2d collage that was very haphazardly put together, mind you this is his final. and boy is the content fucking controversial. Its basically a bunch of nude play boy magazine models and in the middle is a huge ass illust of a woman from Afghanistan in a blue burka covering the illustrations! He says its two different sides of the same coin that is the objectification of women and how women are forced to be in these positions. The professor killed him on sight saying that if this was presented in a gallery it would be shutdown under an hour. One guy asks him how this speaks to his own experiences, why is he talking about the women that way framing it as if it was from their lense, guy dodges the fucking question because. he went on how if playboy didn’t offer large sums of money he “guarantees” they wouldn’t be doing this type of modelling, he also talks about how some women don’t even know theyre being objectified. I then ask him if he knows what mansplaining is and i tell him its what hes doing. Although some of his points are correct they dont stand because of the angle in which he was presenting them. Moving on this headass talks about how this isnt about religion despite the huge ass burqa its about the culture of Afghanistan so already you can tell the cohesiveness of his piece is pretty much non existent. I tell him that in this case you cant seperate the two. The prof tried to symapthize with him saying he had good intentions but i was having none of that and called him out on how his initial idea was to talk about the Syrian refugee crisis “because people eat that shit right up” so this was clearly not coming from a place of genuine empathy and in the tiniest voice he goes thats not true. The prof told him how if he wasn’t there to present the work people wont get his intention of deconstructing objectification and i suggested that it might backfire because his background as a muslim east asian artist might suggest to people that hes enforcing his values on westerners. Prof also compared the piece to a different one by a white student who wore blackface to talk about black people’s problems ………… Anyway he was so defensive saying that we didn’t get it and that he just didn’t have the vocabulary to defend the piece. I told him as a muslim and a woman i was offended by the whole thing and he has the audacity to ask why after the prof and i were grilling him on it, which proves how selective or non existent  his hearing is. I told him a more sensitive approach was to talk about the men making and consuming the magazine n the taliban. Again ut went over his head. I asked him why he was talking about women in afghanistan specifically and again he had no real answer. He kept talking about how they were forced to wear one color only. Like really? Nothing about the other tragedies they undergo? Youre bothered by their lack of fashion choices?

He was warned about this but chose to make it anyway, guy avoids feedback like the plague. one point he said that in his defense someone would totally buy his piece i said yeah, i would buy it then burn it. I told him he needed to work on his listening “yeah thats a problem of mine” i say yeah its a big problem. What infuriates most of all is the fact that nothing about the piece critisized objectification, he was just mirroring the problem, he wasn’t adding anything new to the table. Fucking men dude.

[xtruss]

Iran’s Turning into India’s Proxy by Taunting and Threatening Pakistan?

Major General Qassem Soleimani, the famed commander of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IGRC), proved that his country is increasingly turning into India’s proxy after he taunted and threatened Pakistan, resulting in the Islamic Republic incredibly taking some of the same positions as its American and “Israeli” enemies (both of whom are its new Indian patron’s allies) in spite of its official “principled” opposition to every manifestation of their policies.

Digging A Deeper Hole

Iran recently celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, but instead of marking this momentous occasion by showcasing its sovereign gains over the past four decades, it ended up being manipulated into becoming India’ s proxy and paradoxically undermining the very independence that it’s so proud to have supposedly achieved. The author wrote about this at length in his piece earlier this week about how “Iran’s Being Tricked Into Making Balochistan The New Kurdistan”, explaining that the Islamic Republic’s “deep state” divisions are being masterfully exploited by India in order to turn Iran against Pakistan in the aftermath of a recent terrorist attack along the two Muslim countries’ shared border in the transnational region of Balochistan.

Instead of de-escalating the situation behind the scenes by walking back some of its officials’ anti-Pakistani rhetoric and actively commencing joint anti-terrorist operations like the author suggested that it do in order to make the best out of a bad situation, Major General Qassem Soleimani – the famed commander of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) – upped the ante by taunting and threatening Pakistan, proving that Iran is indeed on the path of becoming India’s proxy and apparently has no problem with this. His words dealt enormous damage to Pakistani-Iranian relations after he called into question the professionalism of his neighbor’s armed forces and portrayed the country as being on the brink of dissolution.

Soleimani’s Statement

Here are his abridged comments as reported by the Fars News Agency:

— “We have always offered Pakistan help in the region, but I have this question from the Pakistani government: where are you heading to? You have caused unrest along borders with all your neighbors and do you have any other neighbor left that you want to stir insecurity for?

— Are you, who have atomic bombs, unable to destroy a terrorist group with several hundred members in the region? How many of your own people have been killed in different terrorist operations? We do not want your condolences, how could your condolence help the people of Iran?

— I tell the Pakistani people that the Saudi cash has influenced Pakistan and they want to destroy Pakistan with such measures.

— I warn you not to test Iran and anyone who has tested Iran has received firm response. We are speaking to Pakistan with a friendly tone and we are telling that country not to allow their borders to become a source of insecurity for the neighboring countries; anyone who has made this plot for Pakistan is seeking to disintegrate that country, the Islamic Republic of Iran will take revenge of its martyrs from those mercenaries who have committed this crime no matter where they are in the world.”

Soleimani’s statement revealed a lot about Iran’s current outlook and deserves to be analyzed in depth.

Interpreting Iran’s Intentions

Firstly, Soleimani implied that Pakistan backstabbed Iran after he said that Tehran always offered to help it, after which he remarked that Islamabad is responsible for regional unrest. The General then taunted the Pakistani Armed Forces by rhetorically asking why their nuclear weapons can’t defeat a small armed group that’s supposedly operating within its borders, despite knowing fully well that those armaments are irrelevant when dealing with hybrid threats. That was a cheap attack against the military and meant to make it an international laughingstock. He also portrayed Pakistan as hypocritical by reminding it of how many people it lost to this same type of terrorism that he says its government is responsible for, after which he disrespectfully rejected its condolences.

Soleimani then directly addressed the Pakistani people and tried to impugn Prime Minister Khan’s integrity by making it seem as though their leader is concealing an existentially dangerous conspiracy from them that involves Saudi Arabia paying the country to become a regional exporter of terrorism, which he implied the authorities recklessly agreed to even though he arrogantly predicted that this will result in Pakistan’s “disintegration”. He then proceeded to threaten Pakistan while disingenuously assuring it that he’s “speaking with a friendly tone” by promising that his military will “take revenge of its martyrs…no matter where they are in the world”, or in other words, might pull an Indian-like “surgical strike” against its neighbor (whether claiming it did or actually trying to).

Ruining The Regional Balance

Whether Iran realizes it or not, its representatives’ statements – and especially the latest ones from General Soleimani – have reversed the recent progress in bilateral relations with Pakistan and shown the world that their country has been successfully manipulated by a foreign power’s psy-ops into turning against its neighbor. Some members of the Iranian “deep state” probably don’t mind, however, since they might cynically believe that this serves the purpose of distracting their population from their many internal problems that have been exacerbated by the US’ unilateral re-implementation of sanctions and getting them to redirect their critical focus away from Iran’s setbacks in the Mashriq and towards the new externally aggravated fault line with Pakistan instead.

Iran Is Being Tricked into Making Balochistan the New Kurdistan

Worse still, all of this is occurring in the context of pronounced Indian-Pakistani tensions after the Pulwama attack, which suggests that Iran’s rhetoric is actually part of India’s regional Hybrid War against Pakistan and further reinforcing the notion that the Islamic Republic has become New Delhi’s proxy against Islamabad. This increasingly hostile state of affairs is making it impossible for Pakistan to maintain its desired balance between Iran and Saudi Arabia and mediate between them like Islamabad previously offered to do. As a result, pro-Saudi sentiment is surging in Pakistani society while previously friendly attitudes towards Iran are rapidly disappearing, which is no one’s fault other than Tehran’s for implementing such an irresponsibly partisan policy against Pakistan.

Indian Strategic Interests

India didn’t manipulate Iran’s response to the artificial security dilemma that the joint Indo-American Hybrid War on CPEC eventually created between it and Pakistan just for the sake of “deep state” satisfaction, but to achieve tangible strategic outcomes that work out to its long-term advantage. The worsening of Pakistani-Iranian relations greatly hinders the creation of the Golden Ring of Multipolar Great Powers between those two Muslim countries, Turkey, Russia, and China, and it gives India a direct inroad into this geopolitical construction’s Central Asian core through the trans-Iranian North-South Transport Corridor’s (NSTC)’s eastern branch. Furthermore, India could take advantage of this situation to obtain basing rights for its navy in Chabahar, as well as pull Iran away from the Taliban.

By unprecedentedly becoming strategically dependent on India, however, Iran is also coming under the indirect influence of its patron’s American and “Israeli” allies too. About that, it can be said that Iran has currently come to share the same position towards Pakistan as India’s two aforementioned allies despite being their sworn enemy after all four of them accused Islamabad of hosting terrorists and being responsible for regional unrest. It’s almost surreal that the Islamic Republic celebrated the 40thanniversary of its revolution by aligning itself with what it refers to as the “Great and Little Satans”, an outcome that was brought about by India’s clandestine “facilitation” and which the Islamic Republic might wrongly believe will relieve their growing pressure upon it.

Dealing With The “Devils’” Best Friend

It’s the height of hypocrisy that Iran is now on the same side as its American and “Israeli” enemies vis-à-vis Pakistan because it’s invested so heavily since the revolution to establish the international reputation that it will always oppose the manifestation of both of their policies on principle. This “politically incorrect” observation draws into question everything that the Iranian leadership said that it stood for since 1979 and confirms that there are indeed “exceptions” to its “principled stance” of never aligning with the “Great and Little Satans”. Apparently, it’s okay to do so as a form of protest against Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman’s (MBS) recent visit to Pakistan and as a sign of appreciation for India’s NSTC investments.

Still, Iran didn’t overreact when MBS went to India afterwards, probably because New Delhi has basically “paid off” Iran with the promise (key word) of those said megaproject investments as a form of implicit sanctions relief. This, however, ignores the fact that the US’ NSTC sanctions waiver to India and Saudi Arabia’s planned energy deals with it both work out to the Islamic Republic’s long-term detriment by making it so that New Delhi achieves historically unparalleled “good cop/bad cop” influence over its economy. Tellingly, while Iran harshly criticizes Saudi Arabia for its secret ties with “Israel”, it’s silent about Modi publicly strolling with Netanayhu barefoot on a Mediterranean beach in summer 2017, proving how “exceptional” Iran regards India as being.

Russia To The Rescue?

While it might seem like all hope is lost in Pakistani-Iranian relations after the latter danced along to America’s strategic choreography by becoming India’s proxy in exchange for the promise (key word) of de-facto sanctions relief, there’s a chance that Russia’s recent return to the region can at the very least stop the situation from reaching rock bottom. Russia is regarded as being just as “exceptional” as India is in Iran’s eyes and therefore “allowed” to enjoy high-level strategic relations with both of the Islamic Republic’s “Israeli” and Saudi foes (despite growing Russian-Iranian disagreements over Syria) because Tehran considers Moscow to be an irreplaceable “pressure valve” by virtue of its geography, impending free trade deal, and a possible $5 billion loan.

Russia is so indispensable to Iran that there’s no way that Tehran could pressure Moscow to suspend its planned $10 billion undersea pipeline between itself, Pakistan, and India until Pakistani-Iranian relations improve. Nor, for that matter, could it stop Russian businessmen from using the NSTC to facilitate their country’s trade with Pakistan, meaning that Moscow is unquestionably in a position to “balance” between both Muslim Great Powers in accordance with its envisaged 21st-century grand strategy and therefore keep the situation from spiraling out of control. In fact, Russia might even be able to exert some “moderating influence” over Iran and get it to reconsider its current hostility against Pakistan, which could eventually set the basis for it to broker a rapprochement.

Concluding Thoughts

Iran was surprisingly manipulated on the occasion of none other than the 40thanniversary of its revolution into abandoning its commitment to independent policies and becoming India’s proxy instead, which it did in response to New Delhi’s wildly successful psy-op after a recent terrorist attack and in exchange for the promise (key word) of de-facto sanctions relief. IRGC commander General Soleimani publicly taunted and threatened Pakistan as a sign of fealty to his country’s new patron, which ruined any chances of Islamabad mediating between Tehran and Riyadh like it previously offered to do in pursuit of regional peace and incredibly aligned the Islamic Republic with its American and “Israeli” enemies, all of which works out to India’s ultimate strategic benefit.

All isn’t lost, however, since Russia could conceivably leverage its impressive influence over Iran and hefty investments in its economy (both current and forthcoming) to ensure that Pakistani-Iranian relations stabilize and avoid reaching rock bottom, though it’ll still remain immensely difficult for Moscow to counteract New Delhi’s influence and get Tehran to improve its ties with Islamabad in the near future. As unbelievable as it may sound, “Israel’s” Haaretz almost got the regional state of affairs right when it released an article titled “Pakistan Just Became Saudi Arabia’s Client State, and Turned Its Back on Tehran”, except they mixed up the subjects and it should have been that “Iran Just Became India’s Client State, and Turned Its Back on Islamabad”.

— Andre Korybko, Global Research, February 22, 2019

— This article was originally published on Eurasia Future.

— Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

[loudlytransparenttrash]

The 99.9% of Muslims Aren’t Extremists Myth

A number of what I can only hope are well-intentioned people, including Barack Obama, have claimed that the Islamic State and other militant radical groups have practically no support among Muslims and only one percent of Muslims worldwide hold extreme views. In response to a question of why his administration avoided using the phrase, “Islamic terrorists,” Obama responded by saying the vast overwhelming majority of Muslims reject radical interpretations of Islam, distinguishing between those with extreme views and the remaining “99.9 percent of Muslims.”

Every day we are told that Islamist terrorism has nothing to do with Islam. They say the causes of al Qaeda and ISIS are not Islamic and we are told to align ourselves with the 99.9 percent of Muslims who are looking for the same thing we're looking for. But is it true that 99.9 percent of Muslims don't support extremism? I understand the desire to believe this and the optimism expressed in such a claim, but what is the evidence for it? Our feelings? It’s what our Muslim college friend told us? What about major research and polling organizations who have repeatedly shown a very different picture?

There are two main arguments that are in significant need of addressing. The first is against the claim that the beliefs and goals of al Qaeda and ISIS are not Islamic. The truth is, those who repeat this lie don’t actually know much about Islam, especially the liberal teenage Hillary supporting Muslims living in California who want to call everything and anything Islamophobic. It may sound surprising but most of them don’t even speak Arabic and haven’t read the Quran and only choose fragments of the Quran to follow, they only know what they hear from their parents and their Mullahs, and so most of them think the radical Islam actions are against Muhammad's teaching and Islam does not support these things. 

Why are they ignorant about their own religion? Because the interpretations of Islam and most of the Quran verses are very vague which leaves the door open to multiple interpretations, none technically being more correct or incorrect than the other, all equally Islamic. Most people don’t bother to do a little research or read some books since they can easily be refuted, so they will usually say “do your praying and that’s good enough, if you look any deeper into Islam, it will just be confusing.” The ones who actually do the research and learn the history of their religion and the meaning of their scripture, usually they become one of these three things:

They become horrified and either become non-religious and abandon the faith. They become “reform” supporters who try to focus on the good side of Islam while wanting to repeal and move on from the violent and oppressive ideas of Islam. Or they become terrorists.

It’s easy to say the extremists are taking the Quran out of context but who’s to say their interpretation is wrong? Are you saying there are no calls for death, violence, torture and extremism in the Quran? It’s only love and peace? Give me a break. There are hundreds of Islamic scholars and clerics all studying the context and none of them can agree on one interpretation and amongst them are both moderates and terrorist leaders. There is no Islamic world leader like the Pope who can set the record straight so every Muslim has their own interpretation of being a good Muslim, and their ideas simply cannot be called un-Islamic as they have taken their interpretations from the exact same book and the exact same scripture. That’s why Dr. Shabir Ally can talk about the fair nature of Islam while the leader of ISIS - who also has a PhD in Islamic and Quranic studies - is running a campaign of terror in the name of Allah. There isn’t a moderate version and a terror version of the Quran, it comes from the same book and they are legitimately interpreting and practicing what it says. Everything terrorists are doing today is what Muhammad and his men have already done and it’s all there within the Quran and Hadiths. To deny the link between terrorism and Islam is to deny there is no link between belief and behavior and that my friend, is to deny yourself rationality and impartiality. 

Now the other argument that is all too often being regurgitated is the myth of 99.9 percent of Muslims do not support extremism. As anyone who cares enough or has the courage to admit, Islam has a problem with extremism but it’s more than just terrorism, it’s extremism as a whole and it’s about time we have an open, honest and fact-based conversation about it. Our society has evolved to a point where we can have a civilized debate about almost anything, except what may be the most important issue of our time - the rise of radical Islam. The left somehow feel worried that they're going to be called racist if they criticize an ideology but it’s this fear of being called a racist that has caused many people to act against their better judgment and it has lead to the cost of innocent lives.

People have become afraid of reporting suspicious activity in fear of being called a racist. The perfect examples being San Bernardino and the most recent Manchester bombing. Political correctness seems to have cost people their lives yet nothing changes. Freedom of speech is supposed to be a liberal principle but today’s liberals bury that basic right the moment Islam is mentioned. Muslims don’t need to be defended by teenage girls with blue mohawks or ISIS roleplaying “anti-fascists,” they need to be protected from the radicals in their own religion who want them dead along with the rest of us.

There are about 1.6 billion Muslims, in fact there’s probably a lot less since in almost every Muslim country it’s illegal to denounce Islam. There’s almost a billion less Muslims in the world than Christians yet most of the terrorism in the world today involves Islam in one way or another. Obviously, not all Muslims are terrorists, in fact a small percentage are, I agree, but how many hold extremist views and beliefs? How many could you say are as peaceful as Obama and left-wing activists want us to believe? This is significant because when we are considering even small percentages of the Muslim world, then we are still talking about tens, if not hundreds of millions of people. This is especially concerning when we consider the different types of Islamic extremism and what they mean for us.

There are three main categories of Islamic extremism. The left automatically jump in at this point screaming “they’re not all terrorists!” but they have to understand that when we are talking about extremism and Islam, we are not just talking about just terrorism, we are identifying and talking about the very specific extreme ideas of this particular ideology, which creates the link between belief and behavior. It has nothing to do with race and it’s so much bigger than just terrorism. Terrorism is the result of dangerous fundamentals and it’s those fundamentals we are talking about when criticizing Islam. It’s not racist or xenophobic. It’s critical analysis. 

First we have the jihadists. These are people who wake up in the morning wanting to kill apostates, they believe paradise is waiting for them if they kill infidels, they believe in martyrdom and global Islamic domination. Jihadists are organizations like ISIS, al Qaeda, Boko Haram, Hezbollah, Hamas and the various jihadi lone wolves who murder people in San Bernardino, Texas, Paris, Belgium, Jerusalem, Ottawa, Madrid, New York, London, Boston, Sydney, Orlando, to name a few. It’s these “bad apples” that the left only focus on when defending Islamic ideology, they say because only a tiny minority of Muslims actually commit terrorism, it’s no reflection on Islam. But Islam extremism doesn’t stop with terrorism, it’s only the tip of the Islamic iceberg. 

Next we have the Islamists. These are people who are just as convinced of martyrdom and global Islamic domination but they are more willing to work within the system, they're aren’t yet prepared to blow themselves up on a bus, they instead want to overtake governments and use democracy against itself. Islamists want many of the same things as the jihadis, it's just that their tactics differ so instead of engaging in terror themselves, they use the political and social systems to further their aims. Perfect examples are the Palestinians who voted terrorist group Hamas into power and the Egyptians who in 2012 elected the Muslim Brotherhood into power. The Muslim Brotherhood have not hid the their stated goal of establishing a global Islamic state run in accordance with Sharia law. Another Islamist group that’s actually on our doorstep in North America, CAIR, has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and has been listed as a terror organization. CAIR presents itself as a moderate civil rights group representing the interests Muslims in America. They pop up often in the media calling everything Islamophobic and getting every film or ad they don’t like shut down. This is who Linda Sarsour is working for when she continuously tries to convince young American women that Sharia law is so cool and progressive and the sad part is, it’s actually working. 

The third category of Islamic extremism are the fundamentalists. It’s this group that the left ignores the most in order to keep the numbers as low as possible when trying to debate the percentage of peaceful Muslims and those who don’t hold any extremist views. Sadly, Islamic fundamentalists come in the masses. They hold views about human rights, women and homosexuals that are deeply troubling and the people who should be concerned the most are feminist, LGBT and left-wing activists but we get the exact opposite reaction from them. 

In a 2013 Pew Research poll of Muslims around the world, they found only 57 percent had an unfavorable view of Al-Qaeda and only half had an unfavorable view of the Taliban. 13 percent of respondents declared outright support or favorability for Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The Pew numbers showed remarkable consistency when they came out with their 2015 poll that focused on Muslim responses to the “Islamic State.” In an average of ten primarily Muslim nations sampled in that poll, Pew demonstrated alarmingly high percentages of either outright support for ISIS or many respondents who were undecided on how they felt about the world’s largest terrorist organization. In Pakistan for example, just 28 percent of Muslims were against ISIS. In Nigeria, 34 percent of respondents either saw ISIS favorably or undecided how they felt about them, in Turkey the number was 27 percent, in Indonesia 22 percent, in Malaysia 36 percent, and in Senegal it was 40 percent. In total, only half of all Muslims polled throughout Islamic countries rejected ISIS and other terror organizations. 

When asked if religious judges should decide family and property disputes using Sharia law which includes being sentenced to lashings, being stoned to death and hung for crimes committed ranging from dating a non-Muslim, talking to a man or being gay, between 66 and 94 percent of Muslims in 10 Sharia countries said they supported it. An average of 81 percent of Muslims in South Asia and 57 percent of Middle East - North Africa Muslims support cutting off the hands of thieves and while 76 percent of Muslims in South Asia and 56 percent of Muslims in the Middle East - North Africa support the execution of those who convert from Islam to another faith. When you take the average from all the Muslims surveyed around the world, an average of 27 percent believe that apostates should be executed, 39 percent of all Muslims believe that honor killings can be a justifiable punishment for a woman who has had pre-or extramarital sex while 42 percent of French Muslims, 35 percent of British Muslims and 26 percent of American Muslims, 39 percent of Palestinian Muslims, 29 percent of Egyptian Muslims, 39 percent of Afghani Muslims, 26 percent of Bangladesh Muslims, 18 percent of Malaysian Muslims, 15 percent of Turkish Muslims believe suicide bombings against non-muslims can be justified. Is none of this extremism? Is this just “cultural differences?” How exactly did the left come up with the 99.9 percent figure? 

In South-Eastern Europe, 88 percent of Muslims say homosexuality is morally wrong, same applies to 95 percent of Muslims in Southeast Asia, 89 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa, 82 percent in the Middle East - North Africa and 80 percent in Central Asia. 51 percent of Turkish Muslims living in Germany believe that homosexuality is an illness. As for sex outside of marriage, 94 percent of Muslims in the Middle East - North Africa and Southeast Asia and 87 percent in South Asia want it illegal. As for women’s rights, 93 percent of Muslims in Southeast Asia, 88 percent in South Asia, 87 percent in the Middle East - North Africa, 70 percent in Central Asia and 43 percent of Muslims in South-Eastern Europe believe women must not have the right of choice, she must obey her husband and she must cover herself. Only 25 percent of Muslims in the middle East - North Africa believe daughters should be paid inheritance equally, Jordan 25 percent, Iraq 22 percent, Morocco 15 percent and Tunisia 15 percent believe daughters should be paid and treated equally. 

36 percent of 16 to 24-year-old British Muslims believe converts to another religion should be punished by death. 13 percent of 16 to 24-year-old British Muslims "admire organizations like al-Qaeda that are prepared to fight the West” and 58 percent believe that "many of the problems in the world today are a result of arrogant Western attitudes.” 40% feel it is unacceptable for Muslim men and women to mix freely. Two thirds of British Muslims say they wouldn’t alert police if another Muslim joined ISIS, one in four British Muslims want British law replaced with Sharia law, one in four British Muslims say terrorism is justifiable, 100,000 British Muslims sympathize with suicide bombers, over thirty percent of British Muslims believe violence against anyone who mocks the Prophet is justified, half of British Muslims believe homosexuality should be illegal, forty percent believe wives should submit to their husband and five percent agree with stoning cheaters to death. This whole 99.99 thing isn’t quite stacking up now, is it? 

it is not just Pew reporting such findings, as a number of other polls have demonstrated similarly depressing results. Consider the 2015 survey by ORB International which found that 22 percent of Syrians see the Islamic State as having a positive influence on their country. A 2011 MacDonald Laurier Institute Poll found 35 percent of Canadian Muslims would not oppose al-Qaeda. A 2015 Metropoll that found that 20 percent of Turks supported the slaughter of Charlie Hebdo staffers and cartoonists. A 2015 poll by The Polling Company CSP Poll showed that 37 percent of Muslim-Americans viewed ISIS beliefs as Islamic or correct and 33 percent said the same about al-Qaeda.

So what other evidence might one point to as a justification for the 99.9 percent claim? None. While it’s easy to prove against the firm assertion of ISIS and extremism having practically no support in the Islamic world, which has been repeated by most western politicians and leftist activists, I am not suggesting that most Muslims agree with the extremists in their faith, only that the extremists represent a much, much larger and more troubling minority than anyone on the left will ever be willing to admit so it continues to be swept under the rug and never talked about. It denies reality and does nothing to address the endless problems described above or aid those Muslims who are making efforts to combat a very real problem among their co-religionists and one that ultimately impacts us all, Muslim or non-Muslim. We have a deadly virus that is spreading rapidly and will soon be out of our control, we have to identify the virus honestly and openly and fight against it while we still can. We have to start being honest about Islam. 

[machinehead]

RE:  PINEAPPLE SUNFLOWER SEEDS AND MORE

I don’t know if any you have tried this ridiculous experiment with sunflower seeds and/or pineapple, but the comments and this music video by nut job/ Head Case Floyd MC BBQ have kept me in stitches!! @mcbbq - Big Loads (music video):  https://youtu.be/s7wqVXBTRHI

And I couldn’t stop laughing at this photo:  https://instagram.com/p/BU4jHD1FDj_/ Dyin’ ova' here! This just in; my A&R head honcho Monte Conner tells me that veteran music manager Scott Koenig claims that pure Pumpkin Seed Oil produces HUGE loads! One more thing to try I guess... I have yet to see any results, but it is supposed to take a couple weeks. Below are 3 of the most interesting replies I recieved regarding muslim/gay friends. From:  Peter Southwood Sunflower seeds and pineapple - no fucking idea. Sounds like bullshit. Muslim Friends - Apart from having very few friends anyway, none at the moment. However, I have known plenty, and the one thing I know is that they are people first, Muslim second (unlike the majority of Christians I have met). The Muslim community in the UK don’t even recognise jihadists as being Muslim. They don’t want the three pricks who attacked London on Saturday to be buried with Muslims. Kathy Griffin - It’s all a matter of perspective. If there weren’t beheadings by extremists in the middle east, would we see the picture in a different light? If this were during the election campaign, would we see it as less disgusting? With what Trump has said about Muslims, trying to ban them from going to the US, people could see the image as a jihadist with the presidents head, and therefore an attack on America. Personally, I have no problems with the picture; not funny nor satirical, but controversial and too easy to be misinterpreted by those who want to. Gay friends - Can’t say much about having gay friends; as I mentioned before, I have very few friends as it is, let alone gay ones. However, being gay myself, I find it funny that it’s frowned upon in the metal community. Let’s face it, one of the most popular rock singers was gay (Freddie Mercury), and the main figure behind the leather look that a lot of metal bands and fans adhere to, Rob Halford, got his look from the Leather scene in the gay community! Personally, I’m not worried about being open at a metal gig. In fact, whilst queuing outside the Hammersmith Apollo to see you guys, I got speaking to a couple of others. When they asked if I was married, I told them that my boyfriend and I were waiting for a while. We then went on to have a fucking fantastic time inside. The fact that I’m in the UK and not the US may explain it somewhat; there’s no-where near the level of bigotry over here. There are still some fucktards, but I’ve been lucky enough not to have come across them (not that I would, even if they wanted it!) From:  Waseem Ahmed Mr Flynn A 43 year old Londoner here who’s been listening to your music since 1994, well-kept digipaks of Burn My Eyes and TMTC proudly sat in my music collection, along with your other releases. And a muslim too. And I naturally know shedloads of muslims, both professionally and personally. Last Sunday, I was on the underground on my way to the theatre in the Covent Garden area with my kids. My sister sat opposite me, still heavily mourning the loss of her childhood favourite Chris Cornell. I received a text from a friend in Paris asking me to be careful as emotions would be running high following the London Bridge incidents. I responded that I’d be fine, "I’m wearing a Machine Head t-shirt so everyone will love me." Then it hit me. We’ve reached a point in London, one of the most awesome multicultural cities in the world, where we are now having to explain ourselves and how we differ to the maniacs that wreaked havoc in Manchester and London. Passing questions. All politely asked though. Are you ashamed about what they did? You’re not like those other muslims are you? At that moment, protecting me from any glare was my Bloodstone & Diamonds tour t-shirt. Damn, bad times. My 9-year-old boy is going to his first gigs this year, ticking off Linkin Park and Metallica of his wishlist. He’s scared after hearing about the Ariane Grande concert incident. I’ve told him he will be safe as security has increased everywhere. Fortunately he’s not cottoned onto the muslim label thing yet. That would be heartbreaking to see. I’ve been gigging in London since the age of 17. Classic venues such as The Marquee and Astoria have gone. One thing has remained. The camaraderie at metal gigs, irrespective of faith, skin tone or whatever. Everyone looks after everyone and we’re all there for the same thing. Together. Irrespective of the nonsense taking place in the world, I hope this bond remains throughout my lifetime and beyond. Well now you kinda know another muslim, although via email. If you’re ever in London and fancy a hearty home cooked curry, you’re most welcome to join me and my family. I’ll invite my gay work colleagues too. They are awesome too. And one’s a diehard metaller and one my favourite gig buddies ☺ All the best Waseem From: Svetlana Simanski Subject: Muslims and pineapples Hey Robb, I just read your TGJ email and laughed a lot - what a mix of topics and - since I'm already craving for new MH stuff - I thought the email would maybe an update. Anyway... as a straight girl I have been confronted with the pineapple-hypothesis several times in my life and - until today - in my opinion this is just a way to get girls into BJs a little more. :D Men can never get enough, so they invented this hoax to maybe achieve exactly this. And yes, I already tried to prove the hypothesis. Guess what, the pineapples had no effect at all. If you've ever tasted cum in your life you might know why pineapple-flavor sounds like a nice game-changer. So much on this topic. Now lets get to the muslims. I'm 28 years old right now and I am from Germany. After WW2 there came many guest-workers from Turkey to help us out here, to rebuild the country and most of them stayed, had families and their kids had families themselves, but I never was in touch with them. I met some in my time as a student at university, but never was closer friends with one so I didn't have a chance to get to know the culture or the religion. So, honestly, I had some prejudices. Not from my own experience, but from the word that spread. I live in a big city and we have to deal with some issues here. There are places you shouldn't visit after dark or even whole parts of the city which are not completely safe for white girls in black clothes and without a hijab. Well, of course I had kind of an inner fight with myself and these prejudices. I didn't want to have them at all and since we welcomed like two millions of refugees in Germany over the past two years I decided to work this out for me. Can you believe we still have Nazi-stuff going here in Germany? Didn't they learn anything from history or is it just a story, a bad fairy tale for some people? Honestly, I don't get it. Anyway I took a new job offer at a stationary youth welfare institution and had no idea what to expect. This was kind of an experiment for me and I started six months ago. I work there with 22 refugees. With kids. They came all the way without their parents or any other relatives. The youngest one is 15 years old and he arrived in Germany when he was 13. He did the whole fucking trip vom Afghanistan to Germany by himself. This age I played with barbie or tried out how to look good with make-up. Those were my problems. Wow... I thought I had to go through some things in my life, but I realized it was nothing compared to what they did to come here. What they had to do in their countries to basically survive. They killed for the Taliban to save their families. Can you imagine? No, neither can I. So now I know like 26 muslims (my boss and some coworkers are muslims as well) and I love them all. The kids are so kind and so cute, help- and respectful. You can't imagine. For me this changed everything in my life. Before this job I couldn't image to have a romantic relationship with a muslim, now I can. Besides... they're all a little too young, but in ten years from now... I'd see a bunch of handsome and polite young men from Afghanistan and I can tell you, there are some really, really special characters among them. Just awesome. I got to know their culture a little bit, their habits and routines in religious practice and I even started to learn a little Persian. My job is to look after them in any situation and explain the pitfalls of german bureaucracy. We are also friends somehow, they tell me stories about their lives in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq and Eritrea - sad and happy ones - and this is basically all I need. This job just gives me back so much. The love and the kindness you get back from these kids is amazing. It took some time to realize: I'm part of their lives now, I am somehow their sister, mother, aunt and friend at the same time. I can't write down all my experiences here, but I wanted to let you know at least a small part of my story and how this job changed my view, my behavior, my thinking and the way I speak to others about muslims or their culture, especially from Afghanistan. I'm hoping my English isn't too bad and you can somehow imagine what I tried to describe. Hope to see you in Germany in 2018. I'll be there, somewhere in the crowd. Cheers from Germany, Svetlana

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[ehentha]

A collection of Yameen Rasheed's writings on Maldives, Secularism, Standing up for Maldivian Minorities, and Fighting Religious Radicalism #WeAreYaamyn #FindMoyameehaa

Yameen Rasheed, Blogger and IT Specialist, was murdered on 23rd April 2017 inside the entrance of his own home. Stay up to date at - https://weareyaamyn.com/.   

I initially began this post as an interactive timeline of Yameen Rasheed's best tweets, but it soon became too inaccessible due to the sheer amount of relevant posts that he was putting out. 

So instead, here is a collection of some of his best writings. He deals with topics that very few people in the Maldives have the courage to openly write about. More importantly, the fact that he talked about these issues is being erased from the conversation about his murder.

Furthermore, the dangers and threats that he faced were not a characteristic unique to the current administration. He faced these same threats under Mohamed Nasheed's government as well, who is arguably the best and worst president that the Maldives has ever had. Nasheed promised freedom, but ended up granting those liberties only to religious extremists; and in the process condemned those who opposed those extremists to their fate. In an open letter to Nasheed written in March 2009, Yameen says that he was under investigation by the Maldives Police Service, and accused the president of failing to protect the rights of secular liberal minded Muslims like himself. 

He was not your average journalist, blogger, or rights activist. He was of the rare breed that promoted secularism and actively acknowledged the existence of minorities within the Maldives such as LGBTQI people and apostates. There is absolutely no way that the work he was doing was comparable to the output of people who to this day deny the existence of such minorities. 

He was a staunch opposer of the Maldivian constitution, which he called intolerant, for it's lack of the basic right of freedom of conscience. There is absolutely no way that he is comparable to the people who, even in their articles about his death, have failed to mention this extremely important fact of life in the Maldives. 

Challenging religious radicalism was not some one off thing for Yameen. It was his bread and butter. His mashuni and roshi. To say Yameen didn't write a lot about religion is like saying Stephen King doesn't write a lot of horror. Post after post on his blog deals with these issues directly. Yameen was also the founder of the Facebook group "Ban The Adhaalath" - arguably one of the first ever online groups formed to directly tackle religious extremism within the Maldives. 

How can there be a genuine democracy in the Maldives, how can there be genuine freedom, if the right to think differently is illegal?

The posts are all from his blog uglyy.blogspot.com (his main blog up until he created The Daily Panic) and are presented in chronological order except for the first, which is the last post he made on his original blog doubtengine.blogspot.com. I thought it would be appropriate for our starting point to be about his thoughts on moving to the country that would end up killing him. 

From March 2011, his blog contains a lot of excerpts of articles of which the full version was available on Minivannews.com, which is now defunct as they changed their name to Maldives Independent. These links no longer work. To make them work, change the minivannews.com to minivannewsarchive.com. For example http://minivannews.com/society/comment-doublethink-culture-18600 goes nowhere but http://minivannewsarchive.com/society/comment-doublethink-culture-18600 works just fine. I have no idea why Minivannews decided to change their URL in that manner. For each of these posts I have also provided an archived version that does contain the full article.  For most articles, I have only added a small section. I highly recommend reading the full versions which are available through the links in the titles.

This is not a complete timeline and ends in December 2011 - the month when Mohamed Nasheed could have ended it all. Instead, the perpetrators of the now infamous cowardly attack walked free. If the violence faced by those minority activists had been acknowledged that early on, especially by the so called progressive regime of Mohamed Nasheed, perhaps Yameen Rasheed would still be with us today. 

By continuing to spread his work, we can make sure that his voice lives on.  We are Yameen, and you will never silence us. Take one of us down and another will take our place. 

November 22nd 2009

Hello. ;-) (Original / Archive)

"So, where were we? Ah, yes. Let me apologize for the post blackout. Stuff happened. My course got over; College ended; and I have long since moved out of Bangalore. After a lifetime of living in India, I have returned to the Maldives. Returned home, to be precise. Somehow, I don't feel as much at home as I felt in India. But that should change soon. Job, career and perhaps a larger circle of Maldivian friends should help. Meanwhile, I haven't really been keeping a tab on the latest in Indian politics, nor have I been able to read any of my favorite Indian blogs. Apologies for that too. But I see I'm still getting hits on this blog. Thanks for coming back. Once I feel a little more settled down, I intend to resume my comments again, and read all the blogs I've been missing out on. Long live Secularism! ~Peace P.S. -> You might want to read my more regularly updated blog. More in a Maldivian context than this blog, but deals with the same issues I usually pick on. Secularism, Reason and Tolerance. And good ole' fundie bashing. ;-)"  -- Yameen Rasheed

November 11th 2008

The Republic of Whatever! (Original / Archived)

"On the surface of it, we Maldivians appear to have no roots. We're drifters who define success as having two mobile phones. We’re so materialistic, so self-centered and individualistic. Hard to imagine that we Maldivians are a 2500 old culture – a people who lived in these islands thousands of years before America was even discovered, before Jesus walked the Earth. Before the days of the Prophet. Before the Qur’an was revealed! It irks me how Maldivians are - partly by govt. design, partly by own stupidity - so COMPLETELY unaware of their identity or history. The Maldivian schools churn out thousands of students who have no idea about our captivating history and colourful culture. How many of us have visited a museum or know about the ancient Buddhist temples and art in the Maldives? What of our poetry that is now lost to history thanks to our collective apathy? How many Maldivians can recite an original raaivaru? Who among us Dhivehin knows the eveyla akuru and dives akuru or olden literature we have in these scripts? The records our ancestors carefully preserved on palm leaves and tablets FOR US, have for some reason been omitted from our lives. Their efforts all in vain. Have we forgotten about the fantastic Maldivian legends and the Fanditha magic? The grisly, captivating stories of Djinnis and evil spirits who come from the dark seas or live in trees? The Maldivian child today knows little beyond Pooh Bear and Red Riding Hood.. The entire magical world of the sea faring Djinnis and Maldivian handi stories seem closed to them. What about the history of our Dhivehi Raajje?! The land that exported precious cowry shells used as currency in ancient lands as far away as China! The Maldives of exquisite tortoise shells!"  -- Yameen Rasheed

January 2nd 2009

War on Haabees! (Original / Archived)

"When the bearded desert vermin arrived from somewhere and started Talibanizing the Maldives - I discovered that we don't really have any 'liberal leaders' in our country. Sure, our former Information Minister Mohammed Nasheed HAS BEEN making a couple of statements in the last two days. But where was he when they turned us into a cartoon state with a funny constitution that decides our religion for us? Today I have the bloody Taliban telling me I can't celebrate my New Years Day. Today I say. Fuck them all. I've heard one comment too many on my last couple of posts - from morons who ASSUMED that I was unaware of Islam - just because I don't troll on random sites trying hard to prove my stupendous devotion to somebody, my copy pasting Qur'anic quotes and random Arabic phrases. I've had one too many comment that smacks of bullshit and - well, honestly - IS bullshit. Today, I shall answer them beyond their dreams."  -- Yameen Rasheed

January 14th 2009

Notes on Islam - Part 1. (Original / Archived)

"There's a lot going wrong in the world of Islam these days. The vast majority of the Muslim countries are backward and forms a great chunk of the most impoverished countries. The large majority of the Muslim countries rank low on all known development Indices - literacy, health care, GDP, education.. Former Pakistani President, General Musharraf was absolutely right when he said about Muslims: "Today we are the poorest, the most illiterate, the most backward, the most unhealthy, the most un-enlightened, the most deprived, and the weakest of all the human race" On the other hand.. take any statistic of corruption, instability, poverty, conflict or violence - and you'll invariably find Muslim countries jostling for space at the top. Islam normally lies broken and fragmented - with the Sunnis fighting the Shias.. the Kurds fighting the Sunnis.. the Sunnis and Shias BOTH fighting the Ahmadiyyas.. everyone itching to declare the others 'infidel'. But when it comes to doing something totally retarded, like issuing a Death note over a silly newspaper cartoon or banning a stupid novel, they all stick together as if with Velcro. Thanks to Islamist extremism, today the one-point-something billion strong Muslim population is identified by bearded radicals - radicals who vow to reverse every known progress achieved by mankind in the last 1500 years."  -- Yameen Rasheed

January 15th 2009

Notes on Islam - Part 2. (Original / Archived)

"All good things come to an end. The Crusades happened. The Mongols arrived. The Plague struck. The Empire hurt. The Crusaders and Mongols (The Chengiz Khan himself!) burnt down those Libraries and Universities and Hospitals. The invasions and weakened the Empire. AND SURPRISE! That's when the Islamists struck! No kidding. Even in that Golden, intellectual age, there was no dearth of morons or Enemies of reason. Just like our modern day Maldive-Arab "scholars" who declared the Tsunami to be 'God's Punishment', those Islamists declared the invasions to be 'God's Punishment' for pursuit of polemic (read: UnIslamic) thinking. Certain "scholars" and philosophers like Al-Ghazali (The Abdul Majeed Abdul Baree of his day) declared free thought to be against the scriptures (ie. 'against Islam') in his book 'The Incoherence of Philosophers'. Ijtihad was "against Islam". Bid'ah (innovation) was 'against Islam'. The list of things 'against Islam' kept growing. Sure enough, a lack of tolerance for intellectual debate kicked in. Freedom of thought got restricted. Innovation ended. Arts Perished. Punishments started. By the 14th Century, the pipe had completely shut. The Fundies won. The Golden Age ended."  -- Yameen Rasheed

January 9th 2009

Wow! I attacked Islam! (Original / Archived)

"Blame it on 'too much reading', as one comment put it. One of my readers, Jasmine, appears to be gathering an army of Haabees to take my 'attack on Islam' head on. Now I really don't mind that. Bring on all the Haabees on the planet! I'm ready. I've declared war long ago. But pray which sentence of mine constituted an 'attack' on Islam? :-/"  -- Yameen Rasheed

February 1st 2009

The mvblogs "issue" : My 2 cents (Original / Archived)

"I've been going through some comments on the blogosphere since the shitstorm raised over the mvblogs 'censorship' of a gay photo blog. Not that I care much for gay porno, but when it comes to freedom of expression I take it religiously. To make my position clear, I don't believe mvblogs is being 'anti-gay'. There are other blogs by gay Maldivians listed on the site. The issue here seems to be nudity. Nudity is not an issue for me. But the people who run mvblogs seem to have a problem - that mvblogs is also accessed by minors. I think mvblogs should clarify what it considers unsuitable to minors - is it just the porno? Or is it also the rather graphic, violent images employed by both the Islamophobic sites as well as the 'west-bashing' sites? What about the foul language on some comment threads that is definitely too offensive for minors? Do these qualify to be on the front-page of mvblogs? And if they do, what purpose does it serve by filtering certain offensive sites but letting through others? I think mvblogs should thus question itself whether it is within its scope to define and regulate all the Maldivian blogs listed on it. I believe it's not. Some retards will take offense to anything. Let them be. And let's leave freedom of expression the way it should be. Free. Those Haabees who have 'vile bile rise in their throat' because the warning page didn't provide 'adequate notice' (Well, what did he expect to find on a website that's called 'Cute Nude Dudes'?) can just avoid the exercise of visiting mvblogs. Cut the middle man."  -- Yameen Rasheed

February 3rd 2009

No Jokes In Islam! (Original / Archived)

"Q. How many Muslims does it take to change a light bulb? A. None. They prefer to stay in the dark and then blame it on the Jews."  -- Yameen Rasheed

February 6th 2009

Annoying Fan Mail! (Original / Archived)

"Stop sending me emails already! All right. I'm kidding. Well, a couple of readers have emailed me asking for the third installment of my 'Notes on Islam' series, as a part of my War on the Haabees. Now, I assure you all that it WILL be put up. I have collected enough material for a book - and how I'm going to narrow it all down to just 5 posts is completely beyond me. What do I write about next? The pathetic state of women in Islamic countries? The paranoia over 'Zionist media'? The Adhaalath and its epic stupidity? The growing intolerance in our traditionally liberal Maldives? The mindless zombies controlled by the Mullahs? The possibilities are endless. But right now, I'm a bit demotivated. As it happens, Jasmine's army of Haabees never showed up. The death threats have trickled down to zero. The anonymous 'you kaaffir pig!' kind of comments also seem to have reduced dramatically. In short, the Haabees don't seem to have much firepower after all. Just an imaginary sense of virtue and victory. The delusional 'warriors of Allah' seem to have fled when I decided to respond with facts."  -- Yameen Rasheed

February 11th 2009

Don't Even Think of Messing With My Freedom! (Original / Archived)

"I finally came across a named Fundie. Mauroof Hussain, a VP of the Adhaalath coterie, has put up a post warning against 'messing with Article 9 (Or any other article that he thinks 'safeguards' Islam) To say that his article was revolting, is to put it mildly. And apparently, only Heavenly ordained 'members' can post a comment on his blog. So I decided to post my views here. The first paragraph of his post read: Maldives is a Muslim country where every citizen is a Muslim by legal definition and Maldivians intend to keep it that way. There may be a few loonies who refuse to be citizens of Maldives by going out of the pale of Islam. It is their problem and 95% of Maldivians can’t care less if these people lose their ‘ rights’ (something they have voluntarily given up themselves!) WTF?! Who are these 95% of Maldivians that Mauroof is speaking for? His party, the Adhaalath, was given a humiliating defeat in the Elections by the Maldivians - and that DESPITE having a widely regarded person like Gasim running. The sad part of the statement is that the Maldives is a "Muslim" country where every citizen is a Muslim ONLY by legal definition. Then, he goes on to say about the new President, Anni that : It is reported that his election campaign was run by a former aide to London mayor Boris Johnson and the Conservative Party was also instrumental in securing funding for his campaign.’’ This is news to some of us. Very disturbing news if it is true. Disturbing news? The MDP taking help from people who actually KNOW a thing or two about Democracy is 'disturbing news'? You know what I think is disturbing news? The fact that the Adhaalath luna-fanatics are collecting OUR money (despite the severe shortage) and instead of handing them to an organization like the UN or IRCS that actually does humanitarian work, decide to hand them over to Hamas terrorists to buy weapons! OUR MONEY! To Terrorists! And there's not even a BAN ON THIS GROUP?!"  -- Yameen Rasheed

February 14th 2009

Dear God, Protect Me From Thy Followers! (Original / Archived)

"Every single religion has its own share of remarkable ingenuity and implausible scenarios, if we're to take them literally. Each man convinced that his own God is Supreme. Each faith strong in its belief that it alone is 'THE TRUTH'. Each religion with its own blood soaked history. Each with fanatics ready to kill and murder and maim in the name of what he believes is the 'true God'. Religion, with its associated violence, has resulted in more deaths than any famine or World War could manage. Every major strife, problem and chaos on Earth has its roots in religion - and its fanatic followers. How does one find so much belief in Religion so as to firmly accept one God and outright reject the other? So once again. Here's my Question : How do you KNOW for certain that your God is TRUE and the other is NOT? How does one know for certain that, say Yahweh is NOT God? How does one know that Allah is God?"  -- Yameen Rasheed

February 25th 2009

Have I renounced Islam? (Original / Archived)

"I'm getting more fan mail from the Haabees. Pieces of shit want to know if I'm an atheist. They inform me that I'm going to rot and burn in Hell not too long from now, when their ridiculous death threats are actually implemented. (Or when I 'burst into flames' just like that sinful Danish cartoonist guy. Perhaps I should start wearing flame-retardant clothing. Oh dear. :p ) Oh. And yes, have I 'renounced' Islam? Well. Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe it's really none of your goddamn business. I believe my readers (Yes. All three of you!) can go on leading perfectly normal lives without needing to be reassured whether this blogger subscribes to one religion or another. I shall not answer that question. I'm under no obligation to anyone to prove my faith or the lack of it. Keep guessing. But I do believe these are clear signs that the repressed-Gay Haabees (Thanks, DCJ) trolling the net these days suffer from a hideous inferiority complex. Their cowardice and absolutely pathetic insecurity about their own faith is precisely what drives them to go that extra hundred miles to 'prove' their devotion to God - by littering the blogosphere with junk comments and threats. Wonder when they'll get it. Most of us Maldivians don't give a shit about the opinions of the Adhaalath beardies or their terrorist brothers in Arabia."  -- Yameen Rasheed

March 17th 2009

Ban This. (Original / Archived)

"I don't think I can be disgusted anymore than I am right now. After a couple of hectic weeks of college work and personal tragedy, I returned to the blogosphere - only to find that the Taliban, under the supreme authority of prophet Abdul Baaree, seems to have finally taken over what used to be a free, liberal country called the Maldives. The Ministry of Jehadi Affairs has censored several Maldivian websites - including what appears to be an Islamic website - www.raajjeislam.com, some Maldivian Christian websites the highly readable Simon's blog (probably one of the most widely read blogs in the country) and a website probably run by schoolkids. Today, I've finally learned that Maldivians simply DO NOT DESERVE anything along the lines of democracy, freedom or rights. They demand to simply be kept in mental prisons, ruled by fear and intimidation. I thoroughly regret the election of Anni as the president of the Maldives. I regret ever having nursed a desire of living in a liberal, free democracy. I regret every minute of the entire 8 year long struggle that started in the guise of a 'democracy movement. I severely condemn the banning of the websites and the clampdown on free thought by the Adhaalath vermin. I condemn the president for subverting democracy by letting an extremist mob of terrorists like the Adhaalath (who, if I remember correctly, were given a thorough whipping by the Maldivian public in the first round of elections) clamp down on personal freedoms of my countrymen and women. To think that just a week ago, the President had made grand offers of making the Maldives a 'safe haven' for dissident writers. Which probably makes him the laughing stock of the world right now. And I'm ashamed of the mainstream Maldivian media and citizens for NOT finding the courage to stand up for justice as the bearded Mullahs trample all over our liberties with the impunity reserved for unthinking beasts. Yes, it was always clear to me that some bearded Arabs could sodomize the entire Maldivian population, and get away with it by doing it in the name of 'Islam'. That's exactly what has happened and it will continue to happen unless the Maldivians finally decide to overthrow the Taliban and return to the league of civilized countries. The Maldives days as a free country are numbered."  -- Yameen Rasheed

March 18th 2009

Ban the Adhaalath! (Original / Archived)

"I have just created a Facebook group called 'Ban the Adhaalath'. Freedom loving Maldivians, and Friends and well-wishers of Maldivians, may join this group to discuss ways of eliminating this medieval menace masquerading as 'religious sheikhs'. First off, how about a proper protest?"  -- Yameen Rasheed

March 28th 2009

One Religious Leader I DO approve of! (Original / Archived)

"Watching the Dalai Lama speak makes me wonder. It's easy to understand why my friends are the admirable human beings they are - they have such an inspiring figure to emulate and constantly reminding them to remain humble and smiling. (Equally, it explains the increasingly irritable, humor-less Maldivians. The recent spike in cases of pedophilia, terrorism and extremism also makes sense now, considering that we live under constant fear of Islam's copyright holders) All the Mullah beardies on TV, who constantly threaten us Dhivehin and 'Muslimun' with eternal damnation and hell-fire, really need to change their tactics and try get a sense of Humor before they can expect me to tune into their bullshit. I give the Dalai Lama a perfect 10 for humor! And he earns my respect and the well-deserved epithet 'His Holiness'."  -- Yameen Rasheed

April 28th 2009

'Islamic Culture' (Original / Archived)

"Then I've heard that Maldivians can no longer name their kids Dhivehi names. It has to be 'Arabic'. Of course, the local Mullah doesn't mind names like Salman or Firdaus - which aren't quite as Arabic as they are Persian. As long as it's not Dhivehi. How much more stupidity will the Mullahs shove down our throats in the name of religion? And how much more will gullible Dhivehin swallow willingly?"  -- Yameen Rasheed

May 14th 2009

The mandatory Elections post (Original / Archived)

"One would think that at the end of the Parliamentary elections in this "100% Muslim" country, the divine prophets of the Adhaalath party would have swept the polls with unbeatable margins of All to Nil. Unfortunately, the heretics in our country have rejected the Mullahs outright, denying them a single measly seat. This means only one thing. We are all going to hell. (And the parliament can function without at least one hairy camel-hugger occupying a chair. Ah!) I just hope Mullah Baaree bans the Elections Commission, and hopefully the Elections too. We didn't have none of these fancy Elections Commissions mumbo-jumbo back in the good ole' Prophet's era now, did we? How long before the Sheikhs pack their bags and leave our country? :p Even these thick-headed Mullahs ought to have realized by now that they have no clout in this country. Too bad they have their overgrown beards to hide their face... I'd like to have seen them now! ;-) Now, if only we could hold elections to decide who gets to give Friday sermons! [p.s. - I really need to get out of my Mullah fixation! Am giving them much too importance than they deserve... ouch. By next post! I promise!]"  -- Yameen Rasheed

May 15th 2009

Aargh! (Original / Archived)

"You know that thing I once wrote about really smart people being depressed all the time? Well, I've been smarting a lot lately - excuse the pun. I know all the crap about how it's important to 'fight' and 'struggle' to make a name for oneself in society. The No-Pain-No-Gain-A-Stitch-In-Time-Healthy-Wealthy-and-Wise bullshit. What's the whole point? I flip through TV channels and see all these politicians counting their numbers, pimping themselves for allies, lying through their teeth, haggling, arguing.. and trading in their own hypocrisy. For what? They're all just going to end up as wormfood... or just burn and mix in the air. Religion annoys me for the same reason. This Mullah, that priest... this community, that community.. majority, minority.. the whole goddamn politics stinks to the high heavens - if indeed, there is such a thing. Why can't the Ayatollahs and the Popes and the various sermon givers and holier-than-thou preachers just frikking SHUT UP and the world will be a much better place. The mundane routines, pointless existence, the petty 'issues' that people get worked up over.. the egos, the hypocrites.. the rules and restrictions and 'fights' and 'races' and 'struggles'... I'm just sick of 'em all. Aarrgh!"  -- Yameen Rasheed

June 17th 2009

I stink? YOU stink! (Original / Archived)

"The fundies in the Maldives have had a hard time lately. Their chosen prophets have suffered one humiliation after the other; They are being bombarded daily with examples of their utter backwardness and regressive mindset. Their feeble attempts at a defence do not pass the common sense stage. Their overt support for various terrorist groups across the middle east is being tested - with even Pakistan now pledging to wipe out the Taliban from their frontier provinces. Ridiculed, humiliated and forced into a corner, what do they do? That's right. Throw it right back at us, like immature kindergarteners. "  -- Yameen Rasheed

June 25th 2009

Maldivian Terrorists (Original / Archived)

"In a much welcome relief, after having to deal with a bunch of anonymous cowards (who issue equally anonymous Death Note fatwas to my inbox), I've finally found a proactive Islamist bigot. ;-) This one is not only bigoted and radical, but is proud of it. His sympathies lie entirely with terrorists and his justification lies solely in Islam - Exactly the kind of dude who wouldn't mind if you sodomized him, as long as you can find a relevant 'quote' from the Sunnah or Hadith. I guess it gives a thrill to people like these to somehow be associated with a 'war' waged by foreigners in a foreign country - a break from their otherwise mundane and meaningless existence in an idyllic place like the Maldives. Anyhow, are the Taliban, Al Qaeda and its associated terror network banned in the Maldives? If so, then DJ Majeed had better get his act together and try track track down the Terrorist sympathizers amongst the Maldivians. Wait. That'd be ironic."  -- Yameen Rasheed

July 9th 2009

Barely Maldivian: The First Day! (Original / Archived)

"Anyhow, the plane apparently ran out of fuel at some point just before it landed - and dropped almost vertically onto the runway, making for a not so comfortable landing. Later that night, my smarting ass was sitting in a smoke-filled coffee shop with a bunch of Dhivehi speaking chums. Here's the darnedest part about Dhivehi - I don't speak it. So there I was looking like a total retard/snob, frantically struggling to just keep up with the thread of conversation while maintaining an enviably serene, composed pose. (I would like to thank the academy.. ) In the end, I think I contributed about 4 sentences, that may or may not have anything to do with what my friends were talking. *Sigh* Some Maldivian I am. Oh, and I can't swim. Anyhow, first day in the Maldives was spent walking around the rather abandoned streets of the Capital. Second day, I'm out of things to do. What am I DOING HERE?!"  -- Yameen Rasheed

July 10th 2009

From Inside the Mosque (Original / Archived)

"A Friday in the Maldives is a funny thing. The entire male population of a country wakes up on this day to the sounds of Qur'anic recitations on TV and radio, and is somehow morally obliged to visit the local mosque to shake off the guilt of not having prayed the whole week. As for me, it had been quite some time since I'd been to a mosque. And I had absolutely nothing better to do. So I went. Lo! It was a sight to behold! The sparkling, clean mosque was crowded with newly rejuvenated Friday Muslims! A handful were dutifully attired in flowing white clothes, sure to attract the maximum sawaab in the 'Best-dressed worshipers' category. Others apparently couldn't care less and decided to show up in infidel attire (Surely, wearing an Iron Maiden bandana instead of a skull cap must irk someone up there?) I sat eagerly waiting for the sermon to begin, just to see who else has been lately forbidden from entering the kingdom of heaven. Just then I saw a most ghastly sight. A gentlemen in denim pants arrived with his little boy and sat right in front of me. The man started his ritual prayer, but his 4 year old - oh the devil incarnate! - was apparently mocking the whole sacred process! He stood up, knelt down, bowed and then - wait for it - lay down on the carpet! Then he rolled around, stood up, knelt and bowed again. Finally, he looked at his dad standing next to him and figured he was not doing it right after all. The he probably thought 'what the heck?' and went on doing right darn whatever he felt like. His ritual included pointing and gaping awestruck at the interior of the huge dome, swinging sideways and stretching both his hands over his head. It was by far the most spectacular display of bid'ah (innovation) I've ever seen. A couple of bearded men in my row were giving the little brat undisguised contemptuous looks, while the rest of us humans were quite amused. Then the sermon began. It was delivered in an unintelligible language that seemed to be neither Dhivehi nor Arabic. As a kid, I heard that during the sermon one must clear his/her mind of all impure thoughts. But looking around, I just saw people either yawning or nodding off. Some were twiddling their thumbs, others carefully observing their toes. "  -- Yameen Rasheed

July 14th 2009

Bipolar World (original / Archived)

"Oh! To live with the conflicting rages of Bipolarity! One moment you're happy as a bird, and the next minute reality changes. Nothing has changed, of course. Just your perception. It's the difference between night and day. The same earth - the same room - seems brighter, friendlier and more cheerful in the day. An inexplicable joy in everything. A song in the air. But then the night arrives, and fear and suspicion creep in. Monsters appear in the closet. The forgotten roaches and insects that have been there all along creep out of the woodwork. Everyone's out to get you. There's just no joy. The night is blackest, and the silence is just a muffled cry and pounding heart. Far far away scream. It's not a pleasant feeling to be numb and emotionally detached from your surroundings. All around you people are living happy lives. Lovers love. Builders build. Traders and Doctors and Lawyers and Engineers doing their routines.. acting their parts as bricks in a society you don't care about. One you want to tear down. If this is your world, why don't you feel a part of it? Why does everyone move on but you? Where are the others finding the satisfaction and joy that you don't feel? Why does everyone else get to define society? Why do you have to change - and adjust - and kill your identity to suit their wishes? Why is everyone strangling you? And then, the day breaks again.. the roaches hide, the questions disappear once more. Bliss and Happiness all over! Bless the bipolarity! Dammit."  -- Yameen Rasheed

July 26th 2009

A Note. (Original / Archived)

"Apologies to the Maldivian girl who got flogged and fainted, the women half-citizens, the non-Muslim Maldivians, the journalists, secularists, and the homosexual community of the Maldives. To the rest of you, Happy Independence Day! :-) Actually. Never mind."  -- Yameen Rasheed

August 3rd 2009

The Customs Scam (Original / Archived)

"A friend of mine had a difficult time recently when he arrived in the Maldives. Apparently, the Customs officials at the airport found some CDs in his bag and confiscated them.When he inquired, they told him it was to check the CDs for 'inappropriate content' (read: pornography). One would think they would be happy just confiscating dangerous items like weapons, drugs and bibles. But, clearly, that's not the case. He was told to collect his items from the 'censor board' office on a said date by producing a receipt. When no amount of protests worked, he finally gave in and left. Then, for whatever reasons, he was unable to collect his CDs from the office on the mentioned date and afterwards forgot about the whole thing for some time. Now here's the really messed up part. When he eventually remembered and showed up at the office with the receipt, they demanded that he pay a certain fine amount per CD, in order to get back his own CDs!"  -- Yameen Rasheed

August 6th 2009

Spare our Children from this Quack! (Original / Archived)

"I just had the misfortune of reading 'Dr' Mauroof Hussain's website. What is it with religious nuts and condoms? The pope and the christian Right in America are notoriously anti-abortionist and anti-condoms. In India, Hindu fanatics typically react with unhinged fury over condom adverts and sex education in schools. That's right. They have a one billion+ population and think sex is against their culture. But what really takes the biscuit is when, in a country with the world's largest HIV+ population, some religious loons dictate that sex-education and condoms are a bad idea. And in the Maldives, we now have "doctor" Mauroof Hussein, an Adhaalath politician, who's crapping his pants worrying that his children might get enlightened about safe sex. [I'm actually more concerned about what his son would gather from his father's website. It contains all sorts of blood-soaked war pictures and links to anti-Christian propaganda, and pro-Hamas webpages - but not a single useful or informative medical article] Clearly, the one thing that unites religious extremists of all faiths and denominations is their common universal arch-enemy: Reason. On what grounds do they oppose Safe sex, contraception, abortion, gay rights and sex education? Do they really think that keeping children steeped in ignorance is helping the situation?"  -- Yameen Rasheed

August 6th 2009

God Hates Women (Original / Archived)

"I'm a non-scholar, non-religious, non-sheikh nonentity, but I couldn't help thinking. a) God forbids women from seeking medical help from male doctors. b) God also forbids women from getting a basic education, thereby denying them any chance of ever becoming doctors themselves. c) If, by the evil infidels' satanic charms, they did somehow become doctors, God forbids them from working. [God should really just send down a woman-specific virus instead. But I'm guessing the black tent-cloth acts as a rather effective transmission barrier] d) In conclusion: God really, really hates Women. _ P.S.: Think I'll complete the Notes on Islam series after all. Come back later. Peace! And DIE, Women!"  -- Yameen Rasheed

August 11th 2009

Notes on Islam - 3 (Original / Archived)

"[I have received over a hundred comments, emails, praise, suggestions and death threats over this series. Which can only mean one thing - SOMEBODY is reading these long posts. That's a relief. Also, a lot of people wouldn't stop pestering me to write the next part. So finally, here it is. Another long summary] The Predicament Last November, "Sheikh" Fareed declared in a Friday sermon that women end up in hell for being inherently sinful. According to government statistics, out of 184 people sentenced to lashing for 'fornication', 146 were women. Either a disproportionately large section of our sexually-active population are promiscuous lesbians, or God just hates women. When a female reporter, Mariyam Omidi, wrote an article in Minivan News regarding this, the Adhaalath Ministry promptly issued her a custom-made threat warning 'outsiders' like her to 'respect the constitution' or face deportation. Recently, a Maldivian 'Imam' was arrested in Trivandrum, while trying to marry a minor girl. When 4 axe-wielding men gang-raped a minor in an island, the Mullah judge decided that it must have been consensual. (Minors cannot obtain driving licenses or vote in this country. But they can apparently consent to rape, according to mullah Islam) After announcing his verdict in a criminal court in June 2005, the chief Judge further enlightened us that "according to the Qur'an" women are 'deceptive' creatures.. The Maldivian woman continues to be far more literate, aware, socially active, educated, healthy and modern than her counterparts in say, India. But that is set to change soon, however, thanks to the arrival of Arab-Islamism and the advent of the 'Sheikhs'. Needless to say, women in other Muslim countries are even worse off. Recently, a woman was prosecuted in Sudan for detonating a nuk- sorry, err.. I mean WEARING PANTS. There isn't a more humiliating sight than seeing women in tents forced to walk 10 paces behind men on the streets in the middle east. Actually, there is. The images of the Taliban flogging hapless women in public is even more humiliating. And how do they defend this gender apartheid? That's right. Islam. The Mullah screams 'Islam!!' and *poof!* all dissent instantly vaporizes."  -- Yameen Rasheed

August 16th 2009

Important Declaration (Original / Archived)

"This is a notice for all the readers of this blog (especially those who disagree with me and are therefore clearly wrong) This isn't just a notice. This is hereby the LAW. I'm hereby announcing that - me being a liberal secularist - only liberal secularists will be henceforth allowed to disapprove, dissent or argue any issues raised in this blog with me. Others just aren't qualified. Also, since I don't have a beard (but only a small goatee) ONLY those commentators who don't have a beard but only a small goatee will be allowed to disagree with me. Anyone who doesn't agree with me is hereby banned from disagreeing with me - or bringing such a non-existent disagreement to public notice via comments or emails. This blogger also hereby announces that he agrees, in principle, that only drug abusers should be permitted to discuss drug abuse, only murderers must have an opinion on murder, only terrorists can debate on terror and only scholars can challenge scholars. That'll be all. ~Peace! Screw you."  -- Yameen Rasheed

August 17th 2009

Analysing Heaven (Original / Archived)

"By all accounts, heaven is the most wholly remarkable place to spend your after-life in. You'll be young forever, have endless sex and rivers of booze - not to mention the slutty babes. (Which means that either God listens to hip-hop, or heaven was designed by Snoop Dogg) I'll admit it sounds grand. But I, for one, am not going suicide bombin' the Jews just yet. Think about it. It ain't as sweet a deal as the brochure makes it out to be. Take the 72 virgins, for instance. 72 sure seems like awesome LOTS, considering how hard it is to land even one here on Earth. Except, you've been short-changed. How? Well, just assume you're going to live for a million years in the hereafter. Now divide that by 72. That's right. You'd be screwing the same damn wide-eyed houri for 14,000 years. (And she stops being a virgin after the first time!) Now multiply 14,000 by all eternity, and you'll realize you've got yourself a shitty deal. All the best spending your eternal life in monotonous misery. The whole 'virgin' thing creeps me out. What good is it if you're a 'hundred times more virile', if the hourlin are totally incompetent, awkward first timers? Remember all the dirty thoughts and fantasies you had about group orgies, pet fetishes and kinky sex? Good. Now write them all down neatly on a clean sheet of paper. Don't forget to number them! Done? Nice. Now rip it all to shreds and weep tears of blood. What you're holding is a list of things that are clearly forbidden in Heaven. (That's right. You'll never get to do any of those things! Ever!) If Ibn Khattab is to be believed, calling nicknames pisses off god. So you can also forget about getting her to call you 'Daddy'. Just when you think it cannot get any worse, it does. Ever wondered what it would be like when, every time you're just about to reach a massive climax, you hear a boner-shrinking, thunderous response 'Yes, my child?' Count me out."  -- Yameen Rasheed

August 26th 2009

Screw Zakat. We need MORE TV. (Original / Archived)

"The Adhaalath ministry has just stolen 2 millions of zakat money (meant for the poor and needy) - to start their own propaganda TV station devoted to religious bullshit. Fi Sabeelillah, my ass. Is there anything more shameful? Have Maldivians absolutely no self-respect left? Where is all the outrage? Where are the banners? Where are the protesters and those loudspeakers? On one hand, the government is NOT able to make ends meet. It has announced drastic pay cuts. By 2011, it intends to cut down its civil servants by HALF. Forget schools and infrastructure, the present government DOES NOT have the money to pay salaries. Faced with astronomic food prices, reduced salaries and a bleak economic future with no immediate respite, the average Maldivian is scraping the very bottom of his hand-to-mouth existence. And then this? 2 MILLION? Of zakat money? On a TV channel? Not on an orphanage, or a free kitchen, or other charity - but a self promoting TV channel? Really, Maldivians? Is there any clearer, more articulate way that Abdul Baaree could have said 'I PISS ON THE FACE OF GOD AND HIS PROPHET' during the holy month? Something tells me we deserve this humiliation. Have a nice time watching TVM2, when you're sitting home penniless and hungry by the end of the year. Screw Aneh Dhivehi Raajje. I'm renouncing my citizenship."  -- Yameen Rasheed

September 1st 2009

Comment on Anni's Pledge (Original / Archived)

"I'm no Paul Krugman, but I feel I MUST make a comment here. I don't know which genius thought of this, but I'm concerned about the proposed downsizing of the civil service from the present 32,000 employees to about 18,000 over the next year. The government believes this will save about 2 billions every year, with which it intends to form a social security scheme 'to cater to the poor'. Their logic is this: Instead of spending 2 billions on those 16,000 employees, they could funnel the money towards taking care of the remaining 200,000 or so citizens. Just a minor problem there. 2 billions never "took care of" 200,000 citizens. Besides, the government seems to be assuming that these 16,000 employees dig a hole in the ground and bury their salaries in it every month. That's not how economies work."  -- Yameen Rasheed

September 9th 2009

Book-lovers of the Maldives... Unite! (Original / Archived)

"Everytime I visit a bookshop in Malé, a little bit of me dies a horrid, painful death. The 'collection' available is usually smaller than what I have at home, and to top that, the prices are simply outrageous. (Your faith in humanity all but disappears when someone tries to sell you an year-old copy of the Reader's Digest at 4 times its cover price) The booksellers in the Maldives simply don't know how to please us book-lovers. So kids, let me give you some tips on what a REAL bookshop should look like."  -- Yameen Rasheed

September 9th 2009

Recession Proof Maldivians (Original / Archived)

"Steamed fish, fried chicken, puddings, scented rice, watermelons, fresh juice, custards, pies, pizzas, sandwiches, dumplings, breads, vegetables, fruits, melons, short eats, cakes, pasta, salads, ice creams, sweet meats.. 'Fasting' in the Maldives is the equivalent of having massive wild orgies to celebrate abstinence. As Borat would say.. Niice! I like! So why doesn't the Divinity of Islamic Affairs raise a stink about the 30 days of binge-eating during what is supposed to be, "Islamically" at least, a month of abstinence? Oh no no. They know Maldivians too well to touch this with a 10 foot pole. Well. One aspect of our free-spending culture survives the Arab onslaught. Fi Sabeelillah!"  -- Yameen Rasheed

September 13th 2009

Some Mosques are more Equal (Original / Archived)

" Coming back to the sermon; It was a pleasure to listen. The Imam's one of those rare geniuses who seem to realize that the purpose of speaking into a microphone is that you don't have to shout anymore. He spoke calmly and clearly - showing remarkable confidence in amplifier technology and the mosque's sound system. I also appreciated that he didn't threaten me with hell-fire. Neither did he claim that women were going to hell, nor did he advise them to break their marriages. In fact, during the entire 40 minute sermon, he said absolutely nothing to piss me off. Instead, he was talking about piety, and concern for the poor. The importance of humility and living in harmony with one another. Love. Peace. Understanding... I half-suspect he was a hippie at some time. After the prayers, he welcomed everyone to break their fast at the mosque. I also learned from the Imam that the mosque also runs schools and colleges."  -- Yameen Rasheed

September 14th 2009

Maldivians ARE True Christians! (original / Archived)

"No doubt about it, Maldivians are the world's truest Christians. We're far ahead of any western country; far ahead of even the Vatican. Heck, we Maldivians leave even the Pope in the pale when it comes to moving to passion and raptures at the mere sight of the Holy Cross. If only the Vatican knew... they'd probably anoint us all Catholics. Why am I uttering these blasphemies? Well, ask the Maldivian authorities who sincerely believe in the majestic sway of the Cross over Maldivians' fickle minds. A Maldivian teenager can wear offensive slogans, pornographic images and Satanist symbols on their T-shirts and walk freely in the Capital. (You've seen them too) But try walking in the streets wearing a Cross, and you'll make it about 10 steps before the Star-Force pounces on you and hauls away your Christian ass to jail. That's how much we believe in the power of the Crucifix. The mere sight of one can make us Christian."  -- Yameen Rasheed

September 16th 2009

God Hates Vaccination. (Original / Archived)

"I recently learnt that some Maldivians are refusing to accept vaccinations, due to 'religious reasons'. To be more specific, they don't want to 'play God'. When God infects them with a virus or pox, they believe it's their religious duty to simply die. Nice. As Borat would say... "Hi Five!" :p I totally approve - and hereby openly proclaim my enthusiastic support of this viewpoint. Through this post, I also whole-heartedly endorse every Haabee's inalienable right to die and/or suffer for prolonged periods after contracting otherwise completely curable mild diseases. ;-) Anything else would be throwing a spanner into God's plan. It solves many of our problems at once, and it makes a darn lot of sense. After all, since religious folk so vehemently deny Evolution, it naturally follows that they absolutely should NOT take drugs for recently evolved strains of Influenza, like Swine Flu. Absolutely not. I demand that they should PRAY it away. That way, God's say in these matters is preserved, while his fastidious plans don't get foiled by those meddling western scientists and their inoculations. But why stop there? Along with vaccines, I demand a complete ban on all Aircraft and Ferry-boats. If God wanted us to fly, he would have given us wings."  -- Yameen Rasheed

September 19th 2009

Sarcasm 101: How to spell IRONY. (Original / Archived)

"The other day I wrote a post about our national Cross fixation, and the Maldivian media's reverential fear of an old man in white hat. The post was meant to highlight what should have been common sense - that looking at a Cross does not make you a Christian anymore than looking at a stethoscope makes you a doctor. In other words, if just hearing the word "Christian" gets your knickers in a twist, then you're just a racist, insecure little twit who clearly didn't have enough oxygen during birth. I don't know if they were always that stupid, or made a special effort that day, but it appears at least one local Maldivian news site promptly 'banned' my 'Christian' blog feed from their website."  -- Yameen Rasheed

September 20th 2009

Eid Message: Don't Tolerate. Accept. (Original / Archive) 

"If you ever find yourself at Connemara market in Trivandrum, do take the time to look around. There's the beautiful old St. Joseph's Cathedral with its red brick tower. Just a few meters away is the city's biggest mosque, the Juma Masjid. Sharing a compound wall with the Mosque is a Hindu temple dedicated to ganesha (a hindu god) The confluence of these three major Indian religions at that spot is steeped in in-your-face secular symbolism. Dig further, and you'll learn that the beautiful mosque, with all its huge domes and arabic calligraphy was designed by a devout hindu architect (who has incidentally built another 80 odd mosques) You'll also find that the Hindus bring offerings on Thursdays, the Muslims attend prayers on Fridays and the Christians congregate on Sundays - and the place has never seen a riot. The entire place feels like a giant One finger salute to the intolerant fanatics of the world."  -- Yameen Rasheed

September 23rd 2009

Hiatus (Original / Archived)

"Remember that scene in Forrest Gump where Tom Hanks just starts running for no reason at all? He runs out of his frontyard and to the end of his street.. and then he runs some more."  -- Yameen Rasheed

October 14th 2009

Gayyoom (pbuh) (Original / Archived)

"Remember what they said about great Caesar? "Here was a Caesar! When comes such another?". But all that he got in his memory was the silly salad named after him. The Maldives - in its entire 100% Muslim glory - must do better to honor its greatest child. There simply shouldn't be any limit to what our glorious ex-president is entitled to. Some 300,000 in monthly income, immunity from the law, the right to remain (adamantly-) silent about his various misdemeanors apart, I believe there is much more that we can do to truly honor this living legend and dictator - even if we have to starve for it. It's not that we love Maldives less, but we love Gayyoom more."  -- Yameen Rasheed

October 20th 2009

Death Penalty for Justice (original / Archived)

"The point is that the outdated, impractical Shariah law system absolutely SHOULD NOT be implemented in the Maldives because: a) No matter what DJ Majeed thinks, this is no longer 650 AD, and we Maldivians are not medieval desert tribes. b) It is bullshit. There are always a handful of nutjobs who'll read my blog and scream 'Anti-Islam!' and 'deviating from God's Law!!'. Also, I bet my left nut that at least ONE of you is smirking to yourself right now thinking, 'YOU HERETIC PIG! EVEN UR AMERICAN GEORGE BUSH EXECUTED PEOPLE! READ WIKIPEDIA!! CHECK YOUR FACTS! LOL!' To be very sure - I'm not talking to them. I'm appealing to the rest of you who still have mildly functioning thinking faculties. Laws and legal systems are aimed at people and society, and must reflect the accepted social norms and realities of the day. Religious apologists would do well to stop acting as if the modern legal system condones rape, murder and theft. It does not. Modern law also prescribes a variety of well-defined punishments for the crimes of rape, murder, theft, etc. More importantly, Modern law recognizes and demands scientific, fool-proof evidence - making it possible to nail convicts even 20 and 30 years after a crime is committed."  -- Yameen Rasheed

October 28th 2009

The Dangerous Cat & Mouse Game. (Original / Archive)

"Has anybody ever wondered why extremists are so addicted to violence? Surely, there must be something that explains all that fascination for dynamite, guns, beheading and all sorts of explosions, right? Well, guess what. Uncle yaamyn has finally arrived at the ultimate answer to all that apparently inexplicable violence. Tom & Jerry. If my theory is right, then Tom cat and Jerry mouse are responsible for half the death and destruction in the world today. Sounds a little too far-fetched? Well, you're clearly not watching your religious advice on TV regularly. In the last week alone, at least three wise bearded men on one of TVM's many new religious advice programmes have explicitly mentioned the grave dangers posed by Tom & Jerry. Apparently, the cat-and-mouse duo can brainwash your impressionable kids into believing a whole lot of make-believe nonsense, unless you sit and spoil the cartoon for them by critically dissecting it in real time."  -- Yameen Rasheed

November 5th 2009

Speak Arabic or Die! (Original / Archived)

"Ever wondered how some of these 'scholars' seem to make so much sense even when they're talking utter rubbish? The other day, I was flipping through channels on my TV, when I came across something called a Peace TV. On it, the televangelist Zakir Naik was addressing what appeared to be a billion of his followers. Now, anybody who's heard of Zakir Naik knows of his penchant for using 'logical arguments'. Well, this time, he was 'logically' arguing why everyone should refer to the almighty as 'Allah' rather than the English word 'god'. The problem with using 'god' is this: you can apparently add letters to it -and doing this would completely change its meaning. For example, intoned the wise Zakir Naik, you could append the word 'god' with 'father'. Then it would read 'godfather', which is completely unacceptable, as it conveys a whole different meaning. Also, you could add 'dess' and make it 'goddess'. This would clearly be an epic disaster of tragic proportions. Furthermore, you could add 'less' to the word, and end up with another exceedingly scandalous abomination."  -- Yameen Rasheed

November 19th 2009

Deport the Islamic Foundation. Now. (Original / Archived)

"Now let's put things in perspective. Some group that calls themselves the 'Islamic Foundation' has called for the deportation of Mariyam Omidi, the Editor of Minivan News. And for some reason, this even made the news. It's surprising isn't it? On one hand, we have a journalist and editor of Minivan News (a news website that I admire for its position on religious extremism, the biggest cancer eating away at the Maldives today) On the other hand we have the extremists. This "Islamic Foundation", as the name makes quite obvious, is just another publicity-starved mob - out to milk the 'religion' thing for all its worth. They do no discernible service to Maldivians, do not promote any democratic values, do not approve of Dhivehin's social freedoms and now, they have just made clear their stance on our people's press freedom too. In short, they cannot stand the Maldivian way of life, hate our liberty and oppose our rights to express our thoughts in our own country. In doing so, they appear to be working more in the interests of their Arab cultural masters than of Maldivians. In other words, they're yet another group working overtime to turn our proud, free country into an Arab satellite state, just like the Adhaalathu and Jamiyyathul Salaf. As The Shadowrunner would say: Traitors! If it was upto you, who would you rather see deported? A lady who continues to do good work of bringing up issues that directly concern Maldivian's freedoms and society? Or a traitorous band of sexually-repressed Arab wannabes?"  -- Yameen Rasheed

November 23rd 2009

MPs: Enemies of the State. (Original / Archived)

"Our constitution already breaks a number of International covenants on Human Rights by denying non-Muslim Maldivians their most basic rights; the right to exist being most prominent among them. It's quite obvious that any such place of worship built in the Maldives would be exclusively for foreigners working and residing in the Maldives. This would seem like a basic courtesy, seeing as how we enjoy the same rights in THEIR countries. Every other 'Muslim' country in the world, after all, has churches, temples and synagogues in them. But we Maldivians have this slight problem of being more catholic than the Pope. So what if the Prophet himself allowed non-Muslims to live in peace? We gonna outdo him! Yet another ingenious move by our Mullah MPs to make us Maldivians look like dogs in a manger is the bill that sought to stop giving Ramzan bonuses and entitlements to non-Muslim workers (who work just as hard as anyone else) What message exactly are they trying to send the guests, laborers, workers and teachers who do good work in our country, and on whose hard work and money our people subsist on?"  -- Yameen Rasheed

November 27th 2009

Hitting the Blind Spot (Original / Archived)

"A cursory look around the blogosphere, and I see my reputation among religious nuts hasn't improved much. I'm accused, among other things, of 'blind hatred' towards Muslims and Islam. Of all the things one can honestly accuse me of, I can safely assure you that blindness isn't one of them. If I hate something, I have fully justified reasons behind it. If anything, I believe it's precisely because I refuse to play the Ostrich that I get accused of being 'blind'. I realize it's quite easy to be happy in the Maldives. The secret lies in being completely selfish and putting all your faith in God (read: blame everything on God) The secret is to be blind to others sufferings and to consider it 'Somebody Else's Problem'. I could, for instance, PRETEND that the Maldives is a 100% Sunni Muslim nation. But unfortunately, I cannot so blatantly lie to myself. I'm not blind. I have SEEN - and have MET - atheists, Christians and Buddhists among us Dhivehin. I KNOW these people exist. And seeing how our country doesn't grant its own children their most basic, legitimate rights, I could also very easily pretend that it's 'THEIR problem', not mine. But sadly, I cannot. My heart goes out to them. I refuse to accept that they - or anyone else - must align their thinking with the three top Adhaalathu clerics of the day just to continue living as citizens in their own country. In my mind that is grossly unfair and outrageous. This country belongs to ALL Dhivehin, not just those people who have meekly surrendered to the pseudo-Arab sheikhs. Then there's the gay fixation of the local Mullahs. It's amusing to me that they get so worked up over a letter written by someone else in somebody else's newspaper. (Put it this way: we all eat food everyday. But it's only the anorexics and the absolute gluttons who'd go nuts thinking about it.) Try as I might, my mind refuses to accept that gays are an abomination of God. I could try and PRETEND that all homosexuals are evil sodomites intentionally out to spite God. But I cannot. You see, I cannot be so intentionally blind. I have had gay and lesbian friends in college, including one girl who has since converted to Islam. Having lived among them, I found that homosexual people are as good or as bad as any of us. In fact, their sexual orientation didn't trouble me at all during all the time I have been with them. Sexual repression, of course, has been documented to lead to frustration and violence. "  -- Yameen Rasheed

December 1st 2009

Minarets Exposed! Nuts revealed! (Original / Archived)

"So there it is. Swiss right-wing lunatics waste money on an entire election campaign to ban an architectural appendage in the hopes of forever ending Islamist extremism (but which, as any brain-dead anesthetized jellyfish could point out, will do just the opposite) On the the other hand, Islamic extremists have connected this with the banning of the burqa in France, and declared the whole thing a western CIA jewspiracy to kill Islam and tarnish its peaceful image, thus requiring all peaceful Muslims to behead, burn and blow themselves up in protest. And thus, the intolerance cycle continues feeding off each other. Just WHO puts these incompetent, lunatic, religious extremists in charge of running the world? *sigh* If I were to read anything positive in all this, it is that fact that we liberals can still breathe easy in the knowledge that we don't hold the shit end of the IQ stick. ~Peace!"  -- Yameen Rasheed

December 8th 2009

Oh Crap. Yaamyn's blog is 4 years. (Original / Archived)

"Holy Effing F! My blog is 4 years old. Shit. Shit. Shit. Here's the story until now. My name is Yaamyn. I can barely speak Dhivehi. I cannot swim, do not smoke, do not have a girlfriend, do not like the taste of betel nuts, do not ride a motor bike, do not play football, do not sport an Afro, no longer own a fancy phone and have never caught a fish in my entire life. Nevertheless, through some obvious cock-up on sombody's part, I still proudly retain a Maldivian passport. Today marks 57 days since I arrived in the Maldives, making it the longest that I've ever been here. I'm trying hard to get used to the place and convince myself that THIS is home. (It's not easy, but I'm determined to get there) I started this blog at a time when the internet was a dark, hollow bark in a tree into which I could scream my thoughts and secrets and never hear about them ever again. It was a marvelous plan, and worked like a charm for 3 years. Then, almost overnight, some curious Maldivians stumbled on to my blog. And in turn, I was introduced to the vibrant Maldivian blogosphere. The internet stopped being the mysterious hollow in the bark, and became a loud drum that echoed my thoughts everywhere. And to everyone. Sometimes that's a great thing. And then, sometimes I see the sheer number of visitors going through my old, extremely personal posts where - as a reckless teenager - I ranted rants and named names. No good could possibly come out it. I'd originally vowed never to modify or delete any post on this blog - no matter how godawful and embarrassing they were. The blog was to act like an honest mirror of my thoughts that I could go back and read when I was 50 and extremely bored. But then, I never thought I'd get a thousand hits on a page either. It became a matter of protecting other people's privacy. It was a wrenching decision but, so long old posts, I'll never see you again. I hate myself. But as they say. C'est la vie! In the bargain, I have been labeled 'anti-Islamic', 'kafir', 'atheist pig' and so on. I have also got myself a fair share of death notes for being a liberal secularist. On this marvelous anniversary of supermassive cosmic significance, I would like to reiterate my stand. It's a wonderful thing to be a liberal. It's a wonderful thing to respect the rights of all humans to live with dignity in our country. It is a worthy cause to fight for the rights of the OTHER. It is a worthy fight to speak up for those who have no voice. It is a worthy dream to believe our country would one day grant all its citizens these rights. Finally, it makes a lot of sense in showing respect to earn respect. Doesn't it? Four Years. *sigh* Die, blog. Die! ~Peace!"  -- Yameen Rasheed

December 17th 2009

Small Fish in the Ocean (Original / Archived)

"Small Fish : Hello, Mr. Ocean! I've heard so much about y- Ocean: Shut up, roll up your sleeve and get to work. .. And so starts my career."  -- Yameen Rasheed

December 27th 2009

The Final Push

"Arrest me officer! For I have thunk! Well. It's finally happening. The much delayed climax; the final Arab push for a takeover of what was once a free, liberal and happy country known as the Maldives. It began innocuously enough - with some Egypt-educated Sheikhs coming and asserting their "knowledge" on an ancient country that had perfected its traditional folk Islam and island culture. Then, before we knew it, Maldivians started turning up in all sorts of vile places - in radical madrassas in Pakistan. In Al-Qaeda forums and videos. In terror attacks and 'martyrdom' and jihad camps. Our once free and liberated women have been sinking into mental slavery - slowly being pushed out of the picture and forced into seclusion behind a black veil as shameful objects to be kept hidden away from beastly male desires. Concubines. Female Genital Mutilation. Polygamy. Jihad. Fatwas. Death threats. Murder. Bomb blasts. Black veils. Camel meat. Big beards. Censorship. Intolerance. Fanaticism. And now this. The Jamiyyathul Salaf, a registered NGO (oh, who are we kidding?! Yet another hydra-head of the same pseudo-Arab monster that also includes the Adhaalathu party) has had a 6-month long intercourse with our beloved Ministry of Divine Affairs and produced their love child. The "Religious Unity Act" - the single most perverted and petty piece of legislation the Maldives has ever seen. It has been designed with the single-minded intention of permanently castrating all rational thinking in our country, and forever enslave its people to the merest whims of this band of traitorous, ignorant fools with self-proclaimed fanciful titles. The Bill, if passed (and it is likely to), will give the already too-powerful MoIA the powers to swoop on printing presses and bookshops and remove anything that is in conflict with their intellectually-handicapped version of Islam. The Bill, when passed, will give them the ‘authority’ to pluck out all scientific and rational pursuit from our school curriculum and replace them with rigid conformity to their narrow-minded backward ideology. This Bill, when passed, will give them overriding powers to BAN any voices in the media, print or online forums that still defend our basic social freedoms against their mindless bulldozing of anything that might displease their Arab cultural masters. It's shameful that this mental slavery is going to be imposed on a 3000-year old Dhivehi culture. It would be the ultimate tool to prey on foreign teachers, dissident bloggers, progressives, liberals and all thinkers who dare challenge the half divine God-sent passport-holders of Seykustan. The Bill also wants 'sentences' to be handed to those who "challenge God and Shariah". Well, you know what? That's ME they're talking about."  -- Yameen Rasheed

January 6th 2010

The Handsom Prophet (Original / Archived)

"It's official. Peace TV is fast replacing Maumoon-era TVM as my all-time favorite non-stop comedy channel. Remember those times when you surf through channels for hours, just *hoping* to come across something remotely entertaining? Well, I hit jackpot the other day. Apparently, what used to be a monotheistic faith called Islam has found a new God. I learnt this from Yasir Qadhi, a salafist televangelist, who was on air preaching about the Seerah (biography) of the Prophet. More specifically, he was trying to communicate what the prophet looked like 'physically'. Now, I don't want to reiterate my earlier suspicions about some of these beardies being repressed gays, but you just HAD to see this guy! He was half-bursting out of his pants in barely-concealed excitement while describing the Prophet's physical features. Now comes the really messed up part. The Prophet, as it turns out, was designed entirely in Goldilocks mode. i.e., He "wasn't too tall, but he wasn't too short either", also he "wasn't too fair, but then he wasn't too dark either". His hair "wasn't straight, but it wasn't too curly in any case". The way he was going, one would imagine that when it came to overall looks, the Prophet would be 'not quite a lady-killer, but not too shabby either. Fine chap, really' sort of guy. But no. As it turns out, the Prophet's apparently the 'most handsome man' to have ever walked the Earth. Um.. literally. The most handsome on Earth. Ever."  -- Yameen Rasheed

February 13th 2010

Rolling the Maldivian way! (Original / Archived)

"It's been 3 months and 27 days since I arrived in the Holy Islamic Sheikhdom of al-Maldives. If you can survive the nerve-grating sermons, warnings, and outright threats to your life and physical security (the wahhabi's idea of charming skeptics into their intellectually-handicapped version of Islam) - on every TV and radio station in town, then the lifestyle can actually grow on you. Having grown up in a free, secular country, I sometimes find the relentless indoctrination rather overwhelming. To be very clear, I have lived all my life in a free country, sharing a society with over 150 million other faithful Muslims, but never before have I come across the sort of inanity that is being promoted here."  -- Yameen Rasheed

February 15th 2010

The Maldives Guide: Fitting in. (Original / Archived)

"This is highly unusual, but I'm yet to receive my paycheck from either Mossad or CIA this week. So rest assured, this post will decidedly avoid all attempts to steal your faith, or change your sexual preferences. (Screw you CIA! I told you. No Pay, No Gay) No. I'll just take the time to spit out a few things about the Maldives. Things I learnt during my short stay here. Things I want you to know about. "  -- Yameen Rasheed

February 21st 2010

Who are the traitors? (Original / Archived)

"Today, Professor Yaamyn is going to teach you the difference between 'Opinion' and 'Treason'. This is in response to the oft-repeated comments made by a certain tribe, that the Maldivian constitution 'does not allow other religions', and thus, whoever 'tries to "impose" freedom of religion in this 100% Muslim country' should be convicted for treason. a. You cannot 'impose' freedom, douchebags. b. No, you cannot be convicted of treason for it, either. Let me prove it to you."  -- Yameen Rasheed

March 1st 2010

Alcohol (Original / Archived)

"Maldivians need to decide WHAT exactly it is they want. Now. I'm posting this one day after the government (once again) threw away a plan that would have helped our economy. Why? Because the Adhaalathu - a political prostitute of a party, with no support base, no seat in the parliament, nor any mandate of the Maldivian people, didn't feel like it. One wonders HOW, in a 'democratic' country, could such a thing happen. How does an elected government headed by the largest political party in the country spend so much time, money and effort on formulating an economic plan - and then just flush it down the toilet because some (unelected-) fanatic fools started grumbling? How does one Ministry of the government take up arms against another - and get away with it? Also, I would like to know WHAT exactly is the Adhaalathu party's economic plan? You see, if you call yourself a party, you also need to have some fiscal policies for the people. What is the Adhaalathu party's alternative plan to fix our economy and increase jobs and feed our people? Organizing a mass, ritual prayer? Throwing around leaflets? Blowing hot air into a megaphone? Blaming the Jews? More importantly, do they even HAVE a plan? I doubt it."  -- Yameen Rasheed

March 5th 2010

Contempt of the Court (Original / Archived)

"A man was found with 6 million under his pillow, and drugs in his backyard. The Maldivian court found nothing odd about the situation, and let him free. (Essentially telling the Police Intelligence unit, who has been on his trail for 6 patient months, to go screw itself upside down) In June 2005, a judge in a criminal court announced his verdict, but took the time to enlighten everyone in the court-room that Women-kind were 'deceptive' creatures. Says right there in the Holy Book, said the wise Owl. Another time, when a 12 year-old girl was gang-raped by four ax-wielding men, the supremely-wise judge ruled that it was 'consensual' sex. (FYI, your honor, in the rest of the civilized world, 'consensual' sex with 12-year olds automatically qualifies as statutory rape) On another occasion, a man was dragged to the court for 'blasphemy'. The judge apparently got him to recite the kalimah and - since the esteemed Court of law couldn't be burdened with such mundane tasks as deciding lawsuits - ordered that all further cases be taken to the newest arm of the Judiciary - the Ministry of Islamic Affairs. *sigh* I'm not saying that our appointed judges are morons.. no, wait. That's precisely what I'm saying. Once again, WHO appointed these clowns to the courts? I wouldn't let them judge a baking contest, much less hand over to them the critical responsibility of running the country's entire judiciary. As of now, the Maldivian judiciary is an embarrassment, and completely deserves not only our contempt, but also the strongest condemnation. If there's indeed such a pitiful lack of judges with minimal common sense, I suggest it's time we bring in a few more-capable (or at least, less-dysfunctional) judges from abroad. And if there aren't enough wise judges to go around, get Australia on the line and tell them to bring in some kangaroos to occupy our judicial high chairs. That way, at least, we could blame it on ACTUAL kangaroos. ~Peace!"  -- Yameen Rasheed

March 12th 2010

Adhaalathu pimps itself again (Original / Archived)

"The Adhaalathu party has always had a proven track record of prostituting itself for cheap publicity, but now it appears to be besting itself in its own game. If I remember correctly, this "party" of shrill monkeys was handed power on a plate by an overly generous MDP. The only good that came out of it is that we know for certain now that Evolution is a hoax. Furthermore, the un-evolved primates in the Ministry of Islamic Affairs have also made abundantly clear the consequences of handing over democratic power to people who have trouble grasping the most basic concepts of democracy, rights or freedom. The MoIA had a truly adventurous year of banning DJs, censoring websites, bringing in pedophilia-promoting 'scholars', revolting against its own government, trying to abuse funds for the poor to start a self-promoting 'Fi Sabeelillahi TV", indoctrinating the traditionally liberal Dhivehi people with their morally bankrupt, misogynist, pseudo-arab ideology.. .. and apparently, getting to do all this with total impunity has done wonders for the party's already massively-inflated ego. With the smugness of a Pharaoh at the end of an orgy, the Adhaalathu party has released a statement saying that it now believes that "no political party can run a government" without its support. Erm. Excuse me? The dairy farm called. It wants its bullshit back. Do the mighty Sheikhs need to be reminded that their joke of a "party" is still struggling to maintain minimum membership?"  -- Yameen Rasheed

March 18th 2009

An Open Letter to the President (Original / Archived)

"Mr. President, you are a man who has experienced police abuse, a man who has campaigned long and hard for our freedom, a man who has been incarcerated for being outspoken. You're a man who has faced political abuse of the worst kind. I believe, as many others believe, that this is the primary reason why you were elected. You were the face of rebellion. You were the face of OUR rebellion; the face of Maldivian people's desire for change. The Maldivian people overwhelmingly voted for you with the hopes that we would no longer have to cower in fear again when speaking our mind. Then why is it, Mr. President, that my country is still in shackles of fear? Imagine my dismay, Mr. President, when a source confided to me this morning that I'm 'being watched closely' by your police intelligence, as the writings on this blog offend the Taliban in your government. I want to know why you have embraced religious extremists in your government and abandoned us - the voters - who gave you your job in the first place? More seriously, why have you allowed political mullahs to abuse the police service to keep track of political dissidents and bloggers? Why am I still living in a sinister surveillance state, instead of that dream of a free 'Aneh Dhivehi Raajje' that you promised all of us? It irks me, as I'm sure it would many Maldivians, to think that there is a cop (probably reading this) who's being paid taxpayer's money to sit in a room and go through - and keep track of - random blogs that criticize the Mullahs in your government - and this, while there are violent criminals let loose on the street, stabbing journalists or anyone else at will. Mr. Mohamed Nasheed, whatever happened to your promise of making the Maldives a safe haven for dissident writers? You have openly welcomed Ms. Aung San Su Kyi to the Maldives, how about first allowing us Maldivians to express our views in our own country without being snooped upon? I want to know what you're doing against the spread of extremism in the country (not without a little help from your government), and the fact that today they are openly demanding that your wife, the First Lady Laila, be beheaded. That's right, Mr. President. These 'pious', 'religious', 'god-fearing' people want your wife's head. And my friend, Hilath's head. And Sappe's head. And soon, perhaps my head. And then, when the heads start rolling (I assure you, your Ministry of Islamic Affairs is fully equipped to do this) there'll be a lot of headless Maldivians pointing fingers at you. I have always been aware of the risks of speaking out against extremist clerics in a country that is rapidly, and forcibly, being made to bow down to their ideology - an ideology completely at odds with the traditional Maldivian way of life. It's a risk I chose to take. Beheadings and butchery. Bomb blasts and terrorism. Jihad.. violence.. bloodshed - these were not things we Maldivians were known for once, Mr. President. Dhivehin used to be a lot more liberal, easy going folk than this. We were never an intolerant nation, or a violent nation. But we're changing. A lot of secular minded, liberal Maldivians take offense at this, Mr. President. We do not wish to see our country listed among the terrorist breeding grounds of the world. Yet, our voices refuse to be heard, being drowned out by the voices on TV and Radio that call out for 'hanguraan' and 'jehad' and 'war'. The voice of reason and peace is being drowned in the cacophony of intolerance and the intimidation. But I'm proud to say, Mr. President, that today, fewer Maldivians are willing to keeping quiet. More and more Maldivians are coming out and openly challenging the Mullahs that you have so lovingly placed on a pedestal. More and more people are coming alive to the fact that the Mullahs - the so-called 'Sheikhs' - can be criticized, just like the time we realized that former President Gayyoom could also be criticized. Where there was once silence, I can hear a growing rumble of voices. Where there was once fear, I see a growing sense of rebellion. I am used to death threats, Mr. President. I have received them right from the time I first posted an article critical of fanatical extremists. When the Taliban in your government banned DJs in the capital, I found myself speaking out almost alone. Today, there are dozens of voices joining me. Tomorrow there'll be hundreds more speaking out against your regime's attempts to Talibanize this country. And some day, the resistance will be too much to bear - even with the surveillance, and spying, and intimidation from your government. You would know this, Mr. President. You are a living example of victory against all odds, and against the entire machinery of the state. The very fact that you're in power speaks volumes for the Maldivian desire for freedom. Of course, things might get much worse before they become better."  -- Yameen Rasheed

March 18th 2010

Conversation with Extremists (Original / Archived)

"Amusing as it sounds, there are actually people defending the recent death threats against certain people, including the First Lady. Here are the basic facts that can't be disputed. 1. An extremist blogger who swears by an ideology (which he thinks is Islam) has issued death threats against Hilath, Sappe and the First Lady of the Maldives. 2. The threats have been issued for religious reasons, meaning 'jibue' is a person who considers killing and murder as his religion. Now, there are two ways one could react to this. The first of course, is to condemn the threats and demand action against an obviously deranged blogger. The second, more unfortunate approach, is the one that several extremists in our country have chosen to take. Unable to swallow the bitter pill, they chose to invent a whole another universe in their head where Hilath did it all himself. (Yes, in their mildly conducting brains, Hilath apparently posted the threats on muraasil HIMSELF for reasons of popularity (?). The CIA may or may not be involved. In other words, the typical Zionist plot to blame the 'poor innocent Muslims', as usual. yawn.) The capability of extremists to delude themselves is stuff of legend. And hilarity."  -- Yameen Rasheed

March 24th 2010

Feminists. (Original / Archived)

"They HATE atheists, jews, christians, scientists, secularists, liberals, progressives etc. as an integral part of their 'faith'. Here's one more to add to the list: - Feminists."  -- Yameen Rasheed

April 13th 2010

A Crash Course in Women's Sexuality (Original / Archived)

"Ok. Unfortunately, I'm not a woman - But it's about time someone said this. Women have sex. Women enjoy sex. Women are sexual creatures. According to a wide-ranging survey I haven't carried out, 100% of all consensual (heterosexual-) sex involves a horny woman and a horny man. 100% of all pre-marital and extra-marital affairs, and orgies also involve sexually-willing women. Sex is not something a man does to a woman. It is something a man and a woman participates in together. Girls and women have carnal desires much like men do; and this is something one should have picked up from just EXISTING in a world full of sexual beings. Unfortunately, the hopelessly lost tribe of fake-Arabs currently wandering around in our coral islands seem unaware of this seemingly obvious fact. For them, sex is entirely a male thing. Women are just mere catalysts and sexual-aids designed miraculously to fulfill his physical urges. From the 4 wives on Earth to the 72 Hooraleen in Heaven, the fake-Arab's sexual yearnings seem to form the core of his existence, around which the Universe revolves - including women, food, prayer and society. For instance, Women need to pray at home, or in a curtained-off section in the rear basement of a mosque, so that the all-important Male doesn't get aroused, or be otherwise sexually inconvenienced during his prayer. The Woman needs to put up with polygamy so that the Male 'doesn't have to divorce her' after she has lost her looks and virginity. (It is a well known fact in the Arabian Desert that despite the protruding beer bellies and ugly baldness, men ALWAYS retain their good looks well into their deaths and after-lives. Only women lose their looks, apparently) His Naikness, the holy Naik brings sex into food as well. Apparently, if you eat pork, you swap sexual partners just like Pigs. (This is, of course, neither a Koranic nor scientific explanation. In fact, it is a blatant lie. But, if the beardie 'scholar' says so - facts and common sense be damned - he MUST be right!) Most importantly, Women need to be shrouded alive so that the Male can walk around without being 'forced' to rape anyone. (Elementary, my dear Watson. If chicken walked around in hijabs, there would be no KFC) What a load of misogynist crap!"  -- Yameen Rasheed

April 16th 2010

Ban the Adhaalath (Original / Archived)

"Zakir Naik : "All Muslims should be terrorists!" Ministry of Islamic Affairs : "Brilliant! Give this guy a medal! No! Invite him to the 'largest ever' program on Earth! TV spots! Radio! State funds! Give him anything he wants! What's that? Attention-whore, did you say? Call TVM dammit! Book the entire week's time slots at state expense! If he likes the Taliban, he is our friend! Boy! This is going to be *sweeet*! Now.. excuse me while I go pour some cold water over my privates!" Maldivian: "This is yet another reason to.. If you needed any more evidence that the extremists in the MoIA are determined to recruit terrorists for their masters, this is it. Join the call for peace. Click to visit the FB group -> Ban the Adhaalath. ~Peace!"  -- Yameen Rasheed

March 1st 2010

The Victim Complex (Original / Archived)

"Today's sermon was another stark reminder why Muslims will never make progress. I don't know if you heard it, but today's Friday Mullah Rant focused entirely on how 'some people' were spreading 'laadheenee' thoughts in public [Note: Criticizing Mullah = Laadheenee] - and how this was something that every 'true Muslim' must be worrying and fretting about. The rest of the sermon was translated by my brain as 'Oh noes! Poor Islam under attack again! Will nobody weep for us?! Boo hoo hoo!' ...which brings us to Professor Yaamyn's Topic-of-the-Day. ;-) Today, class, we shall discuss the biggest disease afflicting Muslim society today - the all-pervading, debilitating, Mullah-generating, utterly useless and omnipresent Persecution Complex. The other day, a weepy willow on Facebook asked me "Are you Muslim?!! If so, are you proud to belong to this great people?' It's the kind of pointless question that I normally refuse to answer - but in this case, the rider was irresistible. 'Are you proud to belong to this great people?' Frankly? No. I am not. Also, I refuse to accept that today's lethargic, unproductive mass of global Muslim population can be referred to as 'a great people'."  -- Yameen Rasheed

May 7th 2010

The Last Rites of Democracy (Original / Archived)

"So it finally happens. The Adhaalathu and Salaf's wet dream and bastard child of a 'religious unity' bill is upon us. The bill is exactly what one would expect from desert dwelling bedouins; a total clampdown on free thought, explicit restrictions on press-freedom, crushing of any chances of popular dissent, consolidation of all power in a single 'Ministry' run by medieval bigots, and of course - absolute, unfettered power to condemn and persecute any citizen of this country at their will. In short, it is a bill carefully crafted to turn this newly-formed democratic state into a thought-controlled theocracy run by simpletons. Just look at the provisions of the bill. The same retarded 'Ministry' that brings in quacks like Zakir Naik - and champions of pedophilia like Bilal Philips - will have the absolute authority to decide which foreign 'scholars' will be allowed to indoctrinate the Maldivian public. The Ministry will put together an 'advisory board' of its choice - and they will, in turn, 'advise' the Ministry on religious fatwas. (Brilliant plan, eh? The last time this happened was when the last dictator to rule us put together a parliament of his choice, and the parliament bolstered the President in return. That sure worked out for us, didn't it?) A 'Ministry' that repeatedly bastardizes our culture with their imported Arab bullcrap will now assume the role of 'protecting traditional values' of the Maldives. Right. Might as well hand over the Vatican to the Ayatollah. Then comes the part where the bill tramples all over the concept of human rights and free speech. To quote Minivan News: "it will be illegal to promote personal views on matters where there is a difference of opinion among scholars." Really? It will be ILLEGAL to promote personal views? The Ministry of Arabistan now is going to tell us Maldivians to shut up?! Now THEY are going to tell us what to think and what opinions to possess?! Opinions, by their very definition, always differ. That's why they're called 'Opinons'. If they didn't differ, they'd be called 'facts'. And FACTS state that neither Shaheem, nor Baaree, nor any other Mullah in the Arabistan Ministry is the Prophet or even the most pre-eminent scholars of Islam in the World."  -- Yameen Rasheed

May 9th 2010

All Honorable Men (Original / Archived)

"Free speech was my friend, faithful and just to me: My blog is ample evidence of how much the concept means to me. I shall miss the enlightenment and discussion that the freedom to blog brought to me. But Shaheem says the discussions on my blog are shaking Dhivehin's faith - and threatening his religion.. (and Shaheem is an honorable man) Freedom to criticize authority brought Dhivehin Human Rights; It brought a free media, Aneh Dhivehi Raajje, and democracy to the Maldives.. whose fruits Dhivehin enjoy today. Freedom to protest allowed us to beat back police oppression, and make them accountable.. and thus, today we no longer live in terror of them. When our rights were being trampled, and the constitution and law and government had united to oppress us, in Adduvas and Minivan did we protest, criticize and fight back. Did, at the time, criticism seem bad? But today Shaheem says that criticism leads to lack of unity - and Shaheem is an honorable man. When the masses were oppressed, when Anni was jailed, When Naraka Fareed's holy beard was being plucked out hair by hair, When pepper spray and shock batons broke our bones, We criticized. We rebelled. We aired our thoughts against every law in the country. Did it lead to disunity and evil back then? Yet Shaheem says differences in opinion is bad, and Shaheem is an honorable man."  -- Yameen Rasheed

May 14th 2010

The End. (Original / Archived)

"In a few days, the Maldives will embrace Adhalathism. It appears to me that Maldivians have given up their own rights - and willingly so. In the best, democratic spirit - I must say that I do vehemently disagree, but nevertheless I accept this decision. As a country, and as a people we have gotten exactly what we deserve. For the proponents of freedom, liberalism and national pride who have supported me throughout, THANK YOU. Thank you for the thousands of emails, comments, and all the encouragement you have given me. To the 3000 odd people who read all my posts regularly, I apologize for leaving the field. This is a battle for someone else. To the supporters of extremism in this country, congratulations. You have got what you wanted. May your grandchildren look back and lament on what you have "achieved". That should be punishment enough. I have no desire to be a martyr for free speech anymore. Until this country allows free speech, I am retiring this blog. ~Peace."  -- Yameen Rasheed

September 26th 2010

Is it? (Original / Archived)

"Copy-pasted garbage. Nonsensical posts. A sea of salafi blogs that constantly regurgitates the same hateful jihadi horse-shit with nauseating frequency. Tired DRP-MDP cat-fights... The Maldivian blogosphere is dead, isn't it?"  -- Yameen Rasheed

November 28th 2010

Towards Secularism (Original / Archived)

"Hi. Those of you who follow this blog will remember that I had vowed to 'retire this blog'. In fact, my exact words were "I have no desire to be a martyr for free speech anymore. Until this country allows free speech, I am retiring this blog." Lamentably, the Maldives is yet to provide its citizens free speech, and yet here I am with another post. A lot has happened since the last post I made. a) First, the incident that shook me the most. A young Dhivehi man, endlessly harassed by his 'devout' family and "friends", decided to take the horrifying step of taking his own life. Words have a disappointing habit of cushioning the blow.. of diminishing the horror of the moment with mundane phrases like 'taking his own life'. Words cannot describe my feelings every time I see the ATC tower standing tall in the brightly lit airport island, across the black, gloomy sea. The young air traffic controller spent almost seven years of his life working there. And an eternity of seven excruciating minutes until his death. I can't help but retrace his last steps. It was early dawn and still very dark. He must have been reliving the terrible taunting. The harassment from colleagues. The forced 'counseling' by a certain "sheikh" Illiyaas of the 72 virgins fame. Any happy memories of his friends, girlfriend.. family a faded past that cannot be relived ever again. He must have looked up on the Internet how to make a noose. He must have spent a dazed evening finding a suitable rope to carry out the ghastly act. I shudder to think of his final thoughts, as he put his head through the garland of death.. and in one horrifying moment, kicked the chair. It's not that he didn't try to live. He tried desperately. "  -- Yameen Rasheed

December 7th 2010

Sheikhs, Lies and Videotapes (Original / Archived)

"Just last week, the state Minister for Islamic Affairs said that he 'does not believe' there are any Al-Qaeda terrorists in the country. To quote Minivan News: "Although stressing his belief that the country has no Al Qaeda-style organisations, the State Minister said it was important to counter and not give any opportunity for more radical, extreme forms of Islam to take root in the country." Aren't we glad to hear that? Not only are there no terrorist groups in the country, but this brave defender of the faith is right there on the frontlines to prevent radicals and extremists from ever taking root. In other words, Relax citizens! Everything is under control. Bruce Shaheem Wayne is on the job. But wait. What's this? Oh no. Wikileaks reports that in fact.., Al Qaeda IS very much active in the Maldives."  -- Yameen Rasheed

December 9th 2010

Attn: Maldives Police Service (Original / Archived)

"Dear Maldives Police Service, I know we have a love-hate relationship. And I know things have been hard recently for both of us. I sometimes find it hard to acknowledge it, but I do realize it is not your fault that your government is controlled by the Taliban. I understand it is your job to keep a tab on critics of your Wahhabi Ministry. So believe me. I absolutely, totally understand your need to snoop on my blog. Having said that, there are some lines that should never be crossed, and today you crossed it. I got a comment in my inbox today from a certain 'msathyh@hotmail.com'. ""It is my right as a citizen to demand a secular state" go brother go! so finally the words are coming out from you. the real reason why you are back is clear. you write everything openly but you deny to your family saying that you're not against religion but against politicians. huh!! must salute your humanitarian.. you never raised concerns for victims of rapists or in fact no any other issue beyond the beard and sheiks. what a pity!" Now, that's a perfectly valid comment. I am charged with not raising concern for victims of rapists. (Unfortunately, this allegation is not true at all because I consider all sexual activities with children as rape of the worst kind - a rape of innocence. I have strongly condemned all pedophiles / pedophilia-promoting sheikhs in the past. One Dr. Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips comes strongly to my mind) I also understand that msathyh is probably not the most technically competent person alive. Being a police media official, however, she should ideally be familiar with the concept of a Google search. I understand that the Police Service has better things to do with its funds (like snooping on bloggers, for instance) than to train its officials in basic life skills. So, me being the kindly nice person I am, let me present a Free Tutorial for msathyh, and any other police official denied such basic training."  -- Yameen Rasheed

January 26th 2011

Before you kill me... (Original / Archived)

"My anonymous death threat count went up again. The latest one follows an article published on Minivan News. (By God, the best article written in the history of random chance, repeated mutations and brutal genetic selection! Do read it.) The sinister comments were, as usual, characterized by trademark hilarity and merciless rape of logic. Islam-Hasan on Sun, 23rd Jan 2011 8:17 PM "He is a real atheist he should be head chop. His main aim in this article is very clear that he trying to convenience Christian religion." Let’s go over that statement one more time: I'm a "real atheist" who's trying to "convenience Christian religion" (?!!) and therefore, naturally, I "should be head chop". You can't make this stuff up. Also, "head chop" has instantly shot to the top of my all-time favourite rib-tickling fundie phrases right after "do gay with hilath"."  -- Yameen Rasheed

February 19th 2011

Comparative Religion (Original / Archived)

"My old friend Shaheem gave an interesting interview today. It seems the former State Minister of Islamic Affairs wants the recently instituted Maldives National University to teach 'comparative religion' - i.e., the study of religions other than Islam. In what would certainly have come as shocking news to many of his followers, he said that the mere knowledge of other religions doesn't automatically make one a non-Muslim. That is all very well and good - You all know how enthusiastic I am about opening up broader avenues of information for all Maldivians. Understanding other faiths, religions and customs would go a long way in reducing the terrible national paranoia that grips the Maldives today. You might remember Shaheem as the guy pushing to enforce the Religious Unity Regulations drafted by his ministry some months ago. So pardon me when I say I'm more than a little bit skeptical when he mentions 'Freedom of Expression' and 'Human Rights'. To recollect some of the clauses of those regulations: (27) (Prohibited Activities) Talking about religions other than Islam in Maldives, and propagating such religions. (27) (Prohibited Activities) Talking about the culture and traditions of other religions in a way that aims to coerce a person’s mind to favour those religions; or any attempts to create such a spirit amongst the people. (30) - It is illegal in Maldives to use any kind of medium to propagate any religion other than Islam; such media shall not be used to share or exchange information that may stir interest in any other religion. (31) - In Maldives, it is illegal to translate into Dhivehi, books or various other sources of information on other religions, and print, distribute or spread such material. (36) (a) It is illegal to provide education on any religion other than Islam anywhere in Maldives. In fact, it is hard to find a single clause in the entire document that wasn't a clear clampdown on independent thinking, research, free inquiry or free thought - all of which are absolutely crucial for any meaningful pursuit of knowledge."  -- Yameen Rasheed

March 30th 2011

Politics and Religion (Original / Archived / Archived full article on Minivannews)

"On the walls of Cairo, posters signed by the Muslim Brotherhood were put up declaring that it was the ‘spiritual obligation’ for all Muslims to vote in favour of the referendum, which many believe gives the Brotherhood – the only organised opposition – a strong edge in short term elections. It is an outcome that many secular Egyptians, and the large Coptic Christian minority in Egypt are loathe to see. In each of those posters lies one of the most crucial questions of our times – can democracy survive under the shadow of Islamism?"  -- Yameen Rasheed

April 11th 2011

Doublethink Culture (Original / Archived / Archived Full Article on Minivannews)

"The national doublethink is no doubt helped by the country’s dramatic swing from a heady, westernised disco-era to a rigidly conservative religious society almost overnight. The 2008 Maldivian constitution forbids any law or regulation that contradicts loosely defined ‘tenets of Islam’. In May 2010, the Maldivian government invited salafi preacher Zakir Naik who, during a heavily promoted lecture televised on prime-time national television, proclaimed to a gathered audience of ten-thousand, that income made from tourism was ‘haraam’. But as recently as last week, the President of the Republic, Mohamed Nasheed, reiterated that the tourism industry – fueled by alcohol and, as the Mullah prefers to put it, ‘fornication’ – is the mainstay of the country’s economy that must be safeguarded at all costs. The easily inflammable pseudo-religious groups that assemble on the streets at a moment’s notice to protest against everything from news editors to co-education, gathered in in late 2009 to protest against the restricted sale of alcohol in ‘inhabited’ islands. Nevertheless, their screeching rhetoric against the sale of alcohol in the capital was in stark contrast to their meek acceptance of the availability of alcohol on the adjacent airport just five minutes away. It could also be contrasted with their monk-like silence on the widespread child abuse and pedophilia, reports of which have hit local media with alarming frequency throughout the past year. The same government alternatively claims that tourism is haraam and absolutely vital. The same television channel that plays music throughout the day also airs religious programs that proclaim music is forbidden. The same school that teaches that bank interest is forbidden in Islam also teaches students modern banking, and how to calculate interest. The effect of this national doublethink on the young Maldivian democracy is a cause for concern. Citizens who have given up the intellectual tools of reasoning have also inadvertently given up their ability to choose, leaving the country vulnerable to either sliding back into a dictatorship, or morphing into a theocracy."  -- Yameen Rasheed

May 2nd 2011

Shariah not a solution (Original / Archived / Archived full article on Minivannews)

"Yesterday, the Adhaalath party organised a large rally at the tsunami monument in Male’, to demand the implementation of Islamic Shariah in the Maldives. The party was joined by “hundreds” of pseudo-religious NGOs whi lent their collective voice to the clamour for Shariah, supposedly an antidote to ‘murder, violent assaults, robbery, rape and drug abuse’ in the country. “The whole nation is threatened and institutions have failed,” the party said in a statement. The ‘only solution’, according to large banners put up across Male’, is Islamic Shariah. What the Adhaalath Party and its friends fail to mention here is that by ‘Islamic Shariah’, they’re referring to a single interpretation of Shariah suitable to their rigid world-view – a minority opinion among the world’s many Muslim schools of thought that all hold different views of Shariah."  -- Yameen Rasheed

May 25th 2011

Dead babies do not like (ORIGINAL / ARCHIVED / ARCHIVED FULL ARTICLE ON MINIVANNEWS)

"The decomposing corpse of a dead baby was found in a polythene bag, in the park near the mosque in Hulhumale’ yesterday. The baby was possibly strangled to death by an underwear wrung tightly around its frail neck. Two days ago, a three month old foetus was found discarded in a tin can, hidden in the bushes on the adjacent island of Vilingili. Earlier this month, the corpse of another foetus was found underwater at the swimming track in Male’, with cuts and wounds to its head and limbs. Just a few months ago, yet another baby was found – still breathing – abandoned near a cell phone tower in Hulhumale. Much has been written about the apparent increase in such cases, and the need to bring the perpetrators to justice. But even as the tide of outrage swells and recedes with each breaking story of a dead or mutilated baby found abandoned in the islands, there is the issue at the heart of the matter that the worthy, indignant citizens have yet to address. Dhivehi social attitudes, dictated by religious mores that lay greater stress on appearances and labels than on any visible code of conduct or value system, have created a society where pre-marital and extra-marital sex is widely prevalent and tolerated, but open discussions on contraception and sex-education is still taboo."  -- Yameen Rasheed

May 27th 2011

It's going to be fine! (Original / Archived)

"Meanwhile, the woman didn't seem to notice that her younger hunter-gatherer son had crawled into the tiny, dark and dirty space between the legs of a tetrapod near the edge of the water, with a wave rapidly approaching from the distance. Or more likely, she didn't give a damn – because the lady then proceeded to place her two year old girl over the wall, to play by herself on the hard, reclaimed sand full of sharp pebbles and broken coral stones. My friend and I watched astonished (she could barely get past the first sentence of her sorrowful narrative thanks to the boys, and had long given up trying) as the five year old miraculously avoided drowning by emerging from his tiny, dirty alcove in just the nick of time, holding a large crab. The mom gazed serenely in the golden sunset, as her three little children trampled all over Nature's carefully laid plans, cheating death and defying disability as they frolicked around on slippery concrete slopes, clawed creatures and razor sharp stones. Only once did she flinch and let the word escape her lips, “Careful!” The young girl giggled. The eldest boy waved charmingly to his mother, reassuring her with his most sincere, pleading eyes. “It's all right, Mum!”, he said, “I'm going to be fine!” “Really! I'm going to be fine!”"  -- Yameen Rasheed

June 6th 2011

Escape (Original / Archived)

"More than anything, a man craves inner peace and shelter. After nearly two years in the Maldives, I don't feel I'm closer to either. Often, there's the urge to leave it all behind - and reduce life to its lowest terms: No possessions, no property, no trivial pursuits of pointless material pleasures and to free oneself from the burdens of relationships and social entanglement. Maybe it'd suck, maybe it won't. But that's beside the point. Nobody has managed to capture this thought quite like Henry Thoreau: "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." I have a few things to see to, before I can actually jump ship. But every time I feel lonely or alone, I find a bit of me dreaming of the moment."  -- Yameen

June 11th 2011

The Israel Hypocrisy (ORIGINAL / ARCHIVED / ARCHIVED FULL ARTICLE ON MINIVANNEWS)

"On Monday June 6 the Adhaalath Party released an ominous statement claiming that allowing the Israeli national carrier El Al to fly to the Maldives is “a threat” to the country’s economy and statehood. Maldivian authorities have announced that the airline could begin operations in December this year. In a valiant effort to shoulder the unwieldy burden of speaking for the 1400-year old Islamic faith, the Adhaalath Party has responded to the news by threatening “nationwide protests”, exhorting citizens “who love their religion” to join them. It has become absurd theatre to watch the Mullah reach for the raw teats of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and milk the tragedy for all it is worth."  -- Yameen Rasheed

June 20th 2011

No, you don't. (ORIGINAL / ARCHIVED)

"There's a strange phenomenon occurring in the Maldive inter-webs that I cannot explain. For some reason, a lot of people appear to be commenting on the Internet lately, brimming with “inside information” about me. They usually start off right away with “I know him very well” - thus establishing that they're intimately familiar with me personally – then, with all the credibility of an anonymous Internet comment, proceed to narrate fascinating trivia about me that I'm often yet to discover myself. This isn't exactly new, of course. After all, people have in the past mysteriously recollected having coffee with me where I was “openly” dissing their religion - along with a bunch of other people. The problem is, I've never even met some of these alleged co-conspirators in real life. Another time, I got a panic-stricken call from a relative who'd just heard that I was "taken away" the previous night for “interrogation”. Just go over that in your head. Someone somewhere felt an inexplicable compulsion to invent a story that went something like “yaamyn was taken to the cops last night for interrogation”. It boggles the mind. Much more recently, I received information that I have also been busy hacking into Police servers.(WTF?) Then there's the guy with the anonymous “News” website, ("adducommunity", was it?) who is privy to “inside information” that I mingle with the upper echelons of the ruling party – and considered this worth publishing as a story as well. An anonymous commentator on Minivan News, who also miraculously “knows me”, confirmed that I am actually 'an innocent boy' – it was, in fact, “evil” Minivan News Corp that was at fault. Apparently, they were 'tricking' me into writing. Oh, poor me, then. In another anonymous comment published by Minivan, one genius “knew” that I was yaamyn the blogger who, apart from his day job as programmer (and night time crime fighting duties-), also finds the time to write, produce and animate an entire TV series - resulting in the Maakana show producer, my namesake, complaining of getting harassed. Detective “heck” then appeared on the scene to connect the dots and add 2+2 to end up with an absolutely fascinating conspiracy, and unearthed the unholy nexus connecting me straight to the President of the Republic. "  -- Yameen Rasheed

August 5th 2011

Maldivian Journalists. Screw you. (Original / Archived)

"I have always believed there are two things that'll ultimately bring about the downfall of our hard-won democracy - a broken education system, and an utterly incompetent media. Reading Dhona's blog today about her harrowing experience at MNBC brings back this old lament - why oh why can't the Maldives have proper journalists? Dhona writes about the MNBC, "...most journalists highlighted facts only to give some structure to their own opinions. One thing I was clear of that most Mnbc journalists could not separate opinions from facts" - which sounds exactly right. It corroborates perfectly with anecdotes I've heard from my friends in the media. Now, the media's lack of spine was understandable during the Gayoom regime, where the occasional publication that strayed into any controversy found itself shut down, and their editorial team behind bars. But given the constitutionally guaranteed press freedom in the last few years, the media's pitiful performance is plainly unforgivable. It appears that a lot of this has to do with the old guard retaining their place - the same lackeys who were subservient propagandists for the Gayoom regime now occupy power positions in media organizations, and keep crowing about their new found love for journalism. I am told that even when newbie journalists attempt to put out a decent, balanced story - the higher ups in the established media rewrite/censor it in a manner most conducive to their present interests. Misinformation is rampant - even if it is done by subtle tricks of omission. For instance, one former Haveeru journalist revealed to me the practice of the paper dutifully reporting news wire stories of dead Palestinians, but simultaneously ignoring cables about Israeli casualties - presumably because it didn't neatly fit into the narrative that has been presented to Maldivians for decades. Even a deaf, blind man would gag on the nauseating commentary on DhiTV - a TV channel that exists purely for opposition propaganda purposes, while pretending to be a "news" station."  -- Yameen Rasheed

August 7th 2011

On Patriotism. And cheap footwear. (Original / Archived)

"As it turns out, it isn't 1995 anymore, and wearing cheap, nylon/rubber slippers is no longer considered 'cool'. Now, I don't usually mind appearing uncool. I even carry a heavily scratched Nokia flashlight with an antenna and a number pad as a 'phone' - this, in a town where every high-school dropout who can spell his name insists on carrying the latest iPhone. But the resistance to my choice of footwear was simply overwhelming. Everyone, from relatives to people I'd just met on the street, seemed to want to comment on it. "What happened to your sandals?" Um. I broke the last one. A couple of weeks ago. "So... why are you in a 'fen faaivaan'? Er. What about them? "Well, it's a fen faaivaan, to begin with" "What. they're comfortable!" "Maybe, but nobody wears those things, you know." But.. I. [defeat] Apparently, it was so noticeable that people would identify me in a small crowd as 'that guy wearing a fen faaivaan', instead of something seemingly far more obvious like "that guy in a grey T-Shirt', or 'that guy who's two heads taller than everybody else in the vicinity'. The constant nagging was admittedly a heavy price to pay for my cheap footwear."  -- Yameen Rasheed

August 15th 2011

Hate-mongering in Maldivian mosques (Original / Archive)

""Never! Not today! Not even on Judgment day! Never will the treacherous Jews or Christians have any goodwill towards you; having relations with them can never benefit a single Muslim!" This piece of anti-semitic trash was playing from the loud speakers of the Islamic Center in Malé - the country's largest mosque - while I was passing by it recently after work. It was one of those daily 'religious sermons' organized for Ramadan - unless I'm mistaken and it was simply an innocent gathering trying to translate a Bin Laden tape for some reason. The mullah's message for the holy month seems to be the same as always."  -- Yameen Rasheed

August 17th 2011

Religious Persecution in the Maldives (Original / Archived)

"Woah, lookie here what I found! Once again, a delegation from the Maldives had to face a UN Panel regarding the government's efforts to eliminate racial and religious discrimination. And once again, the spin masters in the Government have resorted to the same old, time-tested, two-faced approach of white-washing the institutionalized racism and repression of minorities at home, and presenting a sunshine and daffodils picture to the outside world. For years, the Maldives has officially pleaded that we are a 'special' case, and therefore rampant persecution of religious minorities in the Maldives should not matter to anyone, and open abuse of basic human rights in this country can be safely ignored. From the initial UN report: "the position of the Government had been to deny the existence of racial discrimination in the country as the Maldives has a small homogenous population.. and the people are of the same origin, pursue the same religion (Islam) and speak the same language (Dhivehi)... We enjoy the same songs, order the same soup, have the same DNA, share the same shoe size.. This argument is extremely offensive, because it suggests that Ismail Mohamed Didi, the young atheist Maldivian, who was driven to suicide last year after long-term harassment by family, friends, workplace and State religious authorities, was not really discriminated against, per se. Heavens no! He just randomly chose to hang himself by the neck from the ATC tower early one dawn. It is disgraceful that the MDP government is also resorting to this bizarre 'we're special and therefore exempt from practicing human rights' argument, by perpetuating the tired old Gayoom myth of a 'unique 100% Muslim society'. Let's be very clear on one thing. The Maldives is NOT a 100% Muslim country. It never was, and never will be. There's no nation in the history of civilization that has achieved a '100%' uniformity in any ideology - simply because it is statistically impossible for a sizable society of thinking humans to all agree on the same idea at any given point. In fact, the very concept of democracy firmly rests on this basic assumption that humans inherently have differences of opinion, and possess the ability to freely change this opinion. Without this free will and the right to an independent opinion, democracy is utterly meaningless. Forget democracy. Free will is the reason why Islam itself has so many schools of thought - because thinking people at various points of history arrived at different conclusions regarding religion and morality, and other thinking people chose to agree or disagree with them."  -- Yameen Rasheed

September 15th 2011

Self-hating Maldivian (Original / Archived)

"I usually try to avoid speaking ill of Maldivians – in case I come across as some kind of elitist snob who’s too good for his own country. As it happens, I love my country. I’m absolutely fascinated by its culture, love the sound of bodu beru, curse myself for my inability to speak, read and write perfect Dhivehi (yet), and am exceedingly proud of my identity as a mahl. In fact, I tend to think of myself as just slightly on the ultra-nationalistic side - and have on occasion quite literally considered adopting the traditional Maldivian sarong as my chosen attire. Regular readers would also know of my love for the traditional fen faivaan. They would also recollect that my first ever Op-Ed piece for a newspaper was titled ‘An Identity for Maldivians’ – lamenting the lack of respect we have for our own cultural heritage. While I quite agree with most of my humanist friends that land borders that divide us into countries are often mere, meaningless imaginary lines - I also think that nationhood is decided more than by just imaginary geographical boundaries, but by a sum of a lot of shared history, values and unique cultural traits that bind us together, and I love that. I appreciate it when some restaurants make their waiters adopt traditional Maldivian style clothing. I love to see women in the traditional, floral dhigu hedhun and libaas; love to see the giant National flag proudly unfurled in the Republican square on a windy day, and I have an insatiable appetite for traditional Maldivian folklore. And I assure you, there’s not a single soul in the country prouder than I am when our President gives a giant one-finger salute to the Mullahs, and goes ahead with his bodu beru dance routine."  -- Yameen Rasheed

September 18th 2011

The Right to Remain Silent (Original / Archived / Archived full article on Minivannews )

"When a non-Muslim man publicly declared his disbelief in religion at a well-attended public lecture by Dr Zakir Naik in May 2010, the preacher on stage reacted with wide-eyed surprise and told his audience he was told the Maldives was a ‘100% Muslim’ society. Now that he knew better, he corrected the statistic to “100% minus 1”. The new statistic did not sit well with certain local Islamist NGOs and by day break there was already a press release demanding the man’s death, failing immediate repentance. After a couple of days of national pandemonium, with multiple online groups demanding the apostate’s murder, order was finally restored when the man publicly declared his faith in Islam and apologised for the “agony” he had caused. However, this delicate balance would be upset again less than two months later when another non-Muslim Maldivian, 25 year old Ismail Mohamed Didi, was discovered hanging from the ATC tower of Male’ International airport. There was a swell of outrage – not because a young man was driven to suicide – but because news websites had published emails he’d sent to aid agencies shortly before his death. Other reactions were even more confounding, with some even suggesting that the whole thing was a devious plot by “enemies of Islam” to undermine National Security – what other motive could possibly have led him to choose to so publicly hang himself from an airport tower? Maybe it was because he had worked there for seven years? Maybe he was unable to handle the combined stigma of an internal workplace investigation, and ostracism by friends and family after he – in his own words – ‘foolishly admitted’ his non-religious views to his friends? Perhaps he thought his life in the Maldives was worthless and devoid of any value if he did not keep paying lip service to a belief he did not feel? Perhaps he should have just exercised his right to remain silent. But he didn’t, and the sacred statistic tragically changed to ‘100% Muslim minus one dead man’. Then in August 2011, reports emerged of a Maldivian girl in a southern atoll who professed to be non-Muslim, once again changing the statistic to ‘100% Muslim minus one dead man, and one deviant girl’."  -- Yameen Rasheed

October 6th 2011

The Humiliation of Fareed (Original / Archived)

"When the Religious Unity regulations turned out to be an anti-climax - with what was supposed to be the Adhalaath party's grand strategy to forever rule the country becoming, instead, a restraining order of sorts - the Mullahs reacted with fury. The Islamic Foundation of the Maldives's favorite speaker, the Jew-bashing, misogynist Mullah Fareed bravely stepped on a prime time MNBC One TV debate show to tear down the regulations, armed with his usual theatrics and bravado... ... only to have his ass handed to him by Ibra, who was defending the regulations. The lesson to IFM is this: Never send a fanatic to debate an academic, or he'll end up looking as ridiculous as Fareed in the below videos."  -- Yameen Rasheed

October 17th 2011

DhiTV fails at Science, Reporting (Original / Archived)

"Misinformation is a plague. Tonight, DhiTV reported that a Swedish "scientist" had made an announcement at a conference in India that suggests Anni was lying about climate change and the threat of sea-level rise. The reporter then plunged into a long report about how 'scientists' now claimed that it is proven beyond doubt that sea-levels are not rising in the Indian Ocean, and if anything, it was actually receding causing islands to grow in size. Resorting to the time tested use of clever weasel words, the report also helpfully added that "some people" were now claiming that President Nasheed was only making these tall claims abroad to boost his personal image. What DhiTV failed to mention was that Nils-Axel Mörner, the said "Swedish Scientist", is a known climate-change denialist - and has been thoroughly discredited by the mainstream scientific community."  -- Yameen Rasheed

November 9th 2011

Sun Online feels threatened by Jesus (Original / Archived)

"A Sun Online magazine report I read today suggests that at least one of its reporters has begun seeing Jesus Christ in SAARC promotional posters hung at airports and other public spots around the country. According to the report, images of Jesus were accompanied by the slogan "building burijus", which is no doubt some kind of secret, subliminal Zionist code for leading pious Maldivians astray. Being a responsible news media, Sun Online protects its readers from Jesus by publishing a poor quality photograph of the offending banner clumsily placed on one side (which I have reproduced here cropped and rotated 90° in Paint, out of concern for your necks) This might seem funny to my average reader, but I assure you this is no laughing matter. As I have previously pointed out on this blog, Maldivians are perhaps the world's truest Christians - being the only population in the world that is seemingly just one visual stimulus away from dropping their Islamic pretenses and following in the path of Jesus, their Lord and Saviour."  -- Yameen Rasheed

November 19th 2011 

Censorship again. (Original / Archived)

"The other day, I alerted Hilath that his website was not accessible. He wasn't in Male' at the time and sounded surprised, and said he would check with his webmaster and respond to me. Sure enough I got the following SMS the next day: "Dhiraagu has sent an e-mail to my webmaster saying my website has been officially blocked due to an offical request from Telecommunication Authority of Maldives" According to him, the email sent by his hosting provider gave no reasons for the ban, nor any word on who originally demanded the censorship. A Sun Online report the next day, however, carried a statement from TAM saying that the ban was carried out at the behest of the Islamic Ministry, which is run by the same Adhaalath party mullahs who are often heavily criticized by Hilath in his posts. This is worrying for several reasons. When a so-called democratic government assumes the power to unilaterally silence its critics without any notice, then you know that tyranny has taken hold. It is even more alarming when you realize that this was no formal media organization or news website. It was a citizen's personal blog that has been shut down by the self-appointed gatekeepers of Islam. Now, Hilath's blog needs no introduction. The man has been pushing the boundaries of free expression in the Maldives, speaking openly about fanatic wahhabism, gay rights, and the all-round hypocrisy of the Maldivian state - a country that has in recent weeks virtually become unadulterated pornography for anyone who gets off on intolerance and bigotry. At least the burnt, smashed and petrol bombed remains of the SAARC monuments in Addu could be explained away as the actions of crazy fundie idiots who are incapable of reasoning, and whose hatred and paranoia is known to explode into all-too-familiar violence and destruction. But when a government run by the Maldivian "Democratic" Party, led by President Nasheed who was once a condemned journalist himself, goes about censoring websites and silencing critics, then it is time to sit up and take notice. This isn't, after all, the first time this government has clamped down on free speech. In the first few months after coming to power, the government shut down a dhivehi language Christian website and several other websites critical of the Adhaalath party mullahs. Apart from this, the government intelligence agencies continue to spy on citizens' personal communications and police personnel have been discovered to anonymously harass ordinary citizen bloggers, including me. Today, the hollowness of Anni's promises of making the Maldives 'a haven for dissident writers' lies exposed. Instead, the message is quite clear: kneel down before the Islamists in the government, or they will gag you and force you into submission. If anyone still has any illusions that we're living in a democratic state, they can lose them now. ~Peace!"  -- Yameen Rasheed

November 26 2011

A toll on liberal voices (Original / Archived / Archived full article on Himal SouthAsian)

"A recent ban on a blog site is just the tip of growing religious intolerance in the Maldives. As the Arab Spring continues to bloom, with Syria and Yemen on the verge of democracy – after Libya, Egypt and Tunisia – there are some who propose that the Arab world can take its inspiration from the tiny island nation of the Maldives. On the surface, the idea is perfect: The Maldives is a predominantly Sunni Muslim nation which successfully toppled a 30-year-old dictatorial regime through a democratic uprising, and peacefully voted in a new government in the country’s first multi-party elections in 2008. The Maldives is also hailed as an example of a Muslim nation which enjoys close relations with the West, including strengthened ties with Israel since 2009. And thanks to its young, charismatic and media-savvy president raising awareness about climate change, the country has been basking in the international spotlight. A series of events in the past months, however, have left deep gashes in that picture-postcard perfection. Behind the façade of democracy, a culture of censorship and intimidation appears to be taking root in the young democracy. On 19 November 2011, the Maldivian government ordered a ban on the personal blog of independent journalist and freelance writer, Ismail ‘Hilath’ Rasheed (www.hilath.com) for allegedly publishing material in contradiction to Islam. One of the Maldives’s most well-known bloggers, Hilath has been critical of Islamic radicalism that has gripped the country in the past decade. By writing frequently about freedom of religion, gay rights and religious intolerance, he had been pushing the envelope in a society where the mainstream media exercises strict self-censorship, and where open discussions on religion are still taboo. According to a statement issued by the Communications Authority of the Maldives, Hilath’s website was blocked at the behest of the Ministry of Islamic Affairs. The Ministry cited Article 10 of the recently introduced regulations under the Religious Unity Act of 1994 which forbids the circulation of any content that is deemed insulting to Allah, the prophet, the Quran, the Sunnah, or Islam, as the legal backing for its move to ban the blog. Hilath believes that the conservative fringe put the ban in place because it could not digest criticism. In 2009, his blog broke a story about male religious extremists keeping underage concubines, which was later confirmed and gained national prominence. ‘I have also been targeted for my liberal Sufi Muslim views,’ says Hilath, ‘because these beliefs go against the mainstream conservative Sunni ideology promoted by the government.’ In response to the ban, Reporters Sans Frontiers (RSF) issued a statement demanding that the ban be overturned, and adding that ‘the government should not give in to the fanatical minority but must do all it can to ensure that the media are free to tackle any subjects they choose. The Religious Unity Act should be changed to allow this.’ "  -- Yameen Rasheed

December 11th 2009

A cowardly attack (Original / Archived)

"Here's how it happened: A group of non-anonymous, vocally liberal, secular-minded Maldivians reached out to each other on Facebook. (And no. I promise I was not involved this time) They had the same concerns as any other thinking, humane and considerate human being in the world would have about the lack of religious freedom and the oppression of minorities in the Maldives. In particular, they took the example of Ismail Mohamed Didi, the young non-Muslim air traffic controller who was driven to suicide in July 2010 after facing immense social pressure from the Maldivian society. Knowing full well the dangers of standing up for something in a society as pig-headed as the Maldives, they nevertheless went ahead and decided to stage a silent protest on the Human Rights day, demanding Freedom of Religion. One of them, Dhona, made a short video to publicize the event, which of course caught the attention of intolerant nitwits, too many of whom have an internet connection. It also caught the eye of 2 of our honourable MPs, who I shall not yet name. Let's just say they both belong to this certain political party that is run by a certain former autocratic ruler. (Yes, I can be very vague.) Anyways. These 2 honorable MPs summoned Dhona via a mutual contact to a 'meeting' on Thursday to discuss what this planned protest was about. By the time she went, however, there was only one of them there. Dhona told the MP exactly what had been planned - a group of Maldivians were going to gather at the Artificial beach, and sit in silent protest for the cause of freedom. The MP, for reasons not entirely clear to me, tried to dissuade her from "organizing" the event, going so far as to quote scripture. It didn't work. On her way back, however, the mutual contact who had been present throughout the conversation told Dhona to avoid going to the assembly, as things could get ugly. He also told her, about 2 days in advance, that they would target Hilath. Oh yeah. When I said the bearded thugs were sent, I did mean they were sent. By who, I do not know. Anyway, the group wasnt' intimidated by the threat and went ahead with the plans. They assembled outside a fast food restaurant near the beach, as the main stage had been booked by a certain political party run by a former dictator. Hilath called me at a few minutes past 4 to say there was a group meeting up and if I was joining. I would have, but I was busy working, so I didn't. Less than 25 minutes later, I'm informed that he's seriously hurt. The hired pseudo-religious thugs arrived out of the blue. Without any provocation or notice, they went straight to attack Hilath, kicking him on the chest and aiming for the head with stones. Dhona had the presence of mind to whip out her phone camera and start taking pictures, even as she was being threatened. Hilath bled a lot, as seen in the pictures. In the struggle that ensued, some others suffered minor injuries. The Police arrived, but by then the thugs had apparently left, but not before issuing more threats. One guy in particular, didn't like the fact that he was being photographed. In fact, he didn't like it to the extent that he has threatened to kill anyone who leaked his photograph. So naturally, here's his photograph."  -- Yameen Rasheed

December 12th 2011

Sun, Sand and Intolerance(original / Archived / Archived full article on Minivannews)

"Saturday’s attack on a group of people silently protesting against religious intolerance is just the latest in a series of orchestrated, well-choreographed acts of violence, hatred and intolerance sweeping across the nation in recent months. Independent journalist and blogger, Ismail ‘Hilath’ Rasheed, whose personal blog was censored by the Maldivian government last month, was among those attacked, sustaining serious injuries to the head. Others who attempted to intervene also suffered minor injuries. Ahmed Hassan, one of the protesters, said, “We planned a silent sit down protest in order to make a statement over the lack of religious freedom for minorities, especially those who aren’t Sunni Muslims.” “We are entering the fourth year of democracy but unfortunately, many basic freedoms and rights have yet to be achieved for all Maldivians. It is unacceptable in this day and age that non-Muslim Maldivians are discriminated against in their own country,” he said. “This is their country as much as ours.” He further added “I would like to say to those that attacked us today that violence is not a part of Islam. Islam is a religion of love, peace and shura (consultation). The unprovoked attack is clearly an act of intimidation. We realize that as our movement grows, we could face many more such attacks, but we will not be backing out. We will not be intimidated into silence.” Local writer and blogger, Aminath Sulthona, who was also among the protesters said, “These are not people worthy of being termed ‘religious’, but they are misguided thugs spreading terror and violence in the name of religion.” Sulthona complained that the police at the scene failed to carry out their duties. “I was being openly threatened and verbally abused in the presence of a police officer who paid no heed to the man… I managed to take pictures of the attackers, but as soon as I got home I started receiving calls saying I would be attacked on the streets if the pictures were leaked.” The injured protester, Hilath, has also previously faced death-threats over his vocal criticism of Islamic radicalism on his personal blog."  -- Yameen Rasheed

December 25th 2011

The Intolerant Constitution (original / Archived / Archived full article on Minivannews)

"12th century copper plate grants found in the Maldives reveal the blood-soaked, painful process of conversion of the Maldives to Islam. The Sultans of the day went through the trouble of bringing in Buddhist monks and beheading them in the capital. The modern day Maldives takes a much simpler route. The 2008 Constitution unilaterally declares all Maldivians to be Sunni Muslim without the courtesy of so much as an opinion poll. Maldivians in general are quite proud of the ‘100% Muslim’ statistic that is frequently bandied about. But it raises a few fundamental questions that are nevertheless extremely taboo in the Maldivian society. At what point of Maldivian history has there ever been a public census on religion? Does the Maldivian state even have the right to unilaterally declare a citizen’s beliefs? Which other Islamic State or Empire in Islam’s 1400 year old history has taken this liberty – and under whose authority?"  -- Yameen Rasheed

[janiedean]

Do you believe in the statement "Islam is a religion of peace"? I think it's a ridiculous statement and I'm sick of people repeating it over and over. Saying it doesn't make it true. I have NOTHING against Muslims as people but the Koran is no better than the Bible when it comes to violence and pretending otherwise is just ridiculous to me. I came across a gifset the other day of a Muslim woman insisting that Islam is "the most feminist religion of all" and it just doesn't make sense to me.

man you’re talking to an atheist so obviously my answer is biased, and I read the bible but not the koran (I read bits not all of it) so my opinion is what it is, but:

given that I think that the bush jr policy of demonizing islam post sept 11th was the dumbest shit he could have done and I’m happily blaming that for 90% of the mess we’re in today and that I don’t think islam is inherently more violent than christianity given that as you said violence in holy books is about that same level

and given that a lot of the koran has been (purposefully or not) misquoted to justify terrorism/fight against terrorism

and given that 90% of the parts of the sharia law we find more abhorrent (ie the ones condemning lgbt+ people, allowing child brides and so on) aren’t actually in the koran but are holy because some interpreters who were also holy men declared them so so a lot of it is - as with christianity - stuff added by the organized part of the religion (like, there isn’t ONE line in the bible openly condemning abortion unless you don’t interpret the sermon of the mount in a specific way but honestly, but according to the catholic church and christianity in its worst incarnations abortion is A SIIIINNNN)

I also think that everyone automatically tries to delete the worst parts of the religion they believe in and the likes and at the same time it’s really hard to question things you were taught since the day you were born. and going like yES BUT THIS LINE IN THE BOOK SAYS THIS doesn’t mean anything because another says the contrary ten pages after and a lot of religious ppl in general haven’t even read either the koran (see: a lot of isis recruits) or the bible (see: most people who tell me that if I read it I’ll convert, then I tell them I did and if they remember the dismembered concubine from the book of kings and they fall from the clouds. aha) and they tend to stick to the parts that are *safer*. ie for christianity everyone moderate says it’s all about the best parts of the gospel (and no one ever remembers my two favorite bits ie when jesus told people who *went around talking in his stead* that he didn’t know them from adam and when he said to one of the two thieves crucified next to him that he had a place in heaven with him hahahahhahahahaha) and never about the worst parts of them or of the old testament (for one, did you know that with the plagues of egypt the pharaoh refused to let moses go because god directly influenced him because he wanted to show how much more powerful he was in comparison to the pharaoh’s false gods, because the poor guy actually would have let moses leave after the sixth plague? YEAH I DIDN’T UNTIL I READ IT EITHER) same as a lot of moderate muslims focus on the best parts of the koran like the peace message and so on and ignore the worst.

now, personally I think that religious books are written in such a way that you can find anything and its contrary inside them. the bible is BOTH old and new testament but even if you decide that the old doesn’t matter because you only follow jesus’s teachings, okay, paul in some of his letters says exactly the contrary of what jesus meant but paul’s letters are in the NT and no one’s taking them out yet. st. augustine is one of the church’s Fathers with the capital F but he came up with predestination (which is a thing that is absolutely not in the NT) and the catholic church ignores it because it eventually rejected that vision. and so on. it’s not surprising that moderate muslims see their religion as a religion of peace and the jihadists use it to fuel terrorism because both interpretations have their valid points. if you’re moderate and want to say muslim religion is peaceful you have your quotes, if you’re not you have others. and so on. so like, I personally think that since to me it’s all about stuff that doesn’t exist it’s all very ridiculous and I honestly can’t conceive killing themselves in the name of someone whose existence you cannot prove never mind that it’s basically the same God just with a different name and a different theological interpretation so like, wtf guys. I don’t think any religion is inherently peaceful or warmongering, I think people make of it what they want and that you need it separated from the state in any case because if that doesn’t happen it’s always going to coincide with someone’s political interests and fanatics will breed more easily.

re the feminism, I have issues in that sense and maybe a clearer opinion tho that might be that there’s things I cannot chalk to cultural relativism to justify, but like: it’s true that in theory islam is not... well, anti-women at its core because let’s all remember that in the middle ages muslim women on paper were better off than europeans unless my high school books lied about that, but it’s true that a lot of the **sharia** law mentioned above is NOT fucking feminist - whatever you mean with it - and I’m honestly... I mean, I get cultural relativism, but like let’s just take the veil. in theory if it’s an imposition it’s not even valid because you have to choose to wear it and it’s all good, but do people choose to wear it in countries like idk taliban afghanistan? do people have a choice about it when it’s not just the veil but covering your whole damned body and you can’t touch someone else’s hand without your husband’s permission? and saying that it’s also valid for men makes me lol because I haven’t seen men under a burqa yet. like everyone has the rights to choose what they wear or not, but when it’s de-humanizing like that (bc burqas are de-humanizing to me sorry) and it’s people who have been taught since they were born that they have to wear it... is that a choice? and like, yeaaah in saudi arabia eight year old girls can marry people thrice their age and if I have a vagina I can’t drive a car, but that’s feminist? like where I teach, one morning each week it’s just women and only women can teach because some don’t/won’t come if men are attending as well and won’t be taught by male teachers. and like... I understand they do it because otherwise they don’t come, but I feel really iffy about accommodating a thing that to me is out of this freaking universe, especially because you get veiled women coming to regular class without a problem. shit like that imo is just backwards and the fact that it happened here fifty years ago as well means that while I won’t judge muslim countries too harshly on that sense... well, we moved past it and we have equality on paper, shouldn’t they have it too? (admittedly I don’t think attaching ideologies to any religion is a good idea because what the hell does FEMINIST RELIGION even mean, catholics are crazy when it comes to worshipping mary so they’re also feminists?? and religion are used to prop up other ideologies every other day so like.... I’m iffy on that period) so on that topic I honestly can’t agree but because I don’t agree that religions are inherently any -ism.

tldr: I think everyone picks and chooses when it comes to religions so saying that it’s THIS OR THAT is ridiculous (christianity from the westboro baptists is not catholicism to say one and they have the same holy book) and that you need to separate them from politics before doing any kind of this discourse. I also don’t agree with this policy of ‘since bush jr policy was BASHING ON ISLAM FOR EVERYTHING’ now we have to do the contrary and ‘EXCUSE ISLAM FOR EVERYTHING’ because it doesn’t help - you have to condemn the bad apples of the bunch and not alienate the good ones, and that means also criticizing where it’s due.

I mean, ffs, it was on the news here the other day but some girl in bologna who came from a muslim family who didn’t want to wear the veil was forcefully shaved by her mother (like shaved all her hair) and she told her teachers saying she didn’t want to live with them anymore because they were pushing the veil and the religion on her and she didn’t want that, and now she’s with the social services. she’s fourteen. that’s feminist? I don’t... really think so. and the fact that I’m atheist and I don’t get it from the pov of a religious person doesn’t mean that I can’t say it’s fucked up when it’s fucked up.

[sankysaystuff]

The Philia to Islamophobia

Large, prejudiced, bigoted sectarian hatred is always completely bad for any society, there is absolutely nothing worse than going around hating people you have never met just based on their affiliations or beliefs and that is why our strong collective condemnation of people we categorise as Islamophobic or Xenophobic is fundamentally flawed. This paradox is as bad as it gets.

Look, the ideas of Liberty, Fraternity and Equality do seem very shiny and bright and they certainly paint a picture of green meadows with singing birds and what not, but here in the real world, some brazen harsh truths nest in every nook. I have encountered both, numerous Islamophobics and people who turn crimson even if they hear of one. One thing they both usually share is the zeal with which they defend their respective ideologies, the latter kind peering down at the former from high up the moral mountain. So, let’s take a minute and level the ground.

In the entirety of world history, the only constant has been violence, it comes in all possible shapes and sizes but one that strikes the most is religion-based violence, I mean whether due to the mere irony of it or its capacity to mobilise the masses it has always been the crown jewel of all violence. Today almost a quarter of the world’s population is Muslim and in fact it is expected that Islam will soon take over Christianity in terms of number of followers, if you are absolutely indifferent to this idea you- my friend are a very good person but if you feel alarmed at this proposition you are a pretty wise person. Cause this expansionism is standing on the shoulders of millions and millions of headless corpses. Whether it is the Zoroastrians and Parsis of the original Egypt and Iran being butchered to extinction back in 8th and 10th CE or the innocent children dying today in Europe, Middle East, India, Sri Lanka, US, Africa they are all costs of this expansionism. The long history of “be a Muslim or be beheaded” is what has robbed the world of its innocence. There may have been a time when this was the only reality of the world and even religions like Christianity did often resort to violence with the Roman Church and its Knights but that was a thing of the past, continuing with this custom out here in the 21st Century is what makes Islamophobia not a cynic’s cry but a sad truth.

The argument that terror has no religion is I think a bedtime fable. This is equivalent to saying Maoism is not the communist way, but it just so happened that it was used by the followers of Marx’s doctrine to establish communist regimes. Islam may or may not in ideology have anything to with what is happening in its name today, I do not know for I am not an Imam, but that does not exempt it from this sin. Sri Aurobindo said way back that a religion has four parts one of which is its scriptures and another is the rituals and practices and the fact is that a large number of followers of Islam have been practicing violence since a really long time, killing an precedented number of people all around the globe, so it is wrong for it to not even take responsibility for all of it. The Islamic fundamentalism is being called such for a reason. The idea of a Muslim Caliphate which is the goal of IS, how Taliban gained this much popularity in Afghanistan, Boko Harem’s doings in Africa these are just a few examples out of many. The time is just at our doorstep when such militancy will be seen in other religions as a response to all of this and it is a testament to the patience and values those and people who follow them that it hasn’t happened yet. Cause when it does there is absolutely no power in the world that can save it from the chaos that will reign then.

We already have so many reasons to fight in the world, this is one that we really do not need and it is Muslims and only Muslims who can change that. Even today many of the liberal or moderate followers of Islam who albeit do not share the passion for violence of the men and women fighting in their god’s name, they do not lack affinity to the cause, somewhere down the hearts there is a rampant feeling of wanting a Muslim majority, of serving the religion over country they reside in. Like the moderate communists are sympathetic to the cause of Maoists but disagree with their means, the Muslims share the plights of their brothers across so if push comes to shove in their own we know where most are going to fall. Arab countries hold government level conferences like Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in which heads of the governments like UAE, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan participate. Wherever they have a chance, they have a majority they do thwart other religions and establish an Islamic State so why would any person in any country not be afraid of having a Muslim majority in their country?

While being a follower of any religion does not make you good or bad and in no way calls for discrimination and I have met and known truly great human beings who follow Islam to the letter but at the same time everybody has to realise that if somebody has an underlying fear of Islam, it is not unfounded. There is no need to shun those people or discriminate them either, they are not bigoted or paranoid but just looking out for themselves. The Muslims on the other hand have a moral obligation to the world to unanimously condemn all ideas of Islamic dominance even in the Muslim dominated countries, they have to introspect and remove the deep seated divide, the lust to do what their forefathers could not, irrespective of the fact that their desired methods are violent or not. The Imams, the Maulvis, the common folk have to let go of all of these ideas and solidarity that is transcending even basic human rights, cause even though I haven’t read the Holy Quran I have complete faith in Allah that he would never want this.

Only when this happens, the Philia to Islamophobia would become bigoted and unreasoned and incorrect.

[infolibrary]

The origins of ISIS | KickassFacts.com

New Post has been published on http://www.infolibrary.net/the-origins-of-isis-kickassfacts-com/

The origins of ISIS | KickassFacts.com

Iraq before the invasion

Iraq was a mess. The Iran-Iraq war destroyed the economy, killed lots of people and left people impoverished. The first Gulf War resulted in mass destruction and worse oppression (and more poverty). The 1990s and its sanctions regime was devastating, with a breakdown of services and death of countless children through preventable diseases. Like most Arab regimes, order was enforced by terror. There had been many efforts to steer the government toward something better, including ideas like communism or democracy, but all these reformers were jailed, exiled, or killed. That pretty much left Islamists as the only alternative.

Instability was baked-in

Iraq’s borders are the result of colonial secret deals, and were never intended to serve as independent nations. Back then, it was standard practice to muddle-up the ethnicities in order to “divide and rule” – a united people would more easily oppose colonialism. But this made Iraq inherently unstable, with a Sunni Muslim minority (led by the Saddam Hussein-led Baathist Party) ruling brutally over a Shiite majority.

So the invasion happened

Let’s skip the origins, reasons and motivations of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The point is, the war happened. The US employed a relatively small force, knowing full well that Saddam’s regime, like so many dictatorships, had a very weak hold on power. Take out the leaders, put someone else in charge.

Things didn’t go according to plan

The war was a disaster. Any idea of replacing Saddam proved delusional, because instead of just chopping off the head the whole thing just died. That is to say, the state completely collapsed pretty much overnight, leaving Iraq a failed state. Mass looting, mass insanity, mass destruction and wide-scale resistance. USA ended up with a blank state instead of a functioning nation, and a growing insurgency.

  The insurgency begins

Reversing the power balance in Iraq by putting the Shiites in charge wasn’t direct US policy. The idea was to create more democratic institutions and create a fair, secular society was the ideal, but the Sunnis did not like what was happening, and were the core of the insurgency. It was violent and brutal, involving intense combat in places like Fallujah. It’s worth noting that the Americans weren’t loved by the Shiites either; many Shiite areas were no-go for US forces. It was a bloody mess.

It wasn’t just about killing

American forces engaged in plenty of combat in Iraq, definitely. But in addition, there were mass roundups of insurgents and suspected insurgents and insurgent sympathizers. So many people that the new prison system was overwhelmed and badly organized. The horrors of Abu Ghraib led to new camps being set up and prisoners being sent elsewhere. One place of concentration was Camp Bucca, located near the border with Kuwait. Prisoners were jammed in there but, in an effort to avoid another Abu Ghraib, were given a bit more independence. Indeed it was held up as an example of the right way to run such a facility.

So six guys walk into a prison camp…

The hombres pictured here were all at Bucca. They never would have all met if it weren’t for the camp. While there, well, they kind of laid the groundwork for a direction for the Iraqi insurgency; one that would attract Sunnis across the land and fire them with a global vision, and would unite the many rebel factions under one roof. Eventually, out in the field, they were able to take control of Iraqi Al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s unit after he had an unfortunate encounter with a pair of 500-pound bombs in 2004. At first they weren’t very impressive; just another one of Iraq’s dreary roster of would-be leaders.

Interesting note: At least three of those guys previously served in Saddam’s army, which was far from Islamist. This leads some to wonder whether the whole pious Muslim thing is a front, a marketing strategy, a fraud to gain power.

Meanwhile, among the Shiites…

After Iraq collapsed, the long-oppressed Shiite community took up arms. Now the US tried to create a stable multi-faith and multi-ethnic federal government, but the parties simply could not get along. Yes there was a government with a military (lavishly-equipped thanks to USA), but the Shiites depended on their own militias, which sometimes fought the Americans, sometimes helped them, were very cozy with Iran in many cases, oh and operating death squads that killed a whole bunch of Sunnis, something that helped stir up Sunni anger at the Shiites (which in turn would help feed support for ISIS).

And meanwhile, up north…

The Kurds are a minority of somewhat mysterious origins who occupy a large area that encompasses northern Iraq, northern Syria, northwest Iran and a good chunk of Turkey. They’ve been fighting for their independence for generations and have been subject to many massacres. In the wake of the first Gulf War, they attained a quasi-independence that involves a government, an economy, a tough and efficient army but no international recognition and plenty of hostility from neighboring countries (especially Turkey) who swear they’ll never allow an independent Kurdistan. For the most part the Kurds kept their distance from the Iraqi mess after Saddam’s government collapsed.

Suddenly it was ON

ISIS hadn’t accomplished all that much in Iraq. But in 2011, the Arab Spring happened. Protests happened across the region, including in neighboring Syria. The Assad dictatorship cracked down, the protesters became rebels, and then Syria pretty much collapsed. The border ceased to exist and wide areas basically had no government. Huge power vacuum. So over in Iraq, the leaders of ISIS figure they can make some gains over there. They send over as many guys as they can, and with the help of other Islamist rebels, and in no time flat, in the absence of any serious opposition, they occupy themselves a sizeable bit of territory. Now they’re not just a secret bunch of terrorists, they’re the beginnings of a country, with a territory to govern. From there, things start to accelerate pretty fast.

So who are these guys?

Basically, for the past 40-ish years, Islamist terrorist and fighters have been growing in number. You can trace them back to Egypt in the 50s, Israel in the 60s, and especially Afghanistan in the 80s and beyond. By 2012 this had created a very large number of well-trained, well-experienced, hardened, tough terrorists. Events in Syria drew them like moths to a flame. Very quickly they expanded, though no one is quite sure of their numbers. Some say ISIS has 25,000 soldiers, while other estimates range as high as 250,000. They are attracting foreign fighters all the time, as well as local guys. And from Syria they launched a surprise attack against the forces in Iraq that were disunited and unprepared, seizing even more territory. At one point they were at the gates of Baghdad and seemed poised to capture it. They were held back, but they did manage to seize vast amounts of American military hardware.

Here’s what makes ISIS so scary

ISIS is very different from its predecessors in Afghanistan, Gaza or wherever. It isn’t just using fundamentalist Islam as a rallying cry, it’s branding itself as the birth, on earth, of the holy successor to the nation created by the Prophet Mohammad. If you’re an Islamic radical, you are required to swear loyalty to this nation and fight for it. You have to understand, these guys are excited by ISIS. A glorious new Islamic empire is going to be born and the world is going to be cleansed of all us unbelievers. This is more than mere nationalism or ideology, it’s something approaching religious ecstasy. ISIS is cropping up in Libya, Egypt, they’re fighting Hamas in Gaza, they’re threatening to overtake the Taliban in Afghanistan.

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[republicstandard]

Hate, Not Hope: BBC And British Press Signal Boost Communist Activists

Once upon a time, the subversive elements in society preferred to stay hidden and effect their machinations through clandestine means. Those days are long over. Hope Not Hate is a hard-left organization set up with taxpayer money to oppose extremism, wherever it may be. As we all know by now, the best way to confront radicalization and promote liberty is to adopt communism as quickly as possible. Hope Not Hate are here to help us do just that.

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With the annual release of their report entitled State of Hate (and available for a donation of at least £6.50), Hope Not Hate provide your favorite left-wing bloggers and talking heads with much-needed ammunition against the evils of all extremism so long as the extremism is "right wing" in origin and does not pray towards from Mecca.

Far-right moving increasingly online as traditional groups wither: meaty new “State of Hate” report from @hopenothate https://t.co/bF1makchIx

— Dominic Casciani (@BBCDomC) March 2, 2018

Hope not Hate are an extreme left organisation. Why don't you mention this in the article? Here they are calling themselves the red army https://t.co/Q1N83I3HbQ

— David (@DavidBowmanK) March 2, 2018

Despite claiming to be an opponent of all extremist activity Hope Not Hate are resolute in ignoring Islamic terrorism, hate crimes towards the Kuffar, female genital mutilation, and anti-Semitism. In a piece published in The Guardian, Hope Not Hate's Matthew Collins -who styles himself as Head of Research- beats the fear-drum.

"There’s no knowing or guessing from where the next far-right terror attack will come. It could come from a peripheral member of any number of groups that are active in the UK. It could come from another Darren Osborne. We do not even know which particular or pre-eminent ideology it is that will inspire or encourage it. Will it be anti-Muslim; antisemitic; or against “snowflakes”? Or will it be killing for the sake of hate killing?"

Considering Collins is Head of Research for Hope Not Hate, it does not appear that he actually knows anything of note at all. He doesn't know who is dangerous, he doesn't know why they are dangerous, or to whom. He does know that they are out there and that is enough for Chicken Little to yell that the sky is indeed falling and the clouds look awfully like swastikas today.

Collins is allegedly a former far-righter himself, though he quickly changed his tune to the point of uncritically worshipping Stalin's Red Army. It is strange how far people will go to make amends for their discarded opinions.

Cretin, do you understand context? The Red Army defeated the Nazis. Is that why you hate them?

— Matthew Collins (@MattHopeNotHate) March 2, 2018

While happy to proclaim that Stalin was just misunderstood, you will find no critique from Matthew Collins about Islam. He writes in this same Guardian piece:

"A look at the thousands of angry white men on British social media gives a fair indication that the temperature of fear, hatred, and misunderstanding driven by social media and far-right fake news and unchecked paranoia is palpable and increasing."

The arrogance of the British Left is quite something. So feeble minded are White Britons that social media and fake news is enough to turn people into Nazis. Nevermind that rise in populism and nationalist politics across the planet cannot be explained by social media and fake news. Nevermind that Britain has unofficial blasphemy laws protecting Islam alone, or that thousands of cases of FGM have gone unpunished in the country. Nevermind that Sharia patrols walk the streets of towns defining parts of England as the property of Islam. Nevermind that uncontrolled immigration has led to strained public services, a lack of social housing and seismic demographic change that has overturned the nature of Britain itself within two generations. It's all fake news to Hope Not Hate's Pravda reality.

A bunch of Nazis are protesting outside the BBC in #Manchester this Sunday about the "islamification" of the BBC. No doubt they will pause for Songs of Praise.

— Matthew Collins (@MattHopeNotHate) March 1, 2018

In a morally relativistic and post-modern world, it is impossible for any on the left to consider that some cultures are superior to others. Witness Russell Brand telling Sam Harris that he couldn't decide whether sending his own daughters to be instructed by the Taliban in Afghanistan is a bad idea or not because they are a different culture. Despite the Taliban not being an Afghan culture themselves, and therefore as an interloping society oppressing the native people, the mind of the leftist stops working once you point out that Islam is not a monolith just as not all Muslims are terrorists. This is a moribund and spineless form of leftism promoted by Hope Not Hate and propped up here by The Guardian, the BBC and of course, Lizzie Dearden in the Independent.

Today she 'reports':

"Far-right extremists are preparing for what they believe is a “war against Islam”, a report has warned in the wake of police alerts over attempted attacks.

Hope Not Hate’s annual report forecast further violence emanating from various factions following the Finsbury Park terror attack on Muslims and neo-Nazi murder of Labour MP Jo Cox.

Nick Lowles, chief executive of the campaign group, said that with the combination of “civil war” rhetoric and growing online hatred, “we must be prepared for more terrorist plots and use of extreme violence from the far-right for the foreseeable future”."

I am getting used to being prescient with my predictions. This one was proven within 12 hours of publishing yesterday's piece on Tommy Robinson's Twitter ban.

At the tail end of that piece, I wrote the following:

"Harriet Agerholm and Lizzie Dearden of The Independent will keep peddling the lie that the far right is a far greater problem for the UK than Islam- despite the evidence to the contrary. With the support of the British establishment, media and social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook will continue to gag those who tell the truth.

For some reason, these alleged journalists are unable to do the basic due diligence of verifying statistics or providing citations, but are rewarded with high paying jobs and protection from social media platforms."

I wish to express my thanks to Lizzie Dearden and The Independent for behaving exactly as predicted.

Far right violence is surging. Read this thread from @HopeNotHate CEO @Lowles_Nick for the details on our new State of Hate report. ⬇️ ⬇️ ⬇️ https://t.co/z6goXU4Mgn

— HOPE not hate (@hopenothate) March 2, 2018

Yes, we read all about the four unspecified far-right terror plots Scotland Yard allegedly stopped last year- is that a surge? If it is, then it can only be the case that Hope Not Hate are deliberately avoiding paying attention to other kinds of violence which have surged far more. In this case, we can accurately describe Hope Not Hate as state-funded hard-left activists. If we can call them state-funded hard left activists we must ask why their founder Nick Lowles published articles with the socialist group who supported George Galloway, a former politician who has supported every Islamic terrorist group and dictator available, and many who were not.

It goes without saying that Hope Not Hate are also heavily funded by the Open Society of George Soros- Hope Not Hate fulfill their side of the bargain by attacking Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian premier who has the temerity to defy Soros and declare that borders are a good thing.

With this funding Hope Not Hate have been able to set up student groups across the country to further spread their communism.

"But Lowles, himself an ex Jewish student activist, is not against revisionism in general. He is not against Israelis dismissing the Palestinian holocaust - he has no quarrel with Nakba denial. Nor does he oppose the deniers of the Arminian Holocaust. And for some reason, HOPE not hate is also strangely silent about the Ukrainian holocaust, the  Holodomor - that according to prominent Israeli Zionist writer Sever Plocker and others, was largely inflicted by Stalin’s Jews. Nick Lowles and ‘HOPE not hate’ are completely uninterested in the denial of any holocaust – any, that is, except one." -  Gilad Atzmon

Who recognizes all holocausts except the one perpetrated by communists? MORE communists.

Hope Not Hate, far from being interested in opposing extremism, have attempted to map the Counter-Jihad of people and groups opposed to Islamic extremism. Though since removed from their site -as is all mention of Islam save for four articles on combatting Islamophobia- Knowles and Collins saw no problem with critiquing opponents of Jihad as 'neoconservatives' which is as inaccurate as it is possible to get while still tarring people with ideologies you don't like. I'll call Hope Not Hate communists because their actions and beliefs- as we will see next. Though Hope Not Hate can delete their pages, the internet never forgets.

In a bizarre exposition of his beliefs, Nick Knowles attempts to link Anders Brevik -the far-right killer of liberal teens in Norway- to some broader counter-Jihad movement. As Denmark's Europe News pointed out, this was a lie. Knowles writes further:

"The ideas of the ‘Counter-Jihad’ movement are largely based around the belief that Islam poses a serious threat to Western civilization. Many of its adherents also fail to distinguish between the hardline radical Islamists, such as Al-Muhajiroun, and the overwhelming majority of Muslims who reject these extremist views and just want to live quietly and in peace. Immigration and multiculturalism are seen by many as the Trojan Horses through which Islam is gaining a foothold in the West.

Their numbers are numerically small but their influence is much bigger. Their anti-Muslim rhetoric poisons the political discourse, sometimes with deadly effect.

On every level, the ‘Counter-Jihad’ movement is one that we cannot afford to ignore. For this reason, we have produced this ‘Counter-Jihad’ report and are establishing the ‘Counter-Jihad’ Monitoring Unit."

Despite cucking so hard for Islam, Knowles himself was deplatformed by students even further left than he is- so I will not go so far as to say that Hope Not Hate have never criticized Islamic extremism- they just don't do so anymore, and any attention paid to the Religion of Peace was token, half-hearted and weak. Knowles finds it much easier to criticize the people who are willing to do the difficult but necessary work of criticizing Islam rather than live his life according to consistent principles.

As you have seen, Hope Not Hate have found themselves an easy gig denouncing racists on social media and providing ideological credence for the mewling of liberal journalists. It is weakness incarnate, cowardice and pure self serving- but what do you expect? It is far too late in the day for us to start believing communists care about actual people- Britain, as it stands, is on a knife edge as the concerns of the majority go unheard. To be concerned with immigration is racist, according to Hope Not Hate. It is Islamophobic to notice gangs of Pakistani rapists according to Hope Not Hate. Who knows what Hope Not Hate would say about the more than 400 ISIS combat veterans currently on the streets of Britain. Thousands of jihadis are also in the country, which by any measure you like to apply outweigh the threat of far-right groups like National Action. We can only imagine what Hope Not Hate would say, as their lips are firmly sealed unless the evil-doer is White.

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This would be hypocrisy if Hope Not Hate were not communists. To point to the murderers Thomas Mair and Darren Osborne as some expression of an undetectable-yet-deep-rooted far-right terrorist network that is more worthy of the attention of the nation than all the problems that come with Islam is nothing short bare faced lies and disinformation. It is a communist agenda, it is an anti-White agenda, and it is supported by incredibly powerful people at home and abroad.

The lies of Hope Not Hate can be bought by George Soros, the BBC, The Guardian, and The Independent. The truth is not for sale at any price.

Thank you for reading Republic Standard. We publish this magazine and the Freebird Forum because we believe in free speech- but it doesn't come cheap! Will you make a small donation towards our running costs? You can make a difference by clicking here.

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[superjollystrangerstudentst-blog]

READER-RESPONSE BLOG

Anya’s Ghost

This book is about a girl named Anya who is not popular in or school , self-conscious about her body , and she doesn't want to try to fit in at school anymore. She met a dead girl one day when she took a ditched school and walked through a nearby forest , and ended up falling down a well. When she landed in the well she met a girl who has been dead for about 90 years because of a guy who apparently murdered her and no one ended up hearing her so she died in that well. The ghost started becoming more closer to Anya , even followed her home , at school and started helping her on tests , school work . Emily the ghost started to control Anya's life , get her into trouble. Anya eventually made Emily fall back into the well,and told the school to cover up the well Emily was in.

      Anya was a character that was very self-confident , she didn't like anything about herself and always complained. She never loved her body but instead wanted to changed her appearance. She was unpopular in her New England private school , didn't have much friends. She cared what other people , the society thought of her that it made her self-conscious and didn't decide thing's for herself. Anya sometimes skipped school ,and didn't put much effort into her classes and that's why she never got good grades at school.

         I would recommended this book to someone because it has eye-catching pictures , the colors make you want to open the book and start to look through it. The book thoroughly had a good opener and conclusion and talked about events that happened in detail. The book had a good conclusion and it didn't make you think , "why did they end it like that" ,and but made you think that the book ended off in a good way.

       In my opinion,Anya remind's me a lot of people in society.Since Anya was a non-popular girl and she didn't really have much friends. Many of them care what other people think of them,and but in reality you weren't born to please other people,god didn't create you for other people to like you,because you'll have a lot of people who dislike you,it's either they don't have something that you have and or they are jealous of either how pretty you are or how financially stable you are. Even if you mind your own business they would still try to find a way to bring you down and or say a lie about you.

I am Malala:The Girl who stood up for education and was shot by the Taliban

This book is a non-fiction book which tells a tail about a girl named Malala who was shot by the Taliban when she got off a school bus that came from her school and two of her other friends were shot as well. Malala tells her tail on which she was shot by the Taliban. She recovered for those few months and after she healed how she wanted to help other young women who are being shot by the Taliban and how she wants to make a change. And how she's reached across other people who are astonished how she survived, and she inspired other girls too and how she's become an inspirational symbol of inspiration,bravery and but her survival instilled educators with courage.

I'm still reading the book and but that's basically the whole message of this book.

So, far I enjoyed this book , me as a Muslim I can really relate to Malala's viewpoints, and the certain practices as a Muslim her and her family must follow. It makes you re-create the whole scene that has happened to Malala , what she must have went through and her family to deal with the tragic event that has happened to her. This book makes you feel sad but yet happy because even though she got shot in the head by the Taliban she didn't just stop and rest when she recovered from her wound but she fought for her rights and freedom. Malala is a girl who fought for her rights and never hesitated.

I would recommend this book to another person because it's a very eye-catching story and it tells the tale in which she told and it has interesting events that take place that would make you wanting to read more of the book. Especially if your a girl who's reading it you would relate more because she's fighting for the rights of women who have been shot or in the near future could be shot. I think I would want to read more books from Malala because this is the first book I've read from her and it touched me and I know her other books would be just as good.

The Nobody

This book starts off with a stranger coming into a tiny,isolated fishing village of Large Mouth and causes serious confusion as to why he even came to stay in this area. He came to the village with wearing a weird costume consisting of wearing bandages head to toe,wearing weird goggles and he stayed at the residence in the slept town's motel. The village hears of his tragic story of his past and how he succumb a accident that left him damaged from all over. They felt bad for him and how he ended up this way and how he's going to be left with this image for life. The town decides to treat him as they would treat other people in the town and even though he may have covered up something from his past and hasn't completely told the whole story to his past.

I think this book overall is really mysterious because how the Stranger isin't who he really said he was ,and how the book is suspenseful because you want to read more , find how what kind of person the stranger is and who he really is. The author is effective because we eventually find out that the stranger is a guy who's really a ghost because when they shoot him at the end at the lake , they find no blood , don't find his body so everyone thinks that he wasn't a real human and so the author does portray what he wanted to because we find out what kind of person he was and how he was lying front the start when he was talking about his past.

I would recommend this book to someone because it is really mysterious,it has a good plot , images , colors that make the book stand out and make you want to read it. This book has a good setting because it's in a small village where there's not a lot of people living there , everyone know's each other so that's why they butted into The Nobody's past to find out what kind of guy he is and what kind of person they're going to have living in their village. The Nobody had a good ending because at the end we found of the suspense that we wanted to find out of what kind of person The Nobody was and how he wasn't who the villagers expected but felt that something was off about him and no one in the village should approach him.

yummy

This book is about a young 11 year old boy named Yummy who lived in Chicago ,in a neighborhood called Roseland. He belonged to a gang called the Black Disciples. His neighborhood was full of gangs and it was even unsafe to step outside your door. They told him to prove himself worthy of the gang and told him to shoot at a group of gang rival members. He shot and hit someone who wasn't the target. His neighborhood friend Shavon Dean got hit with one bullet and died. Yummy felt terrible about it , the gang told him to hide himself for a few days because the Police were looking for him and wanted signs of him where all over his neighborhood. His so ''called" gang members took him to a railroad track to see a guy named monster , but they sabotaged him and instead ended up killing him.

The character Yummy ,is a young boy who is scared but also has no choice. He is a boy who just caught up with a wrong group of people and if he had things to keep him occupied like soccer classes, or anything else he would enjoy he wouldn't be caught up with the bad guys. Yummy in the inside is an innocent kid who just shot the young girl because the gang told him to and he got influenced but then afterwards felt awful and regretful that he has shot his childhood friend. He just got into the wrong group of people, didn't have another other choices of what to do but be outside all day ,because he never played outside like other kids but did criminal acts.

Out of 10 i would rate this book a 8 because it has eye-catching graphics that catch your attention even though there black and white. This book reminds you of a real life scenario of people getting caught up with a bad group of people , getting a consequence because of it. It teaches you a lesson of not to get into this kind of scenario because it could end up you in jail or you could die from it. This book has a good starting and a good ending from what could happen to you if you end up being in a gang or with bad influences.

March:Book Two

This book is about segregation,how white people ruled black people and tortured them,physically and mentally abused them .Black people weren't allowed to sit on the same side as white people on the bus , if they found them on any property that said "whites only" then they would get beat up and or killed in different circumstances. Violence was a serious problem back then , many people didn't get justice because back then they would either kill you or near you if you file a police report against them. They wouldn't care about what you thought ,didn't listen to what you had to say but just got you jailed. But as the violence got worse,our protests became more aggressive.

      The author of the book clearly wanted to send a message of segregation, how it's still going on in parts of the world. Its a Serious problem and people shouldn't be treated like animals because of their race. They don't get justice and the police wouldn't get charged for beating them or murdering them. Since the police is in a higher position then the person who got killed then they wouldn't get justice and a fair trial and at the end the police officer wouldn't get convicted.

       This book show's  segregation back then and how sad it was now to see how Black's were treated back then. Black activists wanted to have freedom, to stop racism and black's being treated unfairly and like animals. They do non-violent protests, because that's what they were famous for , and why would they copy White's who are acting violent towards them that sane why as them , they are trying to send a message and that is that they do non-violent protests and show peace towards the other side. Martin Luther King was a figure of holding non-violent protests, he believed that is was one of the ways that he and other activists like him can show that non-violent protests is a weapon against and racist and unjust society.

     An Example of my own that's happening today is young black men dying because of police brutality, police killing them just because they're black and they think they'll have a weapon on them. A real scenario that happened in Toronto that was on the news was about a young black male named Dafonte Miller,19 who was brutally beaten and blinded in his left eye. On the day that this happened , Dafonte , his friends were walking down Erickson Drive,in Whitby ,were heading to another friends house when two men tried to confront them and began chasing them with a metal pipe. His friends managed to escape but he was left behind , was repeatedly hit with a metal pipe , they eventually had to remove his left eye ,and he also suffered a broken nose,jaw and wrist. It was considered the 2 men committed this act based on his race and because he's a young black male. They think every black male are armed, are dangerous , accuse them of having a weapon on them ,and that's why many of them have been killed.

The link to the article of the young black man Dafonte Miller who was brutally beaten

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/siu-charges-toronto-police-officer-1.4209353

This book overall was shocking yet really good because it explained , showed how black people survived when their was segregation, and how they were treated and what they had to deal with in a day to day basis. Many whites owned lands,the police, the government, courtrooms,the law,the armed forces and the press. Also , the political system denied blacks the right to vote. The graphics, the many beatings that was going on in the book clearly showed how helpless black people were and had to suffer being treated poorly by white people.

I am Nujood,Age 10 and Divorced 

Characterization 3.1, 3.2, 3.3 added all together (Plot development & setting and mood

 This book, “I am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced takes place in Yemen, in a rustic village called Khardji, it’s a small, remote, in a rural area. The story takes place in a rustic village called Khardji, Yemen.  Nujood was forced by her father one day to marry a man who was three times her age, she was sent away from her family, was forced to live with her husband and his family, in an isolated village in rural Yemen. When she was living with them she suffered from physical and emotional abuse from her mother-in-law daily and at night she had to deal with her abusive husband. On the day of their wedding night he took Nujood's virginity away at just 10 years old when her dad specially told him to wait until her first period. I think this setting is essential because this story line that happened to Nujood happens to many kids around the world , who get an arranged marriage at a really young age to a guy 20 times or 30 times their age, and the story line , the theme, plot wouldn't change at all. The main conflict is, Person Vs. Other, because Nujood has to fight over her so called husband so she can win over him and get the divorce. The problem will be solved by Nujood, one day running from her husband’s house and going for local people who can help her, and finalize the divorce. I think that, because Nujood is a courageous person, even though she has hardships with her in-laws she still fights for her rights and doesn’t stop. I think the plots and subplots make sense, the question, I want to ask is what happened to Nujood’s life after she got the divorce, if she went to school, and what is she doing now to help other young girls like her who are in a current relationship with a man who’s 2 times or 3 times their age. I think I wouldn’t change any parts of the story , because it’s really effective and makes the reader visualize how Nujood must have felt being all alone in a strangers house and what she went through while living there. It has breathtaking and dramatic writing that would make the reader emotional which is what the author may have wanted to do and make some connections to Nujood.

              The narrator of this book is Nujood, it was really effective with making her the narrator because you get every single detail, information that leads to events in a first person view, we can feel a better emotion by just reading through her story and we can feel her trauma, how distressed she was and the words that she used were really powerful and touching. 

           The Structure of the book affects the story because various flashbacks of what happened to Nujood when she lived with her husband, many parts were unbearable and saddening. Around the world many underage kids who are children are forced to get an arraigned marriage. Countries such as;India, Nigeria, Mexico, Uganda, Egypt, and many more. Most of the time it’s because the family is financially unstable, needs their child's family to help them out, and or they don't want to take care of the child anymore and sells them to another country. In World Issues, I watched a documentary of girls from countries around the world being sold off to another family, in an arraigned marriage. There was a girl who was from Pakistan, her parents sold her off, the family where the child was being sold off too got dowry (money from their in- laws), they used it to buy their son a used truck. That young girl later became pregnant with a boy, and had to deal with the suffering at such a young stage.  

          How I feel when I read this book is sad, astonished  because a girl like Nujood who had to deal with stress, pain, torture, verbal abuse, at such a young age when she didn't do anything to deserve this from what her only family did to her. At such a young age she dealt with a tremendous event, had to go through many obstacles to get justice and to finalize her divorce was a huge hassle. She probably felt betrayal from her family, and but she had to survive, not lose but to get the rights she deserved. The saddest part of this book was when Nujood , her husband who she got an arraigned marriage to took her virginity from her when she was only ten years old, it must have been traumatizing for her and but she was all alone in a strangers house with no one to talk too. 

[ramrodd]

Plot In Biblical Narrative

COMMENTARY:

I endorse this particular ministry and video. At some point, I will probably put a little money into it because I see it as a shrewed investment in the quality of my life, moving forwarad, in an enlightened self-interest kind of way.  

Christianity is an exercise in Enlightened Self- Interest. Anyone who has read Ayn Rand will recognize her formulation in this, that being "rational self-interest". As a sound bite, I stipulate to it's facial qualities. How that plays out ethically is at the core of philosophy as an inquiry into what we know, ethics being an element of philosophy, philosophy being the "infinite game" and ethics being a "finite game" subset to philosophy.  This is the moral context of "rational self-interest". This context contains "Trust" as a finite dimension.

Rand's system of thought, such as it is, represents itself as a creature of philosophy as the infinite game. In Rand's mind, her world view is perfectly coincident with "Eternal Truth" in what I would characterize as Platonic in nature, but she wouldn't agree. I have no way of knowing how she would construct this same relationship with grammer that coincides with any reality beyond it's dictionary meaning and Rand's ecology of the mind.  However, I think she would stipulate to the proposition that her thinking represented "Eternal Truth" in an unalienable kind of way. Whatever that means. In any event, that is the market place of ideas and the ethical arena she proposes to dominate with rational self-interest as she defines it, "rational" being the necessary common denominator. This is true of practically any alleged philosopher who appeals to "Reason" as their abiding muse.

As a Christian, I can stipulate to Philosophy as an infinite game as defined by James Carse in "Finite and Infintie Games". Epistemologically, Plato's theory of the Forms is a useful way to understand the Mind of The One, Or Mind. Or The One.  If you see what I mean. Socrates is all about "rational self-interest" as a way to guide personal behavior if you are Iago and you want to be able to fuck up the system to your advatage and/or amusement.  Of course, Iago was as perfectly self-aware as Jesus was in a Satanic doppleganger kind of way. Socrates was teaching insurrection, purposefully, in much the same way Newt Gingrich has been doing it since before he got into politics. One of the things you do in Counter-Intelligence and Counter-Insurgency is to spot the people doing this kind of thing, how Gingrich and Bannon accumulate power.  It's what Cornelius is describing in the Gospel of Mark: how does Jesus do the things He does and to what purpose?  In the case of Jesus, the Romans considered him to be pretty benign and to Herod, He was sort of a Cat Steven's kind of dog and pony show.  Jews didn't generally practice magic, it being a stoning offense and all, but here was this guru with more women around Him than you could shake a stick at, doing magic tricks.  And he, Herod, had steady reports from Levi, a very successful tax franchiser, with brilliant ethical discourse.  And Cornelius's spy network spotted Him coming out of the water as something special and that's how the Gospel of Mark was conceived before the facts. In Co-Intel and Co-In, you look for people like Jesus and Iago.

And Newt Gingrich and Steve Bannon, who err on the side of Iago. Politically, Mike Pence and Betsy DeVos are aligned with Gingrich and Bannon, but Pence is just too fucking dumb to know when someone besides his wife is pulling him around by his pecker while Betsy DeVos is what Jesus means by "The Love of Money is the Root of all Evil".  The Evangelical "spiritual warrior" business model that is disrupting the US Air Force Academy is based squarely on the Love of Money, in a Norman Vincent Peale "Prosperity Gospel" kind of way. Her whole fortune is bubbles up from an infinite number of up-lines in the AwWay net-work marketing community and it about as fundementalist as you can get and not be a female Muslim under Sharia law. And she's in control of Education. From my perspective, they are fully engagaed in the finite political game of the crypto-Nazi Bob Ewell-Bull Conner white supremacist dominant wing of the GOP.  During Lincoln's time, they were the Radical Republicans. Today, they run the GOP.  

Now, as a Christian, I stipulate to "rational self-interest" as a sound bite, but I am not constrained by its boundaries. Rational self-interest is, necessarily, a finite game. It's the one we aspire to in the public arena. That's the larger point to Socrates' tutelage: as you become aware of rhetoric, you become aware of your own thinking and how it is influenced. And, knowing that, you can begin to acquire what is called in cognitive science "controlling variety", which is a huge advantage in a society where most people barely sustain "requisite variety". But Socrates true purpose was to demonstrate the dimensions of citizenship as a function of "enlightened self-Interest", which he did by chugging hemlock to make his point. Without this element, anything that purports to be "enlightened self-interest" (such as the Evangelical "spiritual warrior" conceit) is actually rational self-interest, which is a way of saying your Pucker Factor is not engaged. It's like being a passionate anti-abortion Pro-Life male determined to destroy Planned Parenthood because, basically, you can't get pregnant.

Which brings me back to the theme of the video, learning how to read different types of literature, in particular, the Bible, but universally apllicable. If you have an AB in Literature, this will be part of your academic vocabulary.

Now, in terms of the pedantic elements of this video, I stipulate entirely with them. They represent a skillful demonstration of the arts and sciences of literary criticism. I wish this had been available to me in high school to say nothing of college, when it took me about 3 years to get to the point where I could write the screen play, if you see what I mean. This good poop.

It is also an example of the difference between rational self-interest and and enlightened self-interest.

Their interpretation of Gideon is from the perspective of The Rich Young Ruler in Mark.  This is exactly where the "spiritual warriors" metaphor fails. These young men, Tim Mackie and all of them, have had other priorities than military service.  Not that there is anything wrong with that. But there perspective of what is going on between The One and Gideon is informed by the League of Justice Super Heroes and not by actually being shot at. Their perspective, formed experientially, is basically the same as Ken Burns' perspective which informs the editorial position of Vietnam.  It's honest, it's rational, it reflects moral clarity, but their Pucker Factors are not engaged. So, it is rational self-interest and not enlightened self-interest.

Like Christ's path to the Cross, Gideon is given a mission by The One that can get him pretty permanently killed in a number of violent ways and he, Gideon, if being very careful in establishing the bona fides of whoever it is whiispering in his ear. Remember, Satan whispered in the ear of Judas Iscariot and tempted Mohammad in a similar manner.  Gideon didn't take the bait and Mohammad did.

Now, I have a working relationship with the Holy Spirit and I depend upon these sort of tests to move forward, the doubling of the fleece being the primary test. I have never demanded a tests in the manner of Gideon, but my relationship was more mature than Gideon's at a similar moment of decision: I left the Army and Gideon started one. And Gideon is demonstated enlightened self-interest because his Pucker Factor was engaged. The difference between me and Gideon at this particular moment of decision, my Pucker Factor was already calibrated in a Fear of the Lord is the Beginning of Wisdom Be All You Can Be kind of way and his wasn't. His Pucker Factor very quicly became calibrated and the Bible demonstrates that process.  

Everything after that describes how Gideon creates a Special Operations unit to take out an opposing army in a way very similar to the way the Green Berets routed the Taliban beginning in October 2001.  The Green Berets are the Gideon's 300 of the US Army and Gideon's 300 are the Jedi Knights of the Old Testament.

From the perspective of Christianity, Philosophy is a finite game which is based on rational self-intest and is an inquiry into enlightened self-interest as a gateway to the Mind of The One.  In this respects, Epistemology is an infinite process, a verb, so to speak, providing the link, the Vulcan Mind Weld,  The purpose of the Bible is epistemological and it is full of similar case studies like Gideon's and his 300 on how that has worked in the past.  

For example, the difference between rational self-interest and enlightened self-interest is the difference between Peter's understanding of Jesus before the second crow of the cock and Peter's understanding on Pentacost. And, if you are calibrating your pucker factor, this is the difference between trust and faith.

This is why it is important to learn how to read different kinds of literature, in particular, the literature of the Bible.

Just for the record, females begin to calibrate their Pucker Factors with menarche and I infer that they establish a relationship with Yaweh during childbirth that they share with men who have met the elephant. although neither may realize it. Yaweh is a feminine aspect of God and She is Queen of Battle and the Midwife of Travail

[ordinaryfaith]

How should Christians respond to Islamic terrorism?

Westminster. St. Petersburg. Stockholm. Egypt. It’s been an awful couple of weeks. 

In fact, it’s been an awful couple of years. Why do attacks like this keep on happening? How do we stop the violence? And how should Christians respond to all of this? 

These questions are too complex to fully elaborate in a blog post. But first of all, we need to acknowledge that the way western governments and societies are treating terrorism is literally insane. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results. But that’s exactly how our leaders respond towards terrorism! Every public statement regarding a terrorist attack sounds like it was copied and pasted from 2001. “We condemn this act of violence. Terrorism has no religion, and ISIS/Al Qaeda/Hamas/Boko Haram/Taliban/*insert terrorist group here* has nothing to do with Islam. Islam is a religion of peace. We stand in solidarity with the victims and we will not be subdued by cowardly attacks such as this.” Then they talk a lot more about unity, diversity, and tolerance.

We say the same words EVERY TIME. I don’t know if people expect that terrorists are just going to give up, or what, but clearly there is a prevalent fundamental lack of understanding regarding Islamic terrorism. People either rush to Islam’s defense, or they start comparing ISIS to the KKK to argue that every religion has violent sects. I mean .... when was the last time the KKK killed somebody? Committed a suicide bombing? Established a caliphate? Commanded the killing of infidels? Called for world domination? 

More shocking still is the amount of Muslims who support extreme or violent policies. Admittedly, those who actually commit terrorist attacks constitute a very small percentage of the Muslim population. But according to Pew Research, there is huge support for sharia. In South Asia, 76% of Muslims support EXECUTING apostates. In the Middle East and North Africa, 56% support this. 40% of Muslims in Palestine say that suicide bombings are often or sometimes justified. 29% of Egyptian Muslims agree. These kind of statistics are just sickening. There are literally millions of Muslims who support these kind of policies, based on sharia which is steeped in Quranic teachings, sunna (biographies of Muhammad) and hadith (sayings of Muhammad). 

However, when you say these kinds of things, even citing statistics to prove your point, people sometimes don’t know how to respond. I was called racist, xenophobic, small-minded, and “spewing hate” for saying that refugees and immigrants should obey the law of the country that welcomes them in. Referring to the situation in Sweden, some immigrants are committing violent acts and sexual assaults, making it difficult for the police to enforce the law, and causing people to fear for their safety. If you state these facts publicly, you will receive insults in return. Islam is so sheltered in our society that its defenders literally cannot fathom the idea that someone can criticize Islamic ideology and practice, without personally attacking Muslims. This is simply not true - it’s easy to have a civil debate while respecting those who disagree with you. In fact, it’s imperative to freedom of speech in our society that we retain the right to do so. 

We must not generalize, because there are many Muslims who practice Islam peacefully in spite of the violent commandments in the Quran. These are good, kind people who have been led astray by a false prophet. They are horrified by the actions of ISIS as well as governments who enforce strict sharia law, just as we are. They choose to re-interpret Quranic verses which terrorist groups use as justification for violence. Western Muslims tend to be more liberal than Eastern Muslims, so it seems that our culture is already having a positive impact. We should affirm their actions and reach out to them to share the gospel. Sadly, there simply aren’t enough of these open-minded, peace-loving Muslims. Even though extremist Muslims are in the minority, their brand of violence is killing people day by day. They’re sucking in vulnerable young people to join their organizations, and enticing moderate Muslims to become radicals.

So, how should Christians deal with this kind of information? We know that we ourselves aren’t perfect, our leaders aren’t perfect, and the church itself is tainted by the effects of sin in the world. So we must acknowledge our own shortcomings, yet stand firm in the faith and be confident that Jesus is the only one who can save us from our brokenness. 

Christians should absolutely learn all we can about Islam and its teachings. How else can we evangelize to a group of people who are so desperately in need of grace, just like us? At this point in time, most Christians are quite ignorant of even the most basic tenets of Islam, such as the Five Pillars. This leads to either outright hate and condemnation of Muslims, or free and open acceptance without leaving room for critique and interfaith debate. Both of these approaches to Islam fail equally because they prevent Christians from sharing the gospel with Muslims! 

So we need to get educated, read the Quran, watch debates between Christians and Muslims, and read testimonies from Muslims who converted to Christianity. We need to accept that Islam is simply not a religion of peace. Islam is a powerful sociopolitical system bent on making converts, enforcing religious practice on them, and denying them the freedom of choice to leave, as evidenced by the enforcement of the death penalty for apostasy. More importantly, Islam prevents people from receiving the grace of Jesus Christ. It keeps people in fear, desperately striving to balance out their good deeds to outweigh their bad deeds, living lives as slaves to Allah, afraid of judgment and punishment. But we can make a difference! The Quran tells Muslims, “Do not take the Jews and the Christians for allies,” (5:51), but Jesus taught us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. So many Christians in Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, and many other countries around the world live under the threat of persecution every single day. In Saudi Arabia, there are zero churches, and owning a Bible is considered a crime worthy of death. But Jesus called us to go out and make disciples of ALL nations! 

We disagree with Muslims on many doctrines. We hate the acts of violence that are committed in the name of Islam. But we love Muslims with all our hearts because they too have been offered salvation by the blood of Jesus Christ. Loving Muslims means we befriend them, we protect their religious freedoms and their security, we open up our homes and our countries for those who respect our culture and our laws. It also means we question them, we challenge them, and we speak the truth in love when engaging in interfaith dialogue. 

We can stand back no longer. We cannot afford to remain ignorant of what’s going on around us; It’s time to get engaged. Salvation is a free gift for all - “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28). God’s love has power throughout the whole universe - no government or law or persecution can stop him from reaching every human heart. 

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:5).