Islam: A Simple Man’s Viewby
Robert Klassen
I am not a Muslim. I have never visited the Middle East. I have never been inside a Mosque. But I did read the Koran, I did read the history of Islam, and I did work for a Muslim for twenty years, and I learned something. Three things are of essential importance to a Muslim. First comes God. Second comes family. Third comes business. If anybody interferes with any of the three, that person has a problem. I am not a Jew. I have never been inside a Synagogue. But I did read the Old Testament, I did read the history of the Jews, I did work alongside Jews for forty years, and I learned something. Three things are of essential importance to a Jew. First comes God. Second comes family. Third comes business. If anybody interferes with any of the three, that person has a problem. I am a Christian. I have been inside many Churches. I did read the New Testament, I did read the history of Christianity, I did live and work alongside Christians all my life, and I learned something. Three things are of essential importance to a Christian. First comes God. Second comes family. Third comes business. If anybody interferes with any of the three, that person has a problem. I may be missing an issue of stupendous importance, but the essential values promulgated by the three major biblical religions look identical to me. So what’s the fighting about? Dietary differences? No. It’s political, as always. Keeping people unsettled and divided is always in the interest of political power. We’re living with the consequences of political deals that were cut decades ago, deals that pitted the identical values of designated groups against each other. Nobody wants interference with their religion, family, or business, so that’s what political government gives them. The ensuing melee serves the very criminals who caused it. To those readers who don’t understand my generalizations, let me point to the deliberate political propaganda that demonizes Muslims to Jews, demonizes Jews to Muslims, demonizes Christians to Muslims, demonizes Muslims to Christians, it’s been going on for centuries. The only winners are the politicians who keep it going. America’s political demons of yesteryear are all gone; the Germans, Italians, Japanese, and even the Chinese are now our friends and trading partners. Here we are with this huge standing army, and military appropriations, with no demons in sight. This is political government’s worst nightmare, so they demonized our own citizens with the War On Drugs. But that was too low key. So they tricked and demonized our ally in Iraq, and got a fine little war out of it. Too soon over, but it opened up new possibilities. How about the six-hundred-year land title conflict between Christians and Muslims in the Balkans? With the Russians out of the picture, here was an opportunity to burn some aging missiles, and order new ones. Our boys got to practice taking out a city’s infrastructure from high altitude too. But it didn’t last long. One can only guess what discussions go on in high places, but it appears that the next targeted demon was Islam itself, if only the right provocation could be found. This demon would hark back to the Crusades, whatever fuzzy notion people might have of the Crusades, and it would carry a powerful non-verbal emotional impact. Ah, a perfect demon at last. Somebody go dust off that Patriot Act. We, the people of planet Earth, are now saddled with a meaningless war that cannot be won, and that will not end until the political government that started it either quits, or goes broke first. I say planet because this nonsense is designed to pit neighbor against neighbor everywhere, and because we are all inextricably intertwined economically. The District of Criminals has the fabric of human civilization in its talons. Let go, leave us alone, let us attend to the essential things in life: religion, family, and business. Postscript: To those readers who object to my wagging pen, my solution to the problem of political government is economic government. See my web site.
Robert Klassen [send him mail] is a retired med tech and writer. Here's his web site. Copyright © 2004 Robert Klassen |
August
25, 2004