I received a powerpoint presentations entitled "Even Islam can't be that bad!". It told the tale of an eight year old boy caught stealing bread in a market in Iran. As a punishment, in the name of Islam, he was going to get his arm crushed under the wheels of a jeep. The next three slides supposedly show this happening. You may ask whether it was real. I ask whether it matters.
I just cannot begin to understand the good in forwarding, or even receiving such an email. What's the point? To make us feel like Islam is horrible, evil, corrupt? We get it. Whoever is going to buy it, is sold; the rest are a harder sell than 3 slides on a powerpoint. Is the point to make us feel more hate, animosity, fear? I think there's plenty going around.
"Even Islam can't be that bad!" Why? Because we are surprised that people who blow people up in the name of Islam could crush a child's arm?
But no, I don't think Islam is that bad. I think that the things that radicals do in the name of Islam are that bad. There is a difference, and the civilized, educated, Muslim world is trying to rewrite Islam to save their religion from the downfall inevitable in the hands of freely-interpreting extremists.
Who likes extremists anywhere? Look at what the extreme religious right did to Rabin in the name of Judaism. Look at the remnants of the caste system created in the name of Hinduism. Look at what whites have done to blacks... in the name of what? What Hitlers posse did to Jews (and gypsy's and blacks and handicaps and homosexuals). What men have done to women. What heterosexuals have done to homosexuals. What the pilgrims did to the Native Americans. All in the name of what? I'm not comparing the wrongs of "religious" actions. There's nothing to compare. When one suffers loss he grieves regardless of how many more someone else has lost. He grieves just the same.
So when have those of us who like freedom and equality ever liked the actions of a hater? Does bad become worse if done in the name of Islam rather than in the name of race?
I'm not Muslim...I'm Jewish. And I had the opportunity to meet and truly love Muslims and Christians while in India who were from India, Iran, Lebanon, Jordan, Morocco, Dubai, the UAE, Saudi Arabia. The thing is, that hatred incites hatred and love incites love.
Let's keep hating one another, let's fight hate with hate, and see where it takes us. What other options could we possibly have?
