Well said. Himself just recently finished a book of Sassoon's poetry, reading the odd one aloud.
Here are a few lines from "Does it Matter? (from Counter-Attack).
War Poems. The bloody, pointless conflict.
DOES it matter?--losing your legs?...
For people will always be kind,
And you need not show that you mind
When the others come in after hunting
To gobble their muffins and eggs.
Does it matter?--losing your sight?...
There's such splendid work for the blind;
And people will always be kind,
As you sit on the terrace remembering
And turning your face to the light et al
There will always be foot soldiers, only now death isn't feared, it's anticipated and glorified. It's the calibre of leaders that is most suspect.
GrannyP, i am surprised at you. Perhaps even more than i am at the media for once again trying to pin a bombing monstrosity on Muslims.
Hasn't Mossad been caught red-handed more than once for bombing in the name of al-Qaida? (originally an american organization, as i recall) Doesn't Odigo have a taped call to Netanyahu six minutes before the bombing confirming that his orders had been carried out?
Here are some other thoughts on the circumstances around this bombing:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/
arti...eneasysteps.htm
And isn't terrorism completely against the Shari'ah? How then is a 'fundamentalist' Muslim supposed to be rewarded for breaking the law of jihad (ie: no killing old people, children, women, Muslims, no use of fire, no aggression without advance warning etc.)? Wouldn't the best he could hope for be eternal hellfire?
Also: i must state from my own experience that Islam does not have priests, only scholars who advise. We all must ask questions and seek knowledge - this is stated over and over in the Qur'an. No one here is a brainless foot soldier.
And i've been a Muslim reading hadith extensively for ten years now... i've never come across the 52 virgin thing.
I would urge you and others to gather information about Islam before pronouncing judgement on it; if only to avoid making public errors.
Anan - re. your suggested weblink (prison planet): sorry, but it's drivel. Looking for conspiracies in the way the world works is the easy option. Nine times out of ten, history's just a cock-up. In this case, the cock-up seems to be certain passages in the Islamic texts that might, through the wrong eyes, suggest a man can earn himself a heavenly paradise, complete with dark-eyed virgins and lots of olives, if he wages Holy War and dies in the process of killing a lot of infidels. That's drivel too (just like the scriptures of every organised religion mankind has put its name to). Unfortunately, the world is full of disaffected young men, and disaffected young men can always be persuaded to fight. Hitler did it, George Bush does it now, and Islamic terrorist organisations are now doing it in response. I'm quite certain the hadith you're studying isn't (aren't?) clear on any of this: like all 'holy' writing, they're full of wisdom but also created by men, and consquently flawed.
You can call our government incompetent, foolish, selfish, badly managed, and wrong to be in Iraq. You'd be right about all of that. You can even call them stupid - but not SO stupid that they'd deliberately murder their own citizens to support actions for which they believe a case has already been made.
Sorry, Granny. Y Didn't mean to take up so much spac, but I wanted to debae this one with Anan. You can kick us over to my site if you want to...
Dear Mark; thank you for this. You clearly feel dearly about this situation and have taken a lot of time to respond. I do feel, however, that your response would have been more effective if you knew something about Islam.
It is obvious that we feel differently about this subject, but i don't find anything about trying to make sense of the few facts at our disposal. It's called logic.
You may feel that all organized religion is flawed by human hands, used by authorities to manipulate their pawns, but this generalized view is regretably sparse on either study or serious analysis.
For myself, i endeavour to give honour to all peoples, no matter what they believe in. My hope is that whoever killed upwards of fifty people on their way to work in London also learns this.
Because they certainly weren't Muslim.
Here we go again. (Haloscan kicked me out of first attempt.)
No, Mark I don't mind if you argue with Anan here. This is an important issue.
Anan - I'm sorry if you felt this. You may have noticed that I did not, deliberately, use the term 'Muslim.' That was not what I meant. I was getting at whoever - whether their name is George Bush, Lord Kitchener, Osama Bin Laden - sends young men to kill themselves in useless/destructive/murderous ways. Because these young men called themselves 'Muslims' - and OK there are conspiracy theories - but I wasn't much convinced by that website - I couldn't actually quite believe it was serious - and they were killed on the underground and on balance it seems likely that they had something to do with what happened. No matter who set them up.
I don't believe the violent kind of Jihad (I know there's another meaning; I understand some of the reasons it has turned to violence) is representative - any more than bombing abortion clinics- or frightening mentally ill kids with ideas of hellfire (I've seen it) is representative of true Christianity or the ideas of right wing - racist - Jewish settlers - Kach in particular - are representative of the best of Judaism. Islam is a beautiful religion which civilised the mediaeval world. Despite being abused by Christianity at its worst (crusaders - Catholic Spain.) Mosques like El Aqsaa in Jerusalem - Cordoba - desecrated by Catholics but still one of the wonders of the world) are transcendental places - the huge new blue mosque in Malaysia is pretty amazing too. As a woman I find some attitudes to women in some Muslim societies hard to take (though the Muslim women I've known haven't seem much oppressed to me, even the Hijab wearing ones. I can see you're not oppressed for sure. Though River Bend -if you read her -there's a link on the blog - Baghdad Burning - is a bit alarmed by the possibility if the Mullahs take over in Iraq.) but I also know that in its time, the Koranic attitude was very liberal and advanced. And yes I have read the Koran. I love it. Although I know that the English is but a poor shadow of the Arabic - or so I'm told. Talking of which the 52 virgins (and yes I know that's been turned into a cheap gibe; so I'm sorry) there's an interesting discussion here http://www.free2code.net/plugins...hp?f=10&
p=48297. Which also gives chapter and verse from the Koran and other sources. (Reading which I can see that the promise as reported to be currently by the press is the comic cuts version.)
Back to conspiracy theories. I know how beguiling they are. I'd love to think Bush/CIA/ Mossad planned 9/11. But I think the logic alas is against it. And should people like us, Anan, be getting bogged down in them? Let alone so diverted by them that we are unable to discuss among ourselves, what can go wrong between our different faiths and within our different faiths - assuming we have any - and I suppose I do in a broken-backed way - I certainly think religion is important - and ask how we may all understand each other better? Or how to make sure our different faith don't get hi-jacked by one sect or another. No matter how angry, how broken-hearted as we may be (and I am angry and broken-hearted by what happened to London, my city 7/7, - as I'm also broken-hearted by the blowing up of all those children in Iraq last week) What we do to each other - what people do to other people in our name - is terrible. To see only conspiracies is too easy. Can't we between us, as blogging friends, do better? We are all weeping after all.
Sorry Lin. Didn't mean to ignore you. Siegfried Sassoon was my mum's favourite writer so I was introduced to his poetry - and prose - at a young age. That first war stuff was where I came in - 2 uncles killed - dad still weeping 80 odd years on - I've set books round it - Sassoon's utter disgust and fury is pretty much where I stand. Apart from the war against Hitler can't think of a single one in the century which will have contained most of my life was justified. And I don't except the war against terror now. Let alone either Gulf War. So there you go.
GrannyP, point well taken. I've always despised the old men who sent young idealists to their premeditated deaths; but to me their incentive would have to read as something like 'jealousy'!
The link i gave for it's alternate view, along with links to other's alternate views. There are flaws, yes, not the least of which are the illegality of suicide in Islam, and the improbability of any Muslim in the world being duped into running some sort of 'security check' with explosives, even mock ones. I gave this to show that there are people who wonder differently. I myself do not know what happened, only that there are disturbing lesions in the official version of these bombings that require analysis with whatever facts we have. I do not find that study to be within the realm of mockable and paranoid 'conspiracy theory'. As usual, i read everything and then make up my own mind, a horrible habit i've retained from my youth.
If we are to look for conspiracy theories, i think the mainstream media would be your best bet, with it's seemingly endless capacity to smear Muslims. Of course, the american media would have no vested interest in villifying OPEC countries (or anyone else who had oil, frankly)... and litigation is senseless when a court case takes years and the slanderous stuff keeps rolling off the press every twenty minutes or so. As a result, the oxymoron of 'Islamic terrorism' has been so mired in the pubic mind by constant repetition that it has become a given. Even when others are found responsible, as was the case with the Oklahoma bombing. And education is impossible when people are worked up into such a state of panic. Muslims are fed up with being blamed for this horrible crap - but if we do fight, it is within the guidelines we have been given; for our land, homes, family, and religious freedom. I don't think there is a person in the world who would disagree with that.
On a minor note; i checked out the link re. the 52 virgins and read the thread... i might offer my two cents here and mention that indeed it is promised that there will be no one in heaven who is single; there are women of paradise for the unmarried. The 52 number had me confused, tho... i've never come across it in my readings (i try to read the Qur'an once a year) and i don't see any specific reference to it there, either.
And you are quite right about not being oppressed; i went from being a loudmouth feminist writer and artist to being a loudmouth queen of my domain (same difference, really). I would hardly have exchanged the better for the worse, and in fact i believe that the rights for women in Islam far surpass that of any other system.
There is ignorance, of course; but where the laws of Islam are known and practiced, there is no better place for women. Where they are not, the same stupid situation of misogyny exists as anywhere else in the world.
Sorry for the long post.
Don't apologise. And yes, I agree Islam has had a bad press and that Muslims are being attacked the world over. (Largely because they are unfortunate enough to be sitting on the world's supply of oil - or en route to another source, as with Afghanistan.) Israel of course is another matter. (I have a dear Israeli friend who has fought for a Palestinian state from the beginning - a founder of Peace Now. He has said; publically and privately. 'A drowning man has the right to seize a plank offered to him. He has no right to push another occupant off it.' I have watched him get more and more depressed as government policy gets worse, and more settlements etc built. I do not think Palestinian desperation justifies suicide bombers even there, but I understand totally why they resorted to it.)
As for the press - I think some of it is honest - or tries to be; it's hard to be a journalist and always get it right. It's not all as venial as you make out. Our tabloid press has a lot to answer for though. No excuses for them. They stink. And American media has been callow from the beginning - or at least since 9/11 - though they show some signs of waking up now. You should read our Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London - there's a long interview with him on the BBC site today. Sorry I can't give you link - Safari doesn't allow html on Blogger - but if you put him onto the search place you'll get it. Many journalists - like many politicians are just people trying to do their jobs - and getting it wrong. There's only a few with a deliberate agenda - usually the more lethal because many of them are ignorant enough to believe it themselves - and their ignorance is therefore dangerous.
Now I'm writing too much. Glad you don't feel oppressed! xgp
Dear Anan - I took a long time to respond again because I was away from the machine. I'm going to take my time thinking through the posts above and get back to you. You're absolutely right that I don't know a lot about Islam (or Catholicism or Hinduism either, for that matter). And I take great heart in your statement that whoever carried out the bombings weren't Muslims, but I'm not sure you mean what I hope you mean. I AM very concerned that suicide bombers, in Israel, Iraq, or the UK, appear to be doing it inthe name of Islam, and I really want to understand what it is that 'validates' the suicide in their mind. If it's not in Islam, we have to identify what it is, and very soon. If it is in Islam, that is not to say Islam is wrong - only that some people's reading of it may be fatally flawed.
I'm trying to understand. Please feel free to drop into my blog to debate this further - I'm very worried about clogging up Granny's Haloscan!
Dear all - just a quick note of clarification. As I understand it, it's not 52 'virgins', it's 72. Or possibly 70. I enclose the word in inverted commas because I also understand that there is some debate over the real translated meaning. Which only goes to show how much disinformation can come out of reading any holy text. The Bible is the same - translated and updated so many times that you start to wonder how much the current text resembles what was originally written down.
There's another number here that I've seen quoted - and that's the 70 people each martyr is entitled to take to paradise with him. So if you carry out mass murder you can absolve yourself because you're guaranteeing all your mates a place in heaven.
Anan - I know I'm speaking at second hand here. I don't know if this stuff is in the Koran, or in Islamic commentaries about the Koran, or what. If you can identify where the suicide bombers are getting it from, I'd love to be made wiser.
I totally agree that we shouldn't use the phrase 'islamic terrorist'. It's not Islam that's the problem - it's fundamentalism. In any religion.
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