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January 2, 2007
More 'Gandhi Think' - Flight Attendant Removed For Carrying Bible
Image: Radical Islamist version (note that Saudi Arabia's dominate version of Islam is Wahabbist) of religious tolerance exemplifies the effects of the West's naive "Gandhi Think" ...A Bible-carrying Christian British Midland Airways flight attendant has been barred by her employer from flying to peace-loving, religiously tolerant, Saudi Arabia (or so the Saudis claim) - where any religious books, apart from the Qur'an, are forbidden and Christians are persecuted. The British government's Foreign Office backed the airline over its decision.
... Religious expression is a controversial issue in Saudi Arabia. In 2006 a court there sentenced a teacher to 40 months in prison and 750 lashes for discussing the Bible and "praising Jews". Even Christmas trees are banned in the oil-rich kingdom, which says that it allows religious freedom.Saudi law provides that all citizens must be Muslims, and the practice of any non-Muslim religion in Saudi Arabia is prohibited, as is the owning, printing, or distributing of any non-Muslim religious material. As is noted in the referenced article, the issue raises wider human rights questions regarding what critics say is the British government's often quiescent stance towards Saudi Arabia, with which the West has massive political and economic ties. However, regardless of the "political and economic ties, turning a blind eye to Saudi Arabia's persecution of Christians, it's support of radical Islam and the development and spread of Wahabbist mosques throughout the world, will only get all of us dead - or forced to convert to Islam.... Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal declared: "Arab tradition and Muslim tradition is geared towards having an open mind. Muslim religion accepts Christianity and Judaism." (edit: What has this guy been smokin' to think for even a moment that we're dumb enough to believe his bold faced lie?)
But civil rights organizations say that religious freedoms are denied to all but those who adhere to the state-sanctioned version of Sunni Islam and that churches are in affect prohibited from functioning.
However, as the West continues to deal with issues of religious tolerance, we need to recognize that our idealized image of Gandhi is a reflection of our own naivety:
By any objective standard Gandhi's legacy, on the issues that concerned him most, was a series of failures with disastrous results: He fought hard for ecumenical Indian unity within the secularist Congress party, but his concessions to Islam, in the name of multi-faith inclusion, only facilitated greater Muslim communal solidarity, each ecumenical concession generating more particularist (and eventually separatist) demands; he believed that Muslims and Hindus could live together in fraternal concord, and his celebrated fasts were designed to achieve that end, yet he presided over the partition of India, sanctioning (though reluctantly) the creation of a theocratic Muslim Pakistan, at the cost of at least a million lives and the forcible transfer of an estimated fourteen million people; he urged non-violence (ahimsa) to his fellow Hindus, even in the face of appalling atrocities, and received only more Islamist atrocities in return, often bloodcurdling in their ferocity.
The British government and corporations like Britism Midland Airways are among today's liberal appeasers and apologists that need to learn from the lesson of Gandhi, who was murdered by the very same 'human beings' he held in high esteem. In other words, not only is turning a blind eye to Saudi Arabia and the Islamofascists a terrible strategy, "Gandhi think" will only cause us to suffer the same fate as Gandhi.
Cross posted by Hyscience
Posted by Richard at January 2, 2007 8:13 AM
