Monday, December 8, 2008
A brave and forthright piece in the Harvard paper by a Harvard undergraduate: Lessons From Mumbai - We've underestimated the threat of radical Islam
...Whenever terrorist attacks such as these are carried out (such generalizations can be made because they occur so frequently), pundits predictably exclaim that we must not allow hatred for Islam to fester, but rather, we must remind ourselves that terrorists represent a fringe movement and that tolerance should be extended to the rest of the Muslim world. A witch-hunt may not be in order, but there is no question that the attacks in Mumbai were fueled by the Muslim fanaticism that has grown so prevalent. The Wall Street Journal reported that as two gunmen poised to fire at a dozen people in Mumbai's Oberoi Hotel, two hostages screamed out that they were Turkish Muslims. Hearing this, the gunmen spared their lives and killed everyone else.
Islam is not a wholly extremist religion, nor is any religion free of extremists who commit atrocities in the name of faith. American Klan members committed crimes against blacks in the supposed name of Christianity. Harvard is filled with Muslim students with mainstream politics. Yet outside of well-educated communities like ours, this is not the case. Islam has come to possess more extremist members than any other modern religion...
You can almost hear the author (Lucy Caldwell) hedging in that second paragraph and trying to stave off the inevitable counter-attack. It doesn't help (as the comment thread shows).
Quite a comment thread there (most of it of a rather predictable kind). And guess who makes a cameo appearance? Why, Joachim Carlo Santos Martillo Ajami, of course. Thus, I could not resist posting the following:
For those wondering who the mysterious ThorsProvoni is, they may want to Google both ThorsProvoni and "Joachim Martillo" in the same line. I have a lot to say about this madman (a/k/a Joachim Carlo Santos Martillo Ajami), but prefer to let others speak about this nut. Pay no attention to what he says -- his blog should make it abundantly clear for anyone having any doubts about his sanity -- for if you take him seriously, you revoke your right to claim the possession of common sense.
I will only add that someone who knew him quite well described him as "brilliant but insane." I wouldn't be so generous -- insane, yes, but not brilliant. Well-read, sure, has a broad background, is talented in many ways, but what does it all matter if he gets lost in his own insane babbling?
Others who've known him over the years (as colleagues, acquaintances, fellow students, etc.) told me that he used to be virulently anti-Muslim and anti-Third-World, but then flipped sides, redirecting his angry madness against the Jews and the West. He ended up marrying Karin Friedemann (a/k/a Maria Hussain), an equally insane Jew-hater, who suffers from the same acute graphomania as does her nutty husband. Quite a couple they make -- a psychiatrist's wet dream ...
http://64.233.183.132/search?q=cache:1E8qJhgXDY0J:www.shaksper.net/archives/2005/1128.html+http://www.shaksper.net/archives/2005/1128.html&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&client=safari gives this (very accurate, I might add) info:
" Engineer Joachim Martillo (alias Juan Carlo Santos Martillo Ajami) in his screed identifies himself as of "ethnic Ashkenazi background... and not a self-hater." Others have described him as a Sephardi supremacist, a despiser of religious Jews and Muslims, especially "vusvus Ashkenazic scum." In his current incarnation, he aligns himself with murderous Palestinian terrorists ("The only downside to Palestinian terrorism is the death of the Palestinian attacker"). As is evident from his post, "ethnic Ashkenazim" has become an obsessional mantra to this Al-Jazeerah baiter. "
Also see http://www.somervillemejustice.com/marriage.html for more info. The internet is full of "writings" of Martillo and comments about him from people who know him. If he were a little more violent, he would have been committed. However, in the U.S., people like him and his whack-job wife a free to walk the streets.
I am perplexed by the phrase "not a wholly extremist religion." How do you measure such things? Would it be by the number of extremists as a fraction of the entire population of Muslims? Or would it be through consideration of doctrine and dogma? If by the latter, it would be intellectually difficult to conclude that Islam is not utterly extremist when judged by standard Western values. But those values are our values and use them we must.
If my memory serves, Daniel Pipes estimated (based on public opinion polls, various surveys, etc.) that about 15% of the entire worldwide Muslim population supports jihad, sharia, etc. Given that there is about 1.5 billion Muslims, this makes for a mere 200+ million people who support, aid and abet, and engage in terror.
Dunno about those people claiming that Islam is "not a wholly extremist religion" but I sure as hell am worried. 200+ million people armed with such an extremist ideology and advanced weapons could certainly cause a bit of trouble for the whole world.
Mohammad was a terrorist. Mohammad was the first First Crusader. Mohammad would approve of Islamic terrorism. Jesus would not approve of Klan terrorism - a point Lucy overlooks. DAH.