I had one of those experiences tonight where you can see some mental jigsaw pieces fitting into place in your child’s mind. J recently got Asterix in Corsica and Tin Tin and The Red Sea Sharks out of the library, and I read some to him and K for bedtime stories. Once K was in bed I asked J if he could find France and Italy on the globe (his technique: find the UK, then down to the right) and then I showed him where Corsica and Sardinia were. I also showed him where Mecca was (Oh! That’s in my Tin Tin book) and I said it was because there were people in the book who were Muslims, trying to get to Mecca. This led onto the pillars of Islam and I remembered all but the most important one 😳 (the one about God and Mohammed). I’m not sure I’d get 10 out of 10 on the Ten Commandments either 😳
Once we were in post-children time 🙂 there was a programme on Channel 4 about militant Islam being preached from mosques in the UK, because of the influence of wealthy people and organisations in Saudi Arabia. The imams they filmed via hidden camera encouraged the faithful to: homophobia, misogyny, anti-Semitism, being anti-Christian (is there a better word?), and the violent interpretation of jihad. All very unpleasant.
There must be a subversive in the Channel 4 programming department, because the programme immediately after the militant Islam one was… Celebrity Big Brother!
and to tie that up a bit more, if you had been watching Junior Mastermind last night, there was a girl on there called Tintin!
We watched that C4 programme too, I wonder just how realistic it was, or just how carefully it was editted. I am not doubting there are people out there with those views, as there are in most walks of religion at the more extreme end. I just wonder how representative that program really was. M and I spent a while discussing it, and wondering if the only difference between that brand of extremism and christian extremism was the call to arms? But then once you start to think about witch burning, jew gassing, car bombing to ‘save animal rights’ and various other extreme behavious I’m not sure how helpful it is just to point it out. Rather than look to exploring if it is a problem, and if so what we should do about it.
Sorry bit of a tired ramble there!
I agree – these programmes often seem to want to stir up trouble rather than fix problems. While we were watching it I said to Katy there ought to be a follow-up programme doing the same thing for extreme Christianity e.g. in America – the people who attack abortion clinics and kill the people who work there, or think that homosexuality is “the biggest problem facing our country today” i.e. not climate change, poverty, obesity… :wall:
It stands to basic reasoning that with adherents numbered a billion people should Muslims like the fanatics in C4 be in the majority Muslims would have made mincemeat out of the world long ago.
Of course demonisation of The Other always has to happen in a state of war. If you do not somehow dehumanise the Other how can you mistreat them? How could we possibly have double standards in world politics if Muslims had the same rights as us. They are obviously the Star Trek equivalent of the Borg and cannot be trusted. How could you put nice people in Guatanamo? No. The Muslims have to be demonised to justify the hatred and the theft of oil.
I am a Muslim, a convert, and I have found nothing but nobility and tranquility in it. Muslims who practice what the Prophet (saw) taught are dignified creatures who work towards solving pain and suffering, not inflicting it.
The media is biased. We are the new Reds.
I was disappointed in Channel 4, because they had previously shown Morgan Spurlock’s 30 Days series, which included the episode where a white devout American Christian had to live as a Muslim (in America) for 30 days.
It was great to see his enlightenment, and so frustrating to see his treatment by his (non-Muslim) compatriots.